[Part 9]

“You have got to be kidding me. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” The familiar voice entered my consciousness, and I stirred slightly, feeling as if I had just woken up from month’s worth of coma. My head was heavy and throbbing in pain, as did the rest of my body. As if I hadn’t been moving for the past few years, aches and cricks tried to stop me from stirring, but it was a natural movement.

“Look at him. He’s waking up.” The voice pointed out blandly, and my slow mind took a long time to connect a name to that voice.

“Daniel?” My voice was hoarse, and the attempt to speak properly only told me exactly how parched my throat and lips were, and how thirsty I was.

“He’s not awake yet, bro. Congratulations, you’re the first.” The voice was much closer this time, so I guessed the guy was squatting or kneeling down by my side to get a closer look at me. A shadow blocked light from the cover of my eyelids, confirming the presence of someone above me.

Slowly, I let my heavy eyelids open, trusting the person to block the sunlight away from my eyes.

I saw the clear aquamarine blue eyes, colored with curiosity, boredom and a little bit of resignation.

“Dante?” My second word was no less hoarse than my first, but at least he understood me perfectly.

“Bingo. Now will you tell me exactly what happened and why you’re here instead of the other side of the closed portal, getting beaten up like pulp?” Dante demanded, tapping the side of my head rudely, as if I were a failed science experiment.

“Let him collect his wits, Dante. We can’t be lying around here, waiting for them to wake up one by one. Bring them back to the office, and then we talk.” Vergil instructed sternly, and I watched through barely cracked open lids as Dante shrugged.

“You can walk?” He asked, pulling me up –surprisingly gently.

“I can try.” I replied, taking his help and support, finding my feet beneath me. Surprisingly, my aching body still held me upright, so Dante left me to do other things. Other things like… I turned around to see him picking my brother up and slinging him over his broad shoulder.

“Oh God.” I couldn’t help but say, watching as Vergil gently juggled Trish in one hand, Marcy in his other. All of them were unconscious as hell. All of them were here.

“What happened? Where is this?”

The lights in my head clicked, but I still dreaded the sure answer that I knew Vergil would no doubt give.

“Welcome back to Devil May Cry, Damon.”

********************************************************

“Dante and I made it through easier. Demonic blood makes the portal travelling easier to deal with. A little bit of disorientation, and we’re otherwise fine. We were leaving, trusting the portal to close on its own. But you guys came crashing through, right before the portal closed. You were holding your sister by the hand, Trish held your ankle, and Daniel was hugging half of Trish’s waist. It’s easy to how you guys pulled each other through the portal.” Vergil explained as he walked out from the back, with wet towels in his hand.

Dante was back in his favorite chair behind the desk, with his legs propped on the desk. He looked disinterested in the situation, but he wasn’t sleeping, so I guessed he was stuck somewhere in the middle. The return to Devil May Cry had been uninterrupted, and the office had been blessedly unlocked and empty. Of course, no one would ever think of robbing someone as poor as Dante, so it made sense that the office was unlocked anyway.

There was no saying where Lady may have gone, so Dante had to wait here like an idiot for her to return, and find that he had returned from his adventure into the parallel world where I called my home.

I received one of the towels from Vergil, walking back to the couch where Trish and Marcy were carefully placed. Daniel was thrown on the armchair close by. By some silent agreement, I made towards my girlfriend while Vergil helped with sponging Marcy.

“There was the demon, the one that came to my office, and broke Daniel’s ankle. He was blending in with the thugs. He got to Daniel and Marcy at the side. He stopped Daniel, grabbed Marcy and dragged her to the portal. He pushed her through, and I dived in after her. Trish must have grabbed my ankle and Daniel on her.” I reasoned, almost unbelieving of my luck.

I was stuck here in Devil May Cry again. For the second time in my life, I was stuck in a parallel world, where my ‘brothers’ were the Sparda twins. I was stuck in a world where demons existed.  This time, though, I had my family along for the ride, and the characters here already knew of my situation.

“Since yesterday, Damon, I’ve been looking up about the demon that’s been chasing behind our tails. I believe that I know who’s behind this, and who that mysterious demon is.” Vergil said, not looking up from his gently sponging on Marcy’s face.

I kept quiet about his gentleness around my sister, wanting to know more about the information he held.

“Who?” Dante interrupted me this time, his interest finally perked. The look in his eyes screamed revenge and irritancy at having been put through this torturous time –even the one getting tortured this entire time was only me and Vergil.

“He is called the Trickster in hell. His was the soul of a master con artist, banished down to Hell. Mundus trained him, and equipped him with skills of camouflage and trickery. He was sworn into Mundus’s servitude, but Mundus never directly ordered anything from him. He roamed in Hell, famous for his placing in Mundus’s eye, but he never had a real mission. At least not until now.”

“So his skill is appearance-changing?” I asked.

“That, amongst others. It is said that illusion is part of his scheme. Basically, he is the master of all trickery, hence the name Trickster. He takes on forms of all sorts, but his real identity is only the black, featureless figure we saw in the office. In your world, he is silenced, for he bound by the reaches of Hell, or the Demon World, if you like to call it. In ours, he can speak, for our world is the convergence of Hell and yours. In Hell? He rarely speaks. And when he does, no one disobeys him.”

“So what is he chasing us for?” I demanded, unable to find a link about anything that Vergil said, to the fact that the Trickster was chasing us.

“He is under Mundus’s command. It is natural that he is seeking to kill us.”

“But why me and my family too? No offense, but all this shit concerns you and Dante only.”

“But when you fell into our world, Damon, you were made part of it too. Remember Leviathan and Mammon? The princes of Hell spoke to their King. And Mundus is convinced that you and Daniel are illegitimate spawns of Sparda, seeing how you have our faces and voices.”

“But we’re not!” I protested.

Dante snorted. “Tell that to Mundus then.”

Vergil gave me serious eyes, as if telling me to calm down, which I did –with effort.

“Mundus isn’t exactly wrong. From what I feel, coming from you and Daniel, you are quite half-demonic to me.” He said carefully, as if a word could trigger me off. With nothing but the truth to be spoken, I felt as such.

“Half-demonic? You sense a devil side from me and Daniel?” I asked, carefully slowly, trying to keep as calm and composed as possible. I couldn’t lose my top over something as serious as this. At least not now.

“Sparda’s devil side, to be exact.” Vergil nodded.

“What about Trish? Marcy?” Vergil closed his eyes for a moment, and for the second time, I felt his power flowing past my skin, to my family members.

“Trish’s regained her demon blood. Marcy…. Has part demon blood, but I don’t recognize where it’s from.”

The voice of someone new, the voice of someone I recognized –which surprised me, that I even could recognize it –interrupted our conversation.

“Mine, darling. I gave Marcy her little bit of demonic power.”

I spun around immediately at that voice, watching her stand behind the chair that Daniel was slouched in, stroking his face gently –as if she could touch him at all.

“Eva? What are you doing here?” I asked, ignoring as both Dante and Vergil jerked upright, looking around frantically for the mother that they could not see.

“Vergil was your spirit guide the last time you dropped in. I am your spirit guide now.” She explained, drifting sadly to her youngest son, touching the soft cheek of Dante’s with even softer fingers.

“Where is she?” Dante demanded, standing up and glaring at me. It was hard to hold down two conversations, so I ignored Dante and kept my eyes on Eva instead.

“Spirit guide to me? What about my family? What about Sparda? Where is he?”

Her expression turned solemn.

“I am the guide to you and yours, Damon. Sparda… was caught by one of the princes of Hell while saving me a year or so ago. He made me promise not to fetch our kids to save him. He never said anything about asking you again.” She gave me a hopeful little smile as I made an irritated grunt. Just as expected from family members of Sparda, no?

“And if I said no?”

She gave me beady eyes, and the face that was Trish’s giving me those eyes had something inside of me crumbling to pieces. That bitch; she really knew it would be Trish’s face that would get me down for the job. Hundred points of persuasion, Mrs. Sparda.

“The demon that has been chasing you around; he was given to Lucifer as a prize from Mundus. Lucifer’s the one that is hunting you down, and he is the one holding my husband in imprisonment.”

I hesitated for a moment, staring at the translucent figure. Just one day, I was going to sit down, and make a list of this so-called groundbreaking information that the Sparda family loved to pull on me at the most critical of times. They simply loved sucking me into their family matters when I wasn’t bound to them by blood, didn’t they?

“How come Marcy has powers, then? You were not human before you went to Hell.” I digressed, trying to avoid having to make any promises to Vergil’s mother.

This time, Eva drifted till she was kneeling beside my sleeping sister, keeping close to her eldest son. Vergil kept staring at me, tapping on the one-sided conversation that appeared to them.

“In hell, I was neither human nor demon. No one knew for sure what I was supposed to be, until Sparda up and decided to give me some powers to help me survive down there. Now that I am out of demon’s servitude, I need to save him and get my family back.”

I had always liked a woman who was protective of her family, and this time was no exception –save the fact that keeping her family safe meant a whole load of trouble for me, and potential danger for my family. I sighed, turning eyes to look at Vergil, keeping his eye contact steady with me as curiosity burnt bright in his eyes.

“Your mother wants me to save your father, who is coincidentally caught by the prince of hell –Lucifer –who controls the Trickster right now, and forcing that silhouetted demon to chase our tails.” It was easy summary of everything Eva told me, but it didn’t mean that I had to be happy about it.

Vergil put on a thinking face immediately at that, while his brother had slight more expressive reactions. Dante laughed aloud, hitting the table to show his humor while I turned to him with my own confused expression. Vergil blessedly ignored him –having learnt how to tune his brother out.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, giving him a frown. Was what I said about his family really so funny?

“Sparda? Caught in hell? You’re yanking my leg; bro. Sparda’s not so dumb to get caught by anyone, much less Lucifer. That guy’s retarded as anything!” He wiped a tear from his eyes, as Eva stood up, shaking her head in exasperation.

“My son… how desensitized and lost to your family you have become…” Eva sighed, making back to Daniel’s side.

Maybe she was showing my brother more concern, because he was the only one neglected while Vergil and I tended to the ones our hearts were smitten to?

“He has always been like this, Eva. Right from the very start. You simply saw none of it due to your love for him.” I reasoned, helping to tuck a strand of stray hair back behind Trish’s ear.

Maybe it was the soft touch that brought my love back. Maybe it was the sense that she had that I needed her comfort by my side. Maybe it was just pure coincidence. One way or another; Trish opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

“Damon? What happened?” She whispered weakly, as I caressed the side of her cheek.

“You’re home, Trish. The one you left behind for me.” I smiled, letting her mesmerizing eyes travel around, to the surroundings around her.

A spark of recognition flashed past her eyes, and she jerked upright, barely missing hitting me in the face with her forehead as she took in her surroundings more carefully with wide eyes.

“Oh my god…” She exclaimed quietly, looking behind her, and seeing the two brothers. Then she saw our spirit guide.

“Eva?”

Sparda’s wife, who held the same face and voice as her, smiled and nodded.

“Welcome back, darling.”

“Wait. What are we doing here? What happened?” Trish turned to me, demanding for an answer.

“You held on to me and we were dragged through the portal. We thought it was all coincidence that we were all dragged here, but Eva appeared, and told me that she had made herself our spirit guide, and that we were here to help her out. Sparda got caught in Hell saving her, and we need to save him from Lucifer, who coincidentally is the one who sent the Trickster after us.”

Trish took a long moment for the information to sink in.

“Who’s the Trickster?”

It took awhile for me to remember that Trish wasn’t there when Vergil explained about the demon.

“The demon that chased us in my world. The one that pushed Marcy and us through the portal.”

Trish nodded comprehendingly this time.

“So what are we going to do next?”

I looked to Vergil, who didn’t seem to know what was going to happen, then to Eva.

I sighed.

“One thing: find Lucifer and kill him. If we’re lucky, we find Sparda. If not, well, we get to get rid of the Trickster. Hopefully, we can find a way back to our world before damage of our absence is done, especially in Kries Tech.”

Eva squealed like an excited little kid, and despite myself, I smiled.

I guess I was really stuck in this world until we got to the Trickster.

Again…