Devil May Cry - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Oh, Forsaken ❯ Chapter 1

Title - Oh, Forsaken Author - trowacko Rating - PG Warnings - angst, Vergil-esque Disclaimers - I do not own Devil May Cry in any way, nor have I made a claim to. No profit, no harm done. AN - this was originally based on Chop Suey, by System of a Down (do not own, don't claim to, yadda yadda), but the lyrics are simply... impossible to use as a spiffy songfic for a fic of this attempted angst magnitude. Additionally, it was written not long after the first game came out, so apologies for time/content discrepancies. Back then, there was a lot left unanswered and I love playing with those shadows.   Pain pulsed with every beat of his heart, forcing it into every niche of the young boy's body until Vergil couldn't restrain the groan that slipped between his swollen lips. The effort it took for it to leak from his mouth forced him to grimace and his eyes watered in retaliation. He flexed his fingers, testing the extent of his injuries with small movements that tested his range of motion. Soon he determined that his body had already started down the path to healing. Raising his head brought about a dull but manageable ache and he assessed his dark surroundings.   Vergil found himself in a deep pit, too tall to leap from and too steep to climb. Smooth sheets of marbled rock flowed upwards toward a pinprick of light that might have tempted a mortal to insanity. The cobalt marred obsidian surfaces reflected light strangely, shimmering in bright crystalline sparks that ran thin trails from the top to the bottom of the pit that were the only light source. His eyes closed against their odd light, yet their designs seemed to sink deeper into his thoughts. He was tired and close to tears, but he knew he wouldn't cry. It seemed important not to cry - for someone's sake.   Rabid flashes of fragmented memories paraded before him, yet he couldn't grasp the memories that he had no inclination of recalling. His voice suddenly ripped from him in a hellish howl that strove to drive back his mind while he tried to collect it at the same time. Names and places tormented him, begged him to remember even as they fled from him. He was alone, but Vergil knew that it hadn't always been this way. He had... something or someone at the forefront of his mind. With a sudden lunge of power, energy flew from the child's body, slamming into every surface close to him. The ground shook and the walls shuddered under the intensity. Pain and memory faded. Seconds later, consciousness fled with it and Vergil crumpled to the cold, cold ground again. He could feel his flesh shiver between rips in the thick leather of his uniform before the black became the child's only thought.   Wake up.   Time ceased having any meaning for him. He awoke to a clawing sensation inside his head as if unknown hands attempted to purge him of memory or sanity. He sat heavily against the wall as he tried to think. In the frigid air, he felt his body succumb to the cold blue walls as if trying to meld with them. Time felt awkward as if it had marched past him without his knowledge or consent. His face hurt from being pressed against the rock, and by the time the pain subsided, his mind once more paraded the same fragmented images that began to anger him in the way they refused to come into focus. He paced restlessly, and his fists clenched, ready to tear into anything that wasn't rock should it dare solidify. In his cloud of frustration, Vergil tore off the remnants of the leather vest that barely fit his broader torso, tearing the fabric apart and scattering it across the floor with a growl. He stopped in the middle of the pit and looked through long black bangs at the whisper of sky above. His voice abruptly howled from him when his head felt ripped open at last to release a memory - a name.   "Mother!" he shrieked in the dark and the name echoed beyond the ebony walls. The voice wasn't shrill and light as he expected, but rich and deep - almost like his father's, a mental voice whispered. A shimmer of light returned in the crystalline paths and Vergil touched it. The blue melded to his fingertips and he watched in fascination as it crept beneath his fingernails and into his flesh. His hand was too big, it seemed, or he'd forgotten its size when he had slept. The cry for his mother was forgotten just as quickly as the cold sank deeper into him. He fell back from the liquid crystal and shook the fluid from his hand as his head cleared.   "Mother," he whispered quietly, "what has happened?" He held himself closely and sank back to the floor, rocking slowly. He glimpsed a wavered reflection of himself in the liquid blue walls and felt despair creep around his heart. Not the young boy he knew himself to be, but a young man gaped back. "What has happened to me?"   Neither the dying echo, nor the shimmering walls returned an answer.   Wake up   "I want to..."   "Wake up, Vergil. It's time for breakfast."   Grogginess.Confusion. Comfort.   "What's for breakfast, ma?"   Hunger.Simplicity. Affection.   "What do you want?"   Amusement.Indulgence. Love.   "I want to go home," he whispered to the ghostly image sitting in a spacious room where a breeze played with white sheer drapes. Another figure crept in as if afraid of Vergil's fury and sat at the other end of the gauzy table. When the slim form saw it was not unwelcome, it smiled and the mischievous smirk made Vergil grin fondly at his brother as his twin's name irrevocably fell into place. Dante.   "Mother's dead," Dante remarked and his glee matched the smirk. The boy's short legs swung cheerfully above the floor and he leaned against his crooked arm. "Dead," he repeated. Dante hadn't reached the age where maliciousness could be seen as maliciousness and the attempt looked quite out of place on his twin's child-like face.   'No, no, no, she was with me when...'   "Yes," Dante answered as if he heard the plea. "She was with you when you failed to protect her. When you failed to protect me."   The image faded, leaving only the walls of Vergil's prison. Hope tried to flee with it, yet Vergil obstinately pushed despair away. If Dante were dead, he would have felt it already, that much he knew. But his brother was also in danger. The pit had trapped him in and out of time, whittling away at the soul he hadn't given up. Time wasn't his ally, but he suddenly understood that it could be. Summoning all the power he knew to be at his command, Vergil leapt high into the air, urging his weary body higher. Streaks of blue shot past him and raced with him along the walls. Before he came close to the top he felt his strength wane and his body lay suspended for a few seconds as inertia and gravity coupled. His energy flickered and he desperately fought to pull more from anything around him, yet the walls were as dead as they appeared. The young half-devil reached higher, hoping his fingers could just find purchase on the glass-like walls, yet they had already begun to slide away from him. He was older and stronger - just not strong enough yet. Yet.   Vergil fell.   He watched the larger circle of light close in on itself as he traveled farther and farther away from it. His lips pressed together tightly and he waited for impact rather than turn to lessen the fall. The rush of wind snapped his black hair across his cheeks; he refused to blink at the pain. He refused to acknowledge the tears that had started - surely from the stinging slaps of his own hair, and not despair for his brother. And surely the pained groan that crept from his lips was from his impending crash and not the desolate sorrow in the knowledge that his mother really was dead. Dead, and he'd failed to protect her just as he would fail in protecting Dante if he couldn't find a way out of his pit.   His body bounced painlessly on the stone ground and blood ran blithely over the floor, mingling with the liquid blue until the combined liquids traveled coldly back into his body. The ever increasing pain of broken bones meant little to him. The invasion of the phantom elixir into his body meant nothing. Failed, his mind uttered mercilessly. He'd failed his mother, he'd failed his brother and he'd failed his father, the demon who had been his greatest strength.   "Wake up, Vergil."   The voice sounded as if the speaker sat next to him and Vergil glanced to his right, ignoring the way his neck cracked threateningly as he moved.   "Vergil. My son. Wake up."   The sound caught in his throat forced dormant pain to spring back to life and Vergil croaked his scream rather than shriek it. The woman with long blonde tresses knelt by his side. Her eyes remained wide and kind. Her skin radiated the healthy pink he knew so well - mortal flesh. The slight scent of perfumed soap followed her hand as it rested against his cheek and Vergil wept.   "My son," she whispered against his forehead and kissed it softly. Her hand covered his eyes and Vergil let himself slip into slumber, comforted, child demon with a mortal mother who didn't fear to cry in front of her. Before the light completely faded, he felt the alien liquid running through his blood, tainting his with its essence, the same essence that pulsed beneath his mother's warm hand.   Vergil slept.   "It's mine! Give it back!"   Dante's voice, young and indignant as only Dante could be. It didn't matter what gifts they'd received from their parents; they invariably became Dante's when he demanded them of his brother. And how could he have denied his only brother, his twin? How many times had he goaded his brother to fight faster, try harder, when they sparred? Who better than a big brother to offer ego by sacrificing his own? Certainly not much older than a few seconds, yet sometimes those seconds felt like years, even to Vergil, still a child himself. Oh, but he wasn't a child anymore and neither was Dante, he was sure. Their youth was lost - or at least Vergil's was lost. So long as his brother lived, the tormented prisoner would endure whatever hell was required to make sure Dante remained alive.   His skin clenched tightly over his shins and Vergil awoke with a startled yelp. The dream of fighting over toys ended abruptly, pulling him into consciousness so fast that he almost asked to sleep in just a few minutes more. The pain was forgotten when he caught sight of the back of his hands just as he turned push himself up. The skin stretched evenly over the hands of a man, not the hands of the boy he remembered himself to be. As much as he didn't want to, he glanced at his reflection again to find a man looking back. His hand shook and he heard himself whimper as he reached for the reflection. Dante would look much like the image he stared at, except his twin would sport white hair to his black. Dante, he knew, would be stronger of the two by now. He had to be.   A shadow shivered in the background of his reflection and Vergil turned his head to see what else shared the pit with him. The woman; she smiled just like his mother used to, yet she wasn't his mother. He glared at her from his curled position on the cold hard floor, unwilling to speak lest he speak his hope that she might yet be real. The memory of sharing his prison with her for so long squirmed its way back into his mind and Vergil let it. He'd long given up on seeing his real mother again, but sometimes it was hard to resist this illusion, this false deity that wasn't his mother when he was at his weakest. Pain lanced over his flesh again and he cried out. He sat up and rubbed at his legs and froze. More of the blue infection slowly wound its way up his legs, reaching for his knees, more than the small scabs he easily picked from his skin each time they cropped up.   No, no, no, no!   He scrambled backwards as if the movement would leave what was imbedded in his flesh behind. His back struck the marbled wall and he leaned his head away from the sight creeping higher, reaching. Every pounding beat from his heart seemed to fuel the inky shimmer higher up his legs and Vergil concentrated on slowing his heart rate lest he offer a means of surrender himself.   "Vergil-"   "Get away from me!" he screamed shrilly. His voice cracked in mid-sentence, but the woman fell back fearfully, nonetheless. He felt its echo reverberate throughout the cavern and its sound was heavy indeed. Power grew within him, unchecked. He felt control slip from him and lightning crackled from the liquid blue as if it would birth itself from his flesh rather than infect him.   "Get away!" he shrieked again, but this time it was a warning, not a threat.   Tremors began to spasm through his little used muscles until he curled against the floor again lest they shake his flesh loose from his bones. His heart rampantly beat harder and harder, fueled by his fear and the power that grew exponentially.   "Get away," he whispered against his fists. The woman wasn't his mother. She wasn't human, but she didn't feel like a devil. He didn't know what she was, but she was in danger. If his power kept growing, it might very well break through the crystalline walls that had been his prison for so long.   How long, Vergil? Do you even remember?   Too long. The nightmares and the woman and the walls and the blue that beckoned with an evil sweetness and made him forget day after day, starting each day as if it was his first in the forsaken pit. And all the while it slowly forced its way into his skin, his flesh, and now it infected his very core and he couldn't hold it back anymore.   Oh, he didn't want to hold it back anymore. It would be so easy to just lay back. Let it take him, his scars, his   brother   mind, his...   "Dante," he whispered, madly gleeful when he felt a formless rage within the essence that slowly claimed his mind. That's what you want, isn't it? The other half - the one who's safe.   He sat up and faced the woman who shared his hell. Glancing up, he saw the bright pinprick that was his freedom, taunting him as it had for years. With the sudden surge of power growing within him, he thought he might make it up and out. The infection spreading over his body wouldn't so easily desert him now that it had claimed so much of his flesh as its own, all the while strengthening his entire body as it hardened in blackened crusts and blue shimmers, replacing his somewhat mortal flesh. He glanced back at the woman, frowning at her frightened expression. His mother was dead, he told himself sternly. Dead.   Vergil leapt.   A cry of rage sounded from the walls and chunks of the wall broke apart and flung themselves at his body, but he pulled strands of energy from the air and from the very stones that threatened to make him fall. Higher and higher he flew until he felt the massive strength finally wane. It bled from him rapidly and he realized that for as much power as it had, it was also more finite than he'd anticipated. He scrambled toward the wall, using a broken section to leap higher to the next and the next. Dust choked him as huge pieces fell against him, slowing him down until he could barely see the light that he'd nearly touched.   Twin bolts of energy sliced through the falling debris and struck him through his chest. He howled at the pain, unable to keep his forward momentum and fell. Rage forced a powerful roar from his throat that competed with the sound of shattering rock until Vergil's voice fell along with him. His fury couldn't keep him aloft and his determination meant nothing to barrage of debris that buried him. Rocks pounded against him, bouncing him against the walls and deeper into the pit. Blood ran free from a hundred wounds, although much of it remained blue. He landed with a hollow thump, unwilling to move even as rocks landed on his body. He curled into a tight ball and merely waited, half-acknowledging the fact that the woman who wasn't his mother had been buried long ago.   Silence spun out until the last pebble settled above him. Vergil snarled as he pulled the fading bolts from his chest. He moved easily despite being buried beneath so much rubble. The skin that had once held the same pink glow of a mortal had been covered in a hard black shell with blue shimmers that lit his immediate surroundings. The red glow that pulsed as hotly as his blood was probably from his demonic eyes, fully developed to see in the lack of light. He felt his head heavier than it had been before and grinned as he felt the twin curves of horns, much like those his father had sported when in demon form.   Father.   Vergil leapt free of his second prison and back into his first. He glanced high into the dust-riddled air to see a form standing at its lip with an energy bolt in hand. His mind roared incoherently and the figure chuckled in return.   Father, for what I must do, I must forsake you.   Bit by bit, Vergil felt his mind close with the same feeling of charred scab that covered his flesh. It blackened his mind and he let it fade slowly until his voice called to the form high in the air. A whisper remained in his soul, a thread that held his mind from being fully claimed by the blackness. He would kill, he knew. He would murder and become a merciless being at the behest of the same devil that had killed his mother. He would submit, he would become forsaken; yet he would not despair.   "Vergil, Son of Sparda," the figure growled and suddenly grinned. "Bow to me... Nelo Angelo."   Vergil cocked his head to the side as he contemplated his new name. His old one whispered to him, comfortingly and he touched his neck where an amulet had once rested. He could feel the slight rise beneath the stony flesh and let his hands fall to his side.   "Bow, knight devil of Mundus. Bow to me."   Vergil, son of Sparda, slowly fell to his knees. The only name that sounded in his mind as he spoke was that of his brother.   "My Master-   My brother   how may I serve you?"   I will protect you.   He would remember, he promised himself as he took flight to stand by his master's side. He would remember, even at the cost of his life.   *just because it comes from the mind of a wacko, doesn't necessarily mean it's insane*