3:06pm
A blinding blue surge of energy had pushed Nero and Dante back. In its absence, a man stands where urizen and V had been. The confusion leaves Nero passive, but while he stands there and watches events unfold, Dante rushes at the man, angry and clearly familiar with him.
Whoever this is, though, seems to expect it, and he turns around and hits Dante right in the stomach with… The Yamato. Slowly, he realizes that this is the very same man who ripped off his arm. He’s not really sure how he’s here so suddenly— here when V and Urizen are not—, but as Dante gets knocked back and behind him, Nero gets ready for a fight.
Only for Dante to charge at the man again, but this time the man disappears and quickly reappears right in front of Dante. Their swords clash and sparks fly, but they don’t keep fighting. They just stand there, swords grinding together dangerously, and they talk. There’s nothing friendly about this talk, but they don’t make any move to fight, they just push and push like if that’ll prove something.
When the man, Vergil— he assumes, because that’s what he hears Dante call him—, knocks Dante back once again, Nero just watches, still confused. He still doesn’t know why Vergil is here to begin with, and where V went.
His confusion is compounded upon by the fact when Nero watches Vergil open up a portal with the Yamato (bringing back memories of his arm getting torn off— of lying on the floor bleeding as the man disappears). Everything gets worse when the man calls him out by names and thanks him.
When he’s gone, Nero briefly remembers V talking about him, saying that Vergil is Dante’s older brother— that Urizen is actually Vergil— and he immediately starts questioning Dante.
“If that’s your brother, then what happened to V?”
“He returned,” Dante says, panting, “to himself.” Nero shoots Dante an incredulous look, because that’s cryptic and needlessly dramatic. He catches on to what he means, though, but he doesn’t have time to reflect before Dante tells him to, “Go home, Nero. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Like hell! I lost my right arm because of him!” Nero yells. He’s unwilling to be sidelined again because Dante doesn think he’s enough.
“This is not your fight. I need to stop him and that’s all that matters.”
“I’m not gonna let you have all the fun, Dante,” Nero tells him. Does Dante think he can’t handle him or something? Does he not want him around? After all he’s been through just to help him? The demons he killed to take down the stupid demon tree weren’t for nothing.
“You don’t get it,” Dante says, turning around quickly and putting his sword to the side. It’s a fighting stance, but Nero’s not intimidated.
“Let me guess, I’m dead weight? Well you can shove that up your—”
“That’s not it—”
“What is it, then!?”
“He’s your father!” Dante yells.
The news staggers him back a moment. That man can’t be…? It’s horrifying to think that his own father would rip off his arm and raise a giant demonic tree that sucks the blood from the people it's killed.
“I had the feeling, the first time I saw you, but I just wasn't sure. And then I saw how the Yamato reacted...and I was certain,” Dante explains, pausing for a moment, “He's your father. Now, he needs an ass-kicking… But I can't have you kill your old man.” And with a quick pat to Nero’s shoulder, Dante walks off.
Looking behind him to where Vergil opened up a portal and left through, Nero mutters to himself, “My father…?”
All this time, he thought (hoped, he would unwillingly admit), that Dante might’ve been his father (sometimes thinking of Dante as his ‘old man’). He knew, something deep within him knew for a fact, that he was related to Dante. He always felt the need to prove himself, maybe get told the truth, and he hated Dante a bit for not saying anything if there was anything to say (hates him a bit more, because Dante did know they were related). But being told that this genocidle asshole is his dad? That stings worse.
He wonders if V knew, too, if this whole time he was fucking with Nero for this plan or what. He wants to yell, do something, beat the shit out of something and vent. When the ground he’s on shakes, though, he briefly thinks of returning to the van, of not getting stuck in the tree.
But then he follows up on his prior thought process, and then killing a few demons shifts into beating his father. There were a couple instances that maybe he could have beat Urizen, if it weren’t for that red crystal making him waste his energy. He could fight his father. Maybe, he’ll fight Dante too. Serves them right, after all.
And then he’s really made up his mind. He’ll just climb the qliphoth, find his father, beat him up, and then do the same with Dante. He picks a path Dante doesn’t go and starts going up. Air hiking, running, dodging the crumbling bits of the tree, fighting whatever got trapped. He doesn’t stop, not until he sees the sky, not until he’s on a part of the tree that doesn’t feel like it’s going to become dust with minimal effort.
He takes a moment to catch his breath, stabs Red Queen into the ground to stretch his shoulders and relieve some stress. He thinks he sees the top from here, but if he continues the way he was, he won’t be in any condition to fight.
He picks up his sword again and takes a couple deep, steadying breaths, and moves forward. A slower, but still brisk pace, now that he’s not fighting his way out of the tree.
He’s a bit surprised to see V’s familiars in the clearing, though. Nightmare stands tall as Shadow stalks around at its feet. Griffon flies in and lands on top of Nightmare, but when he sees Nero, he seems to be taken aback. Nero can tell he’s about to say something, but Nero cuts him off before he gets a chance, voicing a thought he feels is more important.
“Huh, whatcha doing away from V? Thought you were supposed to be a good pet chicken and stay with him?” If Griffon is supposed to be with V, he wonders what it means that he’s not, or maybe, somewhere around, Vergil lurks (that’s the ideal situation, but something inside him knows that he’s at the top of the qliphoth).
“Well, if it isn't Nero! What’s wrong, kid? Dante let go of your hand and you get lost?” Griffon remarks. His feathers are puffed up, and he and Shadow are eyeing the space around them. If Nero wanted to, he could tease them for worrying about Dante, being scared of him, but he doesn’t.
“You’re the ones who seem lost,” Nero huffs, “Now are you going to answer me? Or have you decided to be cryptic, too? I’ve had enough of that.” He aims his gun at Griffon hoping to intimidate him, but Shadow roars at him in response. Touchy.
“We were spawned from Vergil’s abominable thoughts, but now he doesn’t need us to survive,” Griffon explains, not even touching on how V ties into this, and Nero’s glad that he’s already in the know, or else this would have answered nothing.
Nero lowers his gun and says, “Well, if that’s all then, I’ve got a deadbeat father to beat up. Payback for the arm, you know?” He makes a mocking shrug and gestures to his arm, which has Gerbera attached. He attempts to walk by them, but he’s on edge. He could feel all their hostility the moment he arrived, and he’s ready to fight them if he needs to.
Except Griffon starts cackling like he found something funny— Nero still doesn’t let his guard down. Shadow stays where they are, and roars at Nero, so he backs up a slight bit and puts his hand on Red Queen’s handle. Once it seems like a definite fight, he’ll start revving her up.
“I told him he was your ol’ daddy dearest,” Griffon laughs, “He thought: ‘Nero couldn’t be mine. Look at how Dante treats him’. But something about you, kid, screamed ‘Vergil’s son’.” Griffon doesn’t seem to want to stop laughing, and it’s really starting to annoy him. He’s tempted to shoot him to make him shut up. And it’s not really like V can stop either of them from fighting.
“Yeah well, not like I knew I was his either. Now, are you going to move?” Nero grumbles.
This seems to sober the demonic bird up, and suddenly he’s more serious than before. “Just leave, Nero. We’re waiting for Dante— we’re going to kill him. Us, not Vergil! And we’re not going to let you pass by us either, kid.” He flies into the air and tries to attack Nero with a barrage of lightning strikes.
Nero dodges each attack, and starts revving up Red Queen. As he watches Griffon, planning the quickest way to beat him, he can see Shadow and Nightmare disappearing. That’s better for Nero. While he has seen the familiars fight, he’s not fought them himself. It’s always one thing to fight alongside someone, and another to actually fight them. All he knows is that the familiars can ‘stalemate’, as V called it, and that they need V to quickly recover.
Briefly, he feels a pang of guilt. The familiars sort of needed V to come back from a stalemate. Without him, what’s going to help them? He doubts Vergil still has them on a leash… It doesn’t sit well that maybe this is how they’ll die—
He’s distracted when Griffon swoops down at him, and reflexively he stops revving his sword and slashes Griffon. The demon bird doesn’t seem any bit deterred and flies around before shooting bullets of lightning at Nero. One by one, he dodges them, slowly getting closer to Griffon as he does so he can hit him down.
“Alright, let's get started! This’ll be quite the party!” Griffon cheers, seeming almost excited to fight Nero.
As Griffon charges up for an attack, Nero hits him, but immediately Griffon lets out an orb of electricity that Nero gets stuck in. It vaguely reminds him of a few spars he’s had with Trish, and it’s actually not that bad. Nero can see himself winning this fight, then.
Nero jumps away quickly before Griffon can think of using that move on him again, and when his feet are firm on the ground, he charges up Blue Rose, and then releases to send a powerful blast that stalemates Griffon. When he sees the orb on the ground, surrounded by the same black mist that always came out of V’s tattoos, he wonders if this is a good sign.
The orb isn’t gone, it seems to be as normal as the first time he’s seen it, so he feels a bit better knowing that he hasn’t killed Griffon. An annoying bird he may be, Nero was close to being fond of him. He’s not sure if he should feel better or worse by the fact that Grifon comes back and is ready to keep fighting.
Nero shoots Griffon as he charges himself up again, but instead of just letting go of a bunch of electricity, he throws a ball in front of himself that shoots off in two directions before trying to close in on him. “Come here and face me like a man, boy!” Griffon yells.
“What’s wrong, need me to get to you because you can’t get close enough to me?” Nero taunts, then he reaches out his hand and beckons Griffon closer. “Come on!” He jumps over the ropes of electricity and shoots at Griffon, swapping for his sword and jumping again to ex-calibur his way over. The hit lands, unlike the earlier shot, but Griffon flanks him and backs up to charge up again.
Air hiking and caliburing again, he hits Griffon again, timing the charge of his exceed just right to get back the gauge he just spent. Unfortunately, the distraction causes Griffon to stop and he sends a blockade to Nero. He manages to dodge it, but is caught unaware by a bolt of lightning.
Nero doesn’t let it stop him, though, and he runs to Griffon who charges up again (it’s really starting to annoy Nero). He lands a couple hits, but just as he uses Gerbera to try and parry— he really hopes it works on the sphere attack, but he also hopes Griffon chose the pillars— Griffon lets go of his charge, effectively destroying his devil breaker.
As he’s landing to the ground, Griffon cackles, “Damn… you’re as tough as you look!” Nero almost cuts it short when he immediately charges and upward slashes him with Red Queen. Griffon stalemates again, which Nero is thankful for. He is a bit worried how many more of these Griffon has in him before he can’t anymore, though.
As he waits for Griffon to come back, he considers just running ahead. In this state, Griffon can’t stop him, and he’s sure he can get pretty far before the bird catches up to him. It won’t stop him from running into the other two, though. He decides to stay, and attaches a tomboy to his arm.
“Woo!” Griffon laughs, shaking his head a bit before dropping another scissor-like attack, immediately following it up with a flank. Nero manages to dodge the lightning, jumping up, but Griffon swoops into him, his beak slicing at his chest, and the force throwing him back down— right onto lightning that converges on top of him.
When he gets up, he finds himself annoyed. It’s already taking a good bit to fight Griffon, and at this rate he won’t beat Dante to the top. So he activates tomboy and starts charging up Blue Rose to the max. When he releases it, the shot hits Griffon back, and for a moment Nero wonders if he stalemated.
Only to hear “Time out! Gimme some time out!” fading towards the exit. Nero himself calls out “Chicken!” as he turns off tomboy. He’s already used it a few times today and the boost it gives is almost overwhelming. Lucky for him, that’s his style (unluckily for Nico, his style is too much for the devil breakers).
Nero takes another moment to catch his breath. Damn familiars will tire him out too much. While he hopes they won’t die on him, he’s not keen on the fact that keeping them alive means more fighting time.
When he’s ready to keep going, he takes the same path that Griffon did. He’s sure that means he’ll fight him again, but he’s more worried about what will happen when he doesn’t see them anymore. He knows V kept them alive, and not knowing what’s keeping them alive right now is killing him. As much as he wants to fight his father, he can’t imagine not knowing the fate of the familiars.
At least the path seems to be on the way to the top anyways. Nero wonders if they picked this spot on purpose, waiting for Dante. There are other ways to the top, but this one is pretty close and seems the easiest. If they caught him here, they’d be able to funnel him through, wear him down— they want to beat him, but no way would they be able to.
At the next clearing, Nero half expects Griffon to dive at him, but instead he finds Shadow. Unlike the previous fight, he’s pretty sure this won’t be as acrobatic. Griffon flies, and while he has seen Shadow launch themself into the air, Shadow is more down the ground.
As Nero shoots them with a couple charged up shots and gets skewered, despite the demonic panther being a considerable distance away, he realizes that Shadow actually has more variety than he thought. He was always too busy to pay attention to them, but recalling it, yeah, he did see some of what Shadow was capable of.
Nero plants Red Queen to the ground and charges the sword up. When he sees that Shadow isn’t immediately charging towards him, he takes the chance to taunt them. He gets a roar in return, and then the two of them are slowly approaching each other.
When they’re close enough, Nero tries to slash Shadow into the air. While the hit does land, Shadow dives into the ground to avoid being launched up. When they try to materialize behind him, Nero dodges, but then tricks right back where he was to stab them again.
Shadow yowls and swipes at Nero’s ankles. The sting it leaves behind is pretty strong, and it staggers Nero a moment, but while he’s waiting to get used to the sensation, he shoots the cat. He shoots again when the pain recedes, but Shadow jumps above the bullet and charges again. When Shadow tries to hit him, he shuffles and lands a stalemating hit.
He takes the time to stretch his shoulders and pulls out Blue Rose. He aims towards the orb, ready to shoot. But when Shadow comes out of the stalemate, they immediately dodge and skewer him again, right near the shoulder. He can feel how close it was to decommissioning his left arm.
It hurts worse than it initially did, though, when the spike in his arm tugs him. And it takes him a moment too long to realize that Shadow is using their grip to pull themself closer, only releasing until they are a small distance in front of Nero. He tries to react, but Shadow dives into the group and whips at him with a flurry of tentacles.
When the whips stop, he aims at Shadow, ready for the next attack. He expects them to pop out, even if for the tentacles, but the little blob that rises above the ground doesn’t form a substantial shape— not until Shadow hedgehogs, catching Nero in a bunch more strikes.
Figuring this to be as close as he could possibly get, Nero stabs Red Queen into the center, fire bursting around and forcing Shadow to retract. When Shadow tries to pull away, he revs and slashes again. When he goes to make a third slash, Shadow runs away with a yowl, only briefly looking behind themself.
He grunts and gets ready to follow yet again. If he’s right, he’ll fight the big one next. Not something he’s eager for. He hasn’t paid attention to Nightmare much— V didn’t use it much—, but he knows that Nightmare has these powerful beams that destroy a lot.
He charges his sword up in anticipation.
He expects to see Nightmare materialize or to just be waiting there, but instead Shadow comes out. He knew the fight with them was cut a bit short. Maybe they just need to put a little distance to gather their thoughts. That’s fine with Nero. Though, he worries— exhaustion starts eating away at him and he hasn’t had a proper break for a few hours.
As he and Shadow stare each other off for a moment, he gets a bit irritated, but he actually feels more clear-headed. With this time to cool off and let out his frustrations, he wonders if he should even fight Vergil.
When Shadow charges and goes straight for his devil breaker, he remembers part of why he’s doing this. Maybe he shouldn’t fight his father, but at the very least he should kick his ass as payback for the arm.
As he swings his sword at Shadow, cutting them and dragging some of their inky form with the tip, he remembers that they are familiars, contracted by V, who was essentially a witch in that regard. He wonders if there’s a chance he could contract them, but he doesn’t voice this thought when he realizes that no, they’re doing this to protect Vergil. No way they would agree to fight him.
Nero hits Shadow again, and dodges when they try to engulf him in some weird venus flytrap-looking move. As they dissolve into the ground, he hits them again, only to be caught in another spike trap. The spikes this time push him away, anticipating a repeat of last time, so he backs up and activates tomboy.
He readies up a charged shot, aims it right at Shadow who doesn’t appear to be aware of what he’s doing. As he shoots his shot, distracted by getting the aim right, something crashes into his devil breaker. It explodes on impact, blinding Nero for a brief moment. He finds himself lucky when he realizes that, were the attack a moment sooner, the damage could have been worse.
“Hey!” Nero hears, “Watch the birdie, Nero!” As he tries to find out where Griffon is, he gets scratched right in the chest.
He retaliates by slashing Shadow, and then grabbing ahold of Griffon with his wire snatch. He spends the last two gauges of Red Queen slashing Griffon right across the chest and then slamming him into the ground.
Shadow takes the opportunity to ram into Nero and push Griffon away to protect him. Shadow follows up their attack with a skewer and Nero watches as Griffon launches into the air and charges. Not wanting to be pulled into any unwanted attacks, Nero backs away to get away from Shadow.
He pulls out his gun and aims it at Griffon. When he sees that the demonic bird is charging up, he thinks about clipping an overture onto his arm. As much as he can fight one-handed, Nico’s gadgets are super useful.
When Shadow charges at Nero, he has to quickly shift his aim to them. He shoots them in the head, landing a critical shot that stalemates them. Unfortunately, he lost focus on Griffon, leaving him open to one of the lightning strikes Griffon sends his way. Griffon then tries to close the space between them, diving towards Nero.
As he moves away, he realizes the move was actually to move him away from Shadow’s orb, which was left right by him after stalemating.
He doesn’t stop fighting, though, and it’d be better to stalemate Griffon while he has the chance. He immediately closes the space between them with the swing of his sword, timing his charge, and doing that a few more times. Only two out of a few hits land, but it throws Griffon back far enough for Nero to swap weapons and shoot him.
But as Griffon stalemates, Nero gets stabbed in his chest by a skewer, which is followed by a couple swipes from Shadow’s claws. They get him right in his face.
Trying to open his eyes, Nero decides it’s better to not swing or shoot blindly. He backs away quickly, but carefully and grabs a breaker from his belt. When it attaches, he’s thankful to find that yes, he did grab overture. When it finishes calibrating, he sends out a shockwave.
The resulting yowl tells him that he managed to hit Shadow. Unfortunately, he hears Griffon cheer as he comes out of his stalemate. Nero almost feels overwhelmed, but he calms himself down to hear for the familiars. Unfortunately, his right ear rings a little bit, and he curses having been so careless with tomboy (he’s going to have to talk to Nico about durability).
The familiars take too long to attack him, thankfully, and he manages to open his eyes enough to fight. His eyes are watery and his face stings a bit, but he won’t let the scratches stop him. With this small break he was given, though, he taunts. Griffon taunts back as Shadow tries to skewer Nero again.
Having realized he was backed into a corner, Nero jumps, and manages to land on top of the spike. Taking advantage of this, he runs forward best he can, but jumps when he can’t maintain his balance. The resulting momentum earns a strike that hits both Shadow and Griffon, but it seems like he landed right where they wanted him.
Griffon releases a sphere of electricity and Shadow impales him with another hedgehog. The resulting pain almost makes Nero black out, but he holds through and manages to shock Shadow. Both of the familiars pull away, and Nero wonders if he hurt Griffon, too.
“Even that couldn’t stop ya!?” Griffon yells in shock, “You ain’t so bad!” Shadow roars again, Nero suspects in agreement with Griffon, and then the two of them are leaving again.
When they’re gone, Nero groans and kneels on the floor for a moment. He needs to find some green orbs. He can’t take another fight at this rate. He almost wants to throw away all thoughts of beating either his father or uncle, but he’s come too far to back out now.
Lucky for Nero, he manages to find some in a corner and after consuming them, he stretches out his back. He sighs when his joints pop and feels rejuvenated— he’s going to beat the familiars, and then he’s going to beat Vergil. Hell, if he finds Dante he’ll fight him, too.
Nero makes sure to fill up the exceed gauge on Red Queen again, and that all bullets are loaded into Blue Rose. He tries to keep an eye out for any more green orbs on the way to wherever the familiars have holed up this time, but he spots nothing.
Demons don’t go through the blood tunnels quite like Nero does (gross as it is), so higher and higher becomes less and less likely to have any demons he could mooch orbs off of. But as demons become fewer and fewer, he feels more oppressive presences— signs of powerful demons such as Vergil residing more towards the top.
In fact, when he’s at where he assumes Griffon and Shadow will show up next, he’s a bit surprised to find it almost overflowing with demonic energies. He hopes the familiars haven’t been eaten up or something.
He is a bit confused when a purple light starts shooting into the sky, V’s cane in the middle of it floating, spinning crazily. Just as he takes a step forward to investigate, Nero feels a snap in the energy around him, and suddenly a meteor is hurling towards him.
He dodges backwards, sword drawn, and watches as the meteor turns into sludge that very quickly afterwards materializes into Nightmare. The eye seems to glow brightly when it fully forms, and immediately, Nero finds himself dodging an upwards beam of light headed straight for him. He remembers seeing that beam, but it’s more intimidating to be shot at than to witness it aimed at others.
“Well. Guess you aren’t pulling your punches anymore, huh?” Nero asks. He doesn’t need to hear an answer. He can tell this is their last attempt to beat Nero.
Griffon thinks he needs to respond, though, and tells Nero, “Oh, kid, we’re getting rid of you this time, just you watch!” Then, Griffon tries to swoop in for a strike, which Nero takes advantage of, hitting him right in the face and countering the attack.
He follows this up by gripping tightly onto the handle of his sword and spinning. Expectedly, Shadow had also been trying to attack him. Unexpectedly, Nightmare hits Nero with a wide arc of its beam, and then with another. Nero manages to get his bearings and dodge a third attempt, and charges straight for Nightmare.
He uses his third gauge to hit into Nightmare, the pressure needed a bit off-putting for him. Nightmare is sludgy, but is also as hard as it wants to be. The area closer to its eye is the hardest, and it seems the joints are more goopy. It all makes for a very unpleasant sensation to cut through.
It momentarily distracts Nero, leaving enough time for Nightmare to punch him away.
He lands on the ground a ways away, but thankful under cover by a pillar of demon wood or whatever. Shadow and Griffon don’t have a problem getting around it. As Nero tries to dodge, Shadow latches onto his leg with their mouth, and Griffon hits him with multiple bullets of electricity.
In response, Nero pulls out Blue Rose and shoots Shadow right on the maw. This stalemates them, so Nero ducks away before Griffon can shoot him some more. He shoots Griffon, too, and then backs up to charge up the remaining bullets.
He keeps an eye on Griffon, but when Blue Rose is filled with as much energy he is confident it can handle, he shoots Nightmare. In the eye, ideally, but he at least shoots out a chunk of goop, leaving a hole big enough for Nero to see through.
He’s not sure what it’s capable of, given that it was too much for V to keep out long. He wonders what sort of damage it can cause without a time limit, but then he realizes he doesn’t want to know, because it currently doesn’t seem to have one and he is the enemy.
When Griffon tries to charge up an attack, expecting Nero to be distracted, Nero goes straight for him, hitting the bird with an attack enough to stalemate. This takes Nero from his safe spot behind the pillar— he hears Nightmare attack him before he can do anything about it, and suddenly he’s struck in the back.
He shakes the pain off a moment and charges at Nightmare, filling his exceed as much as he can before unleashing as much of his power as he can. Nero wails on Nightmare with attack after attack. But as he’s distracted, he’s attacked by both Griffon and Shadow, who he realizes have come back quicker than other times.
As he’s fighting them, he notices Nightmare sludgifying itself and moving to some weird whitish-purple glowing space in the ground. Shadow and Griffon make sure to push Nero away from Nightmare, but they back him into another of the holes in the ground.
Cornered by it and watching the familiars intently, Nero feels demonic energy crawl up his back. He’d feel energized, but his body won’t take the energy, and so he’s left feeling paranoid. It feels eerily like having a demon breathing down the back of your neck.
He’s fending off the two familiars in front of him, but he’s watching Nightmare, too. Nightmare can attack him with a beam and he’d have a hard time dodging. He notices that it seems to disappear into the hole, and when Nero is finally making some headway, he realizes that Nightmare reformed itself.
But it feels stronger, almost. Not quite like at the start of the fight, but it’s regained some of its power. Despite being distracted by Shadow and Griffon, he comes to realize that whatever that glowing hole in the ground is, it might be acting similar to white orbs.
He gets a brief idea of destroying it, but he’s not sure how good of an idea that may be. He doesn’t know what destroying a source of magic might do— if it’ll hurt him, actually stop healing Nightmare, or what, but he wants to try.
He has to be smart about this. If this is a shot at winning the fight, he needs to actually think this through. He probably can’t brute for his way through this, not when Nightmare’s off its leash.
So Nero gets as much distance as he can from the familiars and charges up his weapons. Shadow and Griffon don’t charge, figuring something is up, but they’re still trying to attack from as far as possible. When Shadow attempts to skewer Nero, he jumps onto the spike like he did last time, and lets it propel him forward a bit. When he feels he is going fast enough, he jumps and then strikes downwards. The attack, as he hoped it would, stalemates Shadow— he follows the attack with a max-act and swaps weapons immediately.
He aims it at Griffon as quickly as possible and shoots. The first shot is to stun Griffon. As he’s trying to regain himself and prevent himself from falling, Nero wire-snatches Griffon to pull him closer. When he’s within overture’s grasp, Nero holds Blue Rose to his chest and shoots, stalemating him, too.
He feels lucky that Nightmare didn’t cause any problem, yet, but he realizes he can’t see it anywhere. He hopes it's not healing, but it won’t matter. Its lack of an appearance is better for Nero, because nothing can stop him from leaving a detached, charged overture on one of the white-pools.
He picks one of the ones at the outer edges of the arena, or whatever this is, and back away to a distance he hopes is far enough. He attaches the other tomboy he had and loads Blue Rose fully. Activating tomboy, he aims right at overture. He could let it detonate on its own, but he hopes the added help does significantly more damage.
Bracing himself with a tense breath, Nero fires a shot. Many things happen—
The pushback from tomboy throws him back a couple inches. Nero sees and hears overture detonate. As the ground is shaking and splitting apart at the edges, Nero hears a roar. Immediately, and wanting to prevent worse hearing damage, Nero swaps weapons and shuffles.
He watches as the attack connects with Shadow, throwing them up a bit before they dissolve to escape. He also notices Griffon trying to flank him. Tomboy is still activated, and Nero isn’t sure he can fully power it down before Griffon attacks him. So he holds his arm out, covers his ear with his other hand as best as he can, and breaks away tomboy.
The timing of it throws away Griffon, who falls to the ground on his back— winded, but not stalemated. Nero watches as the familiars regain their composure, and he does the same, almost not hearing Nightmare charge its beam. But Nero still doesn’t dodge quick enough.
“What a mess!” Griffon laughs as he tries to flip himself over. Shadow helps him out, picking him up in their mouth and standing them right side up. “But it’s not over yet…” Griffon spreads his wings out and lifts himself off the ground. He charges himself up for an attack as Shadow jumps above him to guillotine Nero.
3:42pm
Mindful of where all the familiars are, Nero grabs another overture and attaches it to his arm. When he turns around to charge at Nightmare, Nero feels it. He almost stumbles by a clashing third energy in the air. But his momentum is still aimed towards Nightmare, so he shoots and tries to shock Nightmare with overture, hoping Nightmare responds to electricity.
It doesn’t seem to be affected, and instead smacks Nero away. As he’s knocked to the ground, he hears Griffon shout: “Wait wait wait!”
When Nero looks up to see what’s going on, he sees Griffon and Shadow staring at the top of the Qliphoth. When he directs his own attention towards it, he swears he can almost see the energy flying out of it. For a moment, he’s reminded of climbing the Qliphoth, only to feel and see the shockwaves of Dante and Urizen’s fight— he realizes that he is witnessing this time Dante and Vergil’s fight.
“No, no! They’re going to kill each other,” Griffon grumbles. If he could, Griffon would be growling. Shadow does it in the bird’s stead.
Landing on top of Shadow, slouching over upon touchdown, Griffon faces Nero, desperation in his voice, “Listen, kid, please listen to me, okay? Let’s stop, okay? Let’s stop this.”
Nero notices Griffon panting as he talks. The demonic bird doesn’t sound like how he usually does— not like when he’s worked up from fighting. And when Nero makes note of Shadow seeming overworked as well, he realizes that this isn’t some go-big-or-go-home attempt, this is a dying effort. He nods— eyeing Nightmare who seems to have a sense of mind to not keep fighting— and puts down his sword.
“Wow! Wow, okay, thanks so much, kid,” Griffon sighs. He shifts on top of Shadow who seems to be having a mildly hard time retaining their form. He takes in a big breath and Shadow slowly walks towards Nero. “Nero. Vergil doesn’t need us to survive anymore, but when V did? He made contracts with us. It was mutual, yanno? He survived because of our energy, because of us, and in turn, he tethers us to existence…!”
Nero nods. He’s not sure the circumstances of why V exists. How did he get away from himself only to go back to it and become Vergil? From the time his father ripped off his arm to when V had Nero carry him all the way up the qliphoth, then V hadn’t been around for more than a couple months. Watching V crumble, he just couldn’t tell what the hell V was. If living together was the only way for V and his familiars to live, he supposes he can see that happening.
“We’re on our last dredges, kid. We’ll be dead soon, and we were hoping to die taking down Dante! Save Vergil, give him a life he just got back,” Griffon sighs, “...My point is, kid, I want you to make a contract with us. Set the rules, we’ll follow, but we just want to save your old man. That’s it, save him.”
Nero stares blankly for a moment. Save him— yeah, Vergil and Dante are probably trying to kill each other right now. He stares at the top of the qliphoth. The energy teeming up there is pure demonic hostility. His brows furrow when he thinks about it more.
“To have all that power, just to kill each other?” He asks, not looking for an answer.
Power… He remembers holding the Yamato for the first time and wanting more power. But all he wanted it for was to protect his family— you can’t protect what you love without power, he knows that. Power’s useless if you’re not protecting something.
Hoping for an answer this time, Nero asks, “How will I save them?” Griffon lets out a breath of relief and Shadow chuffs, seemingly untensing.
“Well, make the contract with us and then… I can tell you’ve got a big heart kid, I’m sure you’ll do the right thing,” Griffon tells him, a firm nod of finality.
“All right, guess we’re doing this,” Nero says, holding his hand out. He’s not sure how the pacts work, but the familiars get the memo. Griffon and Shadow dissolve into a black mist that starts wrapping itself around Nero. He feels panicked for a moment, but bites down on the feeling when he reminds himself that this is how V kept them on his person.
He closes his eyes, almost anticipating pain, but all he feels is a ticklish sensation all over himself, and a vague sensation of fear. He digs his fingers into his palms to ground himself, lest he be overwhelmed. Over the exhaustion, the ringing in his ears, and stinging on his face, he almost feels rejuvenated. The familiars melding into his skin bring with them a new energy— it’s simultaneously nice and disgusting, he thinks.
When the familiars finally settle themselves into his skin, he opens his eyes and takes a deep breath. They materialize beside him, and Shadow presses themself against Nero’s leg. He feels an attempt at comfort coming from them.
As he studies the presently faint, foreign tattoos on his left hand, he hears Griffon say, “Come on, big guy, we need you, too! Look, me and kitty went with the kid.” When Nero turns to see what’s going, he sees that Nightmare is standing off to the side, its eye staring intensely at Nero and the familiars.
Nero offers out its hand, too, unsure if it’ll accept. Griffon and Shadow understood what it meant, but maybe Nightmare didn’t think the gesture applied to it, too.
Suddenly, Griffon and Shadow are knocked away, and Nero is engulfed in Nightmare’s black goop. For a moment, Nero feels like he’s drowning. The panic, the weariness, the surprise, Nero wonders if Nightmare has decided to kill him.
All of a sudden, he’s an inky blank space, and in front of him there is a man submerged in the black sludge. He is unhealthy. Purple-ish skin is cracked. His hair is a mess, and looks like it was shaped with clay, with how filthy and grimy it seemed. But as Nero studies it more, he can see that the hair is white and pushed back. It reminds him vaguely of Vergil—
Nightmare. Vergil. Is this what V’s familiars are? Where they come from? Vergil looks so dead, like he is barely his own person. He’s wearing armor that reminds him of the Angelos…
Thinking on it, he read through Nico’s notes. He read about the angelos. Apparently, it’s possible for humans to be enslaved and forced into angelo armor, their humanity relinquished with no hope of getting it back. The Black Knight. It’s just a legend, but seeing Vergil’s face planted on that armor? Nero thinks that maybe it’s not. Sometimes legends come from a bit of truth.
And it doesn’t matter if the Black Knight existed or who they were, Vergil very clearly was an angelo. And if Nightmare, one of Vergil’s ‘abominable thoughts’ is showing this, setting it up so that it’s the only thing Nero sees, then it must be something that traumatized Vergil.
As he’s putting all the pieces together, a glowing purple sphere rises from the ground. For a moment, Nero thinks he’s being offered a purple orb. Except what surfaces instead looks like an eye, and then he realizes that this is Nightmare’s eye.
Nightmare’s sludge swirls around it, reminding Nero of Shadow and Griffon’s stalemate.
Is Nightmare offering Nero its core or whatever this eye-thing is? Why didn’t it just engulf him like the other two did? He takes a moment to grab the core, and is immediately nauseated by the feeling of suddenly rising. He feels himself fall. He feels his hair get heavier. He feels something nudge him.
When he gets enough clarity to realize he’s no longer encased in Nightmare’s sludge, he realizes that he’s laying on the floor, Griffon and Shadow peering down at him in what could only be worry.
“You all right, kid?” Griffon asks. His head is tilted so that his eyes can get a better look at Nero. Nero shoves his face away and gets up. He runs his hand through his hair and looks at the top of the Qliphoth.
Vergil was an angelo once before. Somehow, he no longer is.
Nero remembers what V said about wanting to be protected. Power… It protects. Is this Vergil’s fucked up way of coping?
“I get it now,” Nero says as clenches his fists.
He wills the familiars back into his body, and they go without protest.
“He just needs…” Nero starts walking towards the edge of the platform.
He doesn’t know how he’ll get to the top of the Qliphoth in time to save them both, but he will.
“I couldn’t protect Credo.”
He will save them, Vergil and Dante.
“To this day, I hate myself for not having enough strength.”
He just needs to start moving, or else he’ll never get there.
“But this time is different.”
He’ll save them, he’ll make sure of it— nothing will stop him.
“I swear! I’m not letting you die!”
Wings manifest behind Nero and it’s instinct that has him jumping off the ground. It’s adrenaline that doesn’t let him stop to think about what he’s doing. It’s determination that keeps him flying.
3:56pm