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Chapter Text

They fall through the portal because they have, in a fit of bored curiosity and not much forethought, messed around with the Yamato and her dimensional cutting powers. Without informing anyone else, of course. Because they are technically fifty and as such perfectly reasonable and responsible adults all on their own, thank you very much.

Well, looking up at the rapidly closing ring of trembling energy that is going to leave them stranded here in three-two-one-gone, most of the time they are perfectly reasonable and responsible adults. When they aren't reckless idiots, at least.

Though their theory seems sound, at least. That cut, and the resulting pathway, were a lot more unstable than Dante is used to from travelling with the Yamato. Which could very well be caused by having to bridge a far greater distance than normal. Like across multiple universes or whatever. Far enough to make this a completely, wholly new dimension, rather than just another place on earth or the very closely connected underworld.

Yay for working together to achieve that. Teamwork for the win.

Makes a man wonder what else the Yamato can cut if they put enough juice into her. Someone told him once that time is an aspect of space or something. At least tangentially. Food for thought, that. And probably some actual research, if they don't want a repeat performance of getting tossed out in the middle of nowhere with no clue where they are. But that is for later. Now there is a much more immediate problem. Namely where they are and how they will get back home.

Without the Yamato.

Because neither of them were really prepared to be sucked into the wibbly wobbly portal like that and they both lost their grip on the Devil Arm in the tumble. Pretty embarrassing, that. Amateurish, even. He firmly decides to blame the fact that the katana is not made to be handled by two people at the same time. Even if the two people in question are twins extraordinarily good at working together and handling weapons. That sounds much better than the truth, which is that they were unprepared idiots.

Whoops and all that.

Dante squints up at the bright blue sky where the portal hovered just seconds before and can't help but laugh a little bit. Legendary sons of Sparda, right here. Unparalleled fighting prowess. Such control. Much forethought.

He turns his head to the right and eyes his brother, currently laying splayed out beside him, and has to tamp down on another fit of giggles. Vergil is scowling the magnificent scowl only an itty bitty teenager is capable of, glowering at the world as a whole. Of course the perfectionist is going to be cranky about accidentally chucking themselves into another... world? Dimension? Universe? What have you? Dante needs to figure out the correct terminology here.

Leaving his fussy twin to his stewing about the limitations of their easily distractible fifteen year old bodies he heaves himself up into sitting cross legged. He cracks his spine in a few twists and turns, and then looks around curiously.

Very colourful trees, really bright sun, nary a cloud in sight. Some stray flowers and lots of shrubbery. They seem to have landed in a small little forest clearing. Or maybe made a small little forest clearing, what with their rather violent surprise landing. Judging by the broken branches and squashed plants all around them, it's probably the second one. It all smells like picture perfect nature untouched by man.

Dante curls his nose at the starkly fresh air. It's kinda itchy and he nearly sneezes at the wholesome cleanness of it all. Give him a city any day of the week over this.

He can't feel any demonic or infernal energy. In fact, he can't feel any energy around that he recognizes at all. Rather, when he expands his sensing to get a feel of this new world, all he finds is an unfamiliar, exited, bubbly force that skitters around his senses like little bugs with a thousand feet now that he concentrates on it. Loudly. Getting louder with every second he looks. He cringes at the suddenly very distracting sensation. Yikes, no. Bad. Let's not.

Vergil, ever obsessively alert to his surroundings and Dante most of all, abruptly snaps out of his dark mutterings and turns to him like a bloodhound sensing pray. Dante would tease him about it, but he is a bit too distracted right now, trying to grapple his senses back under control. The energy of this world is really very different from what he is used to parsing and does not like him much at all, on top of that. The overwhelming glamour is like an icepick stabbing into his head. Dante can't recommend the experience, it's awful, ouch. No matter how much he tries to pull back, the sensations just get louder and brighter, until it feels like his whole head throbs with every little move of everything around them.

Adapt, adapt, adaaaaapt, please and thank you.

When he squints to look, his brother is hunched over beside him and looks like he is going to be sick any second now. Yeah. Dante sure feels that. He tilts himself over until he face plants ungracefully into Vergil's lap. His twin pushes his forehead into the back of Dante's shoulder in turn. They weave their energies together, creating a dense little cocoon of infernal power that shuts off nearly all outside influences, damping the dizzying sensations for the moment. He groans into Vergil's thigh, slightly light headed at the sudden, blessed silence.

They must have travelled really far, if their demonic natures have such a hard time adjusting to this new world. He is usually much better at handling differences in the world around him. Dante's never had such problems before, even if he blithely wandered into cursed pocket dimensions and over dimensional rifts spanning ages while in hell.

After a few seconds he manages to readjust enough that he doesn't feel like clawing his eyes and ears out of his skull any more, so that's nice. He groans mutely and curls closer to his brother, content to just stay like this, actually. Maybe they can take a nap. He is pretty sure sleeping out in nature is supposed to be good for the soul or some such rot.

Sadly, that is the exact moment his very excitable teenage hormones kick into high gear. They very eagerly tell him all about how nice his brother smells and how good it feels to have Vergil so close, energies wrapped up in each other headily. Inevitably, a spike of warm arousal curls in his belly. Damn the horniness that has overtaken them both with a vengeance in the last year. Reliving puberty a second time is sure an experience. Dante forcefully stamps his devil's natural reaction to its twin's proximity down and wrenches his thoughts away from how much he loves bathing in his twin's energy and how very much he really desperately wants to climb his brother like a tree.

Dante steadfastly ignores it all. Mind out of the gutter, now. Not yet, not yet.

He takes a steadying breath, not the best idea with Vergil so mouthwateringly close, turns his head to the side and opens his eyes in search for distractions. He is utterly unsurprised to see Vergil's identical ones gazing back at him in amusement from right before his nose. This does not help his hormones at all. Which Vergil absolutely knows, the ass. Dante rolls his eyes and then rolls himself off of his brother's lap, before that can become a problem. He sprawls out before in the grass instead.

"So that was wild. Let's not do it again," he declares, in an effort to divert his dirty, dirty thoughts.

Vergil is clearly feeling very nice, as he provides a nice distraction. Or he is suffering the same problem. "There is some strange wildlife around, I think. It seems to be hiding from our presence."

Dante casts about to focus on what his brother is feeling, a bit leery of inviting another round of awful ice picks into his head. The annoying static buzz from before is gone, though, and the vertigo is fast fading, his devil finally adapted enough to the new environment to handle it easily. Took long enough, but Dante will take it.

He gives his twin a cursory once over to see if he has recovered properly too, though. Finds him looking back with a raised eyebrow, for all intents and purposes back to his composed self. Dante grins up at him, preening a bit at having his brother's undivided attention even after the many years he has had it now. He certainly isn't going to complain about becoming the replacement for the obsession with power. Not at all.

Whoop, there go the bad thoughts again.

With a fast jackknife he propels himself up to standing. Cracks his spine with a loud pop to let the rest of the tension flow out of his body, getting rapidly replaced by eager energy. Now that he doesn't feel like puking from the vertigo, he wants to explore what weirdness they have landed in. It's bound to be interesting, with the way they have reacted to getting tossed here. Many new things to explore for sure.

"Let's go explore, yeah?" he says, extending his hand. "No use waiting around until pap notices what happened and comes to pick us up. With the Yamato and the Rebellion back home we are pretty much stranded here, might as well go explore."

Vergil sighs, eyes him dubiously for a moment longer -which is just rude-, but finally takes the offered hand. With a quick, forceful tug that nearly unbalances Dante he pulls himself up, turning in a circle to take in the scenery. "Fine. Let's go that way."

Dante glowers playfully at him for the attempt at downing him, but gets distracted by some truly strange looking bird in the far distance before he can retaliate.

"Hm?" Dante belatedly asks. "Where?"

Vergil nods in the direction of a nearby mountain range, blandly returning Dante's questioning look.

"The mountains look interesting," he says, already starting to walk towards them.

Dante follows him easily, humming as he catches Vergil's hand in his own, swinging them back and forth. They could have landed themselves in a much worse situation, all in all. This looks like a fun adventure to be had, and he doesn't mind a little field trip as long as he has Vergil with him.

Their father will notice their absence soon enough, but finding the way to the right dimension will be tricky and take time, even for the legendary demon knight Sparda. The fact that a pathway has been cut once ensures it can be done again, and much easier too, so Dante isn't unduly worried about not getting back home. It's just a waiting game now. Might as well enjoy this weird dimension while they are here. Vergil squeezes his fingers and doesn't bother to stop the swinging, so Dante knows he is on the same page.

Vacation time it is.

Chapter Text

It takes a bit of time for them to notice it. They are admittedly distracted by the, really very brightly coloured, world to be explored. And the weird critters scurrying around. Dante swears he sees a mutant rat through the trees, though it disappears underground before he can make it out properly.

It isn't until he is turns that he notices it, in fact. His eyes follow the flight of a truly massive chicken overhead, that has the most interesting call. Incredibly high and weirdly technological for a supposed flesh and blood creature. Though he definitely hears a faint heartbeat from it. He has definitely never heard anything like that before. When he prods at it with his energy, it startles badly, veering off course. Wings beat erratically as it tumbles down, trying to right itself.

Oops. Definitely did not mean to actually down the thing. 

Dante blinks, startled himself. Wow, talk about an overreaction. Most animals at home don't care when he brushes their energy so lightly, even if they don't like his demonic presence very much. Weird. He follows the wobbly path it takes with his eyes, turning even more even as he keeps pace with Vergil. Peering through the foliage to see if he can catch a hint of a crash landing, his gaze finally lands on where they have stepped through the dense undergrowth.

Formerly dense undergrowth.

There is a rather stark difference now. The path they have taken is very visible now. He stops abruptly, arm tugged back by their joined hands when Vergil doesn't immediately notice and keeps going. His brother must be distracted himself. 

"Dante-?" Vergil abruptly breaks off.

"Yeeeah," Dante nods absent-mindedly, eyes stuck on their footsteps. "We got corrosive since the last time I checked, brother dear."

There is a destroyed swathe through the forest, right where they have walked. Stark and desolate against the otherwise lush nature flanking it. Where they have brushed past the plants are decaying, greying and flaking off into ashy bits. It looks like they are getting eaten by acidic poison, actually. He looks down at his feet. The grass around his boots is slowly but steadily dying, turning as grey and dull as everything else where it's not all out dissolving nearest to him.

Dante remembers fighting a higher demon once, whose spit ate through anything it touched. Cost him one of his favourite coats, back when he didn't yet know how to properly mend fabric with magic. It was such an annoying fight. He would know if he was corrosive to his environment like that, right? At least he is pretty sure he would have noticed by now. That's definitely noteworthy. Never mind that their mother would have had a few things to say about it, if they randomly started destroying their surroundings without even doing anything at all.

Vergil hums thoughtfully and then flares his magic like he is just about to trigger. It leaves Dante breathless as always, eyes flicking over as if magnetised. Sadly, he can't enjoy the show properly, as he gets once again distracted by the fact that the blue power seems to be eating away at the very foundation of the world around his twin. His immediate surrounding are rapidly disintegrating and burning away, the fabric of space groaning like the Yamato is slowly cutting into it. Even the trees further out are beginning to groan and crunch, like they are under sudden immense pressure.

Just a second of it leaves Dante and Vergil standing in a small circle of barren, scorched earth and not much else. It's deathly quiet around them now, the previous low noise of nature utterly silent. 

Vergil tamps his energy output back down. 

Dante blinks placidly at the destruction his twin has wrought. "Yeah, let's not do that again."

"It seems demonic energy is indeed caustic to this world," Vergil muses, sounding interested.

Yeah, that nicely explains why there is no trace of demonic presence to be sensed, too. In their own world even the most sheltered of places have a faint trace of sulphur to them. This universe has probably never even encountered anything infernal before now. Very strange. All other worlds and dimensional planes Dante has visited were connect to hell in one way or another and therefore tainted by it. Not so here, it seems.

"If we have this effect, I don't think the people here are going to like us very much, you know," he says, toeing at a skeletal remains of a flower stalk beside him. It disintegrates under his boot.

Vergil opens his mouth to respond but stops abruptly, going as wide eyed as he ever gets. Looking past Dante and then up. And up. And uuuuup.

The hairs on the back of Dante's neck stand on end. He feels adrenaline abruptly crash trough his limbs, his whole body readying itself for the sudden awareness of something big. The world around him simply stops, not even the wind rustling through the trees any more. Like time has frozen and only he and Vergil are left unaffected in the middle of it.

Something is behind him. 

And whatever it is, it's absolutely blazing with power.

Waves of pressure are buffeting over Dante like raw needles and his demon swells up in defence, infernal heat hungrily crawling under his skin trying to push back against whatever it is doing. The energy feels like the floor under his feet and the sky above his head and the air he is breathing. Like it is in everything, made from the very essence of the world. 

Or, rather, the world is made of it. 

Before he can grapple that revelation into something digestible, that same power wraps around him like a vice and locks him in place, no matter how much he tries to fight against the hold. He calls for the Rebellion, pulling on his power to trigger in the same breath. His sword doesn't come, leaning against a tree back home where he put her while they had fun with the Yamato. Neither does his power. It feels like there is a glass wall suddenly between him and his demon. The next instinctual, little bit panicked, call for one of his many Devil Arms earns him similarly nothing. He didn't take any with him. They were just fooling around in the garden, there was no need for weapons.

Dante has nerves of steel and the power and experience to back them up. Still, he thinks, as foreign power pulls and pushes at him, this is admittedly a little bit terrifying.

Stupefied shock cuts right through the terrified adrenaline high when he is forced to turn around on his heel and then the tight grip around him disappears. 

He blinks widely up at the thing before them.

It's a goat.

A huge, alien looking goat. That may or may not have had an unfortunate encounter with a golden wheel and then hyped itself some of the really nice power ups. 

Huh. 

That's a new one.

Dante's never fought a stupidly overpowered goat before.

"What creature are you, to so easily breach my world?" 

The voice echoes in his head. It sounds like a gong going off directly beside his ears and the whisper of wind whistling through trees and the unending void of space. It feels horrifyingly powerful, far more than any other creature he has ever met. Even the various kings of hell can't compare with it. 

It's a goat.

Dante can't take it seriously at all.

"You do not belong here, intruders."

His lips twitch up into a big grin in reaction to the underlying threat that rattles through his bones. Fighting instincts abruptly skyrocketing as his devil perks up with blood lust. Devil Hunting has definitely screwed his instincts right off the rails when meeting overwhelming foes like this, even considering how his demonic blood already makes him stupidly bloodthirsty. As aptly contrasted by Vergil, whose reaction of cautious, guarded wariness is far more sensible and therefore boring. His brother's eyes twitch to him, very obviously knowing what goes on inside Dante's head and trying to plan around it. He clearly doesn't want to antagonise the possible actual god they have found themselves in front of. At least not without some research first. Because his twin is a wet blanket that does not see the fun of throwing themselves into danger and enjoying some spontaneity. No, he wants to know what is going on before he mercilessly annihilates his enemies and has his fun with them.

Sadly for Vergil's peace of mind, Dante has made pissing off overwhelmingly powerful beings he knows next to nothing about not only his job, but also his pride and joy in life. He is not about to slack off just because he is now an itty bitty teenager without said job and still nearly a head shorter than what he will eventually end up at. Admittedly, he also just really loves the adrenaline rush it always gives him. 

Not going to admit that to Vergil, though. His twin is liable to do something drastic in reaction, like taking it as an excuse to trap him in bubble wrap and lock him up in a witch tower in the name of keeping him from being 'stupendously reckless, you idiot', or something similarly senseless. Dante would break out in under two hours, anyway. The bubble wrap will admittedly keep him distracted for a good one and a half of those first. Popping it just feels so satisfying.

Anyway. Back to stupidly overpowered goats.

"What's it to ya?" he grins, voice just this side of goading. 

He can feel Vergil's glare boring into the side of his head and bounces on the balls of his feet in excitement. The subsonic growl can only mean Vergil does not appreciate this. Very sad for him. Dante is now having fun and not about to give that up.

The alien goat turns its head down and projects the air of a mother exasperatedly looking at her toddler who has just stuffed a cookie into his mouth and with still bulging cheeks holds out a hand for another. Even if the mother in question here seems to be a primordial being of epic godhood, Dante still knows this feeling very well. Eva looks at him like that a lot. He tries the same tactic of beaming back with all the innocence he can muster, which is admittedly not a lot but he is good at pretending. The goat huffs, just like Eva would, and the oppressive feeling of its aura cuts down a lot. Going from kind of terrifying to something akin to scolding. 

Nice. That always works like a charm.

His grin widens. Vergil also calms down at this obvious sign that the alien goat doesn't want to squash them below a fabulously golden hoof. Very nice.

Time to poke some more at the probably not evil god or whatever.

"What are you?" Vergil deftly cuts in before Dante can even open his mouth. "You are admittedly very powerful, but we have never met something like you."

Hm. Dante has become too predictable, if Vergil can outwit him like this. This is definitely a problem he will need to fix soon.

"I am Arceus, the creator of everything within this universe."

That sounds like a huge deal, and Dante would be suitably impressed, really. If not for his many, many bounties who all introduced themselves similarly grandly, like the overly arrogant bigheads they always are. Alien goat thing seems to be the real deal, as opposed to all the other pricks he faced and subsequently stomped into the ground, but the tone of voice still stokes the immediate need to make fun of it. It's really just instinct by this point. He opens his mouth to try again, and gets Vergil's elbow firmly shoved into his ribs.

"I do not know what you are, but your nature and existence is upsetting the balance of this world. Your energy is not compliant to our own. I cannot allow you to further corrupt my world,"  the goat thing continues. 

Dante snaps his mouth back shut. What is it with this conversation and not allowing him to get a word in edge wise? Why is everyone out to ruin his fun today? This is bullying.

The maybe actual god raises one of those fabulously golden hoofs and then slams it down into the ground. 

The world shakes apart. 

Like he has been pushed out of synchrony with existence, Dante's mind spins out of control. Everything is too much and too little and his body feels like it's being split apart and made anew.

"It is done," Arceus voice echoes in his fraying thoughts, like a pleasant warmth flowing over the sharp edges of broken perception. He fights desperately to make sense of what is happening. "You may roam my world freely until you leave this domain and return to your own."

Dante's consciousness swims, he can't concentrate. Sense and understanding slip-slides away from his grasp. His world reducing to pulsing lights flaring in a cacophony of colours he barely comprehends. There is something, something he is loosing. Growing small and distressingly mute, running through his grasp.

"You will return to your nature once you leave." 

Arceus voice is so far away, fading in and out. Darkness is encroaching on him like a muffling veil. He calls for Vergil but can't tell if he even makes a sound or where his brother is, fear seeping into his heart like a familiar nightmare - "Sleep. Rest. You will feel much better once you wake up." - and he slips away into fretful unconsciousness.

"Go south. There you will find help from Professor Oak."

Chapter Text

Vergil wakes with a violent start, already springing into action before he is fully aware. There are no traces left of the power of the strange being, Arceus. Still, he remains wary, bristling wings and spikes and energy, a growl vibrating through his chest to scare off any possible attackers.

A cursory search shows no immediate danger in their surroundings, but he remains leery, waiting.

Nothing reacts, nothing is there.

Even the wildlife that they have seen previous to his experiment with infernal energy is silent. Once again cowered by the show of aggression, if it hasn't outright fled the commotions. Still, he remains tense, anticipating something worse.

But still, nothing attacks them, no trap shows its teeth. The being has completely disappeared, as fast as it has shown itself to them.

He still holds ready for a few minutes longer, careful to make sure they are safe. Long years of being hunted locking him in place. 

When his instincts finally settle from the instinctual need to fight and he is satisfied they are no longer in danger, he drops down to his knees at Dante's side. Deftly, not allowing himself to hesitate in fright, he feels for his presence, fingers finding his throat. With a small sigh of relief he finds his twin simply asleep, instead of anything worse he may have feared. Dante's mind and presence are a calm deep sea against his own when he brushes against him, though mostly insensate in sleep. Prodding deeper earns him a muzzy mental push and furrowed brows, but no waking. Still. The reaction finally settles his nerves.

They are both fine and reasonably healthy, no matter what the thing has done to them. 

Deeply relieved he curves his hand to his brother's cheek, intent to let the feeling of him settle the rest of his uneasiness. The skin, even dotted with leathery scales, is warm against his fingers. Full of life. Dante is alive. For a too long second he sees his brother's face drawn in pain, deathly pale and twisted- but he forces it aside. Dante is fine. Healthy. Merely sleeping like Vergil was before. They are both safe. Whatever the being may have done to them, how they have been changed, it is not threatening their immediate existence. They have time to figure out what has happened and how to reverse it.

He breaths deeply to centre himself and then determinedly sets about assessing their condition. 

Now that he isn't merely intent to ensure their safety and little else, he takes a better look at his brother. The fact that Dante has not woken up even with Vergil throwing so much aggression and power around is worrisome. But his twin's devil pulses in synchrony with his own, his energy and life wafting out from him in the reassuringly strong pulses Vergil is used to.

Before he can even think about what he is doing he opens his mouth, letting air caress a suddenly much more sensitive tongue. The taste and scent of his brother remains mostly the same, though the usual demonic spice and ash is far too muted. Nearly covered by an added component Vergil can't quite place, strangely warm and energetic. Peculiar. He rumbles deep in his chest, a demon calling out for its sibling, and Dante instinctively answers back, even in sleep. Their infernal instincts are still intact then and Vergil can yet feel his own demonic energy curled inside him. Ready and calm for the moment, though far dimmer than he would like.

For long moments he tries different things to break through the strange barrier keeping his devil contained. Nothing works, no matter what he tries. And no doubt the being would simply appear again, were he to manage freeing his devil. And do something infinitely worse, than this hopefully benign transformation.

In the end he has to admit defeat, not able to access his infernal energies properly.

It is a logical transformation, as much as it galls him to admit it. The flaring of his demonic energy to nearly a trigger was what corrupted the plants around him. It would make sense for Arceus to mute it, in protection of its world. At least it is still there and not completely removed from him. Vergil does not have to like it, in fact hates to be so cut off from his demonic essence like little else, but he will have to content himself with it for now. There is nothing they can do about the change it seems, not without more information. 

Still, it is certainly an offence. And certainly a reason to find a way home sooner rather than later. He will not tolerate his demon being shoved down for long, no matter how much he has come to accept his human side by now.

Well, wallowing about his inability to do anything about their transformation is not going to help right now. He shifts his attention back to his twin instead, and finally takes the time to observe the physical changes to him. In his agitation he thought Dante triggered before, but looking at him now his form differs quite a bit from either of his triggers.

Sinewy wings half wrapped around him, a long tail tipped with spikes burning red, the familiar claws and talons. Body half human and half what Vergil would call demonic, but he doubts that now. His face, framed by sleek horns sprouting from glowing white hair, is human and peaceful, though scales break up the skin along his chin and down his throat. It seems an alien, though quite alluring mix between his human form and the two riggers. Vergil's mouth runs dry seeing it, his pulse quickens. He can't help but be fascinated by his beautiful brother, always, and this form is exquisitely lovely indeed. Warm arousal pools in his gut the longer he stares, fingers itching to touch. Oh, he so wants to taste all that lush-

Their mother's warding sends a strong warning pulse through him and abruptly brings Vergil back from his thoughts. He rocks back on his heels with a low curse, unconsciously having leaned in to loom over his brother's decadently sprawled form. Frustration wells up in him in the wake of desire. For nearly eight years now they have waited to properly express their love for each other. Admittedly for the better, no matter how much Vergil's much older mind may chafe at it. Their bodies were far too young before. But now the end is so near he can taste it, can taste Dante -

He grits his teeth together and allows himself a short moment to stew in impatient aggravation before he searches for a distraction in taking stock of his own changes.

As far as he can tell, it is similar enough to his brother's. It feels to him like he is fully triggered, though there is an additional element to it that he cannot properly place, filmy and acidic, dark and predatory. Even more curious, this form does not take any effort to be upheld. Their devil triggers have a time limit, a certain amount they can keep it up before they run out of energy and have to revert to a more human body. But that drain is completely absent in this form. It feels natural and effortless, like he can maintain it for days with no problem at all. That will certainly be very useful.

He tries to let go of it all the same, leery of being stuck in one form, and finds it possible but far harder than he would expect. With enough concentration his hide and claws dissipate into his skin, but he has to constantly think of keeping them contained to maintain the human veneer. Possibly with more familiarity he will be able to change back and forth more easily, but for now he is stuck looking quite inhuman, it seems. Vergil does not have a problem with this, though should they encounter human beings in this world it may become a hindrance.

He summons energy into his palm, letting it burn in a small flame. It has a strange spiced taste to it, forming softly curling tendrils that are quite smoke like. There is a faint purple tint to the normally blue colouring, too. Though he cannot feel much difference when he feels it with his hands. Interesting.

With a flick of his wrist he summons his spectral blades. They feel different too. His demonic instincts prick at the discrepancy, discontented by the change of one of his favourite moves. The infernal well in his core that fuels his attacks has a corrosive quality to it now, that he is not used to handling and his demon does not seem to like it much, even muted as it is. Still, the swords form as usual and the unpleasantness calms the more he practices with them. All other magic or energy based attacks he tries out feel much the same.

The Yamato is obviously not with him and he doesn't normally use any other Devil Arm save for loaning one from Dante, so physical fighting and magic is all he can do for now. It galls him not to have his sword at hand so far from home. And if he remembers correctly, Dante did not take any Arms with him beside the Rebellion, either. They were out in the back of the yard, after all, and had no reason to prepare for anything more than simply fooling around.

Foolish, but it is what it is. 

Presumably something as powerful as Arceus is not the rule here and they won't be as unprepared the next time they meet the being, either. When he and Dante work together, they can take down anyone in their path if they try hard enough, it won't be a problem. Still, it leaves a bad taste in his mouth to be unarmed. And worse still, there is no possibility for them to grab proper weapons here, as there are no demons to be hunted down and turned into Arms. Human made steel, if it even exists in this world, breaks far too easily under their brutal handling. How utterly aggravating.

Dante is still sleeping when he turns to look at him, insensate to the world. The sun has wandered quite a bit already. A curl of unease twists through Vergil, but his brother's presence is still steady and strong, his breathing calmly even. Vergil will let him continue sleeping for a few more hours, before he will take to waking him up. Their burned clearing is safe for now, the surrounding wildlife keeping their distance still from the displays of power he has made all afternoon. Even if it is far more exposed than Vergil would like, it will do while Dante sleeps.

Insistent hunger finally calls his attention to some rustling bushes further out. Whatever it is that has happened to their bodies, it leaves him quite ravenous. A slow grin forms on his face at the thought of getting food. It has been a while since he was able to enjoy a good hunt for something to eat. Not needing to do so any more, not after he has finally left hell behind for the second time. And having food ready to force on his stubborn twin when he is still too sleepy to protest, will be a boon in that particular struggle between the two of them, too.

He stalks off through the nearby trees, always keeping a careful eye on his brother, while he searches for proper prey. A hulking bird that is bigger than even Griffon was finally catches his eye. With a violent twist of magic he rips at its vulnerable throat, catching hold of it as it staggers in surprise and pushing it down through the trashing. Surprising that it hasn't gone down immediately, he will give it that. His blood, new and old, glories in the desperate struggles of his pray. Ignoring the powerful blows of the wings with ease, he waits until it finally bleeds its last under his magic and sharp claws. Their durability and healing thankfully hasn't been taken away, so he weathers the surprisingly strong attacks easily enough. Soon enough the bird looses its struggle and Vergil drags the carcass back to their clearing. 

His tail waves contentedly behind him as he settles down and sets about shearing off the feathers and gutting out the bones and undesirable innards, flicking them off into the forest to provide as dung or food for some other critters. Faintly he can hear little claws dragging some of the bones away into what sounds like a hole in the ground. He idly wonders what kind of creature it could be as he listens to its feasting.

----

Dante, after he finally wakes up from his long nap, is of course frustratingly unaffected by the universe once again throwing a curve ball at them. His twin's ability to so easily adapt to just about any situation is incredibly attractive but also quite frustrating. Mostly because Vergil himself has a harder time with such sudden upheavals.

Still, a small smile sneaks onto his lips as he watches Dante twist and turn a few times in an effort to get used to the changes. His brother has a carelessly elated grin on his own lips, red magic skittering up and down his body mesmerizingly. 

Well. As long as his twin is there with him, Vergil supposes he can handle anything thrown at him too, content to be swept along wherever their whims may take them. There is a peace in that, one he sorely lacked in his previous life, even if he hasn't ever been consciously aware of what he was missing before.

Finished with his contortions and settled into his new form just a few seconds after waking up, Dante turns to him, an expectant eyebrow up. "So that just happened. Fun. Let's go find that tree doc the space goat told us about. Pine or whatever."

Just because Vergil adores his sometimes careless attitude nowadays does not mean he has to make it obvious or easy for his aggravatingly blasé brother. He turns fully to Dante with his face drawn into an unimpressed scowl, and just stares for an excruciatingly long while, letting them descend into awkward silence. Dante smiles winningly. Vergil remains perfectly unimpressed. A marble statue in the face of Dante's mischievous grin. 

Right up until he sighs in defeat and gives in as always. 

"But of course," he grouses all the same, chucking a peace of meat at the idiot, who at least has the sense to not protest being force fed. "Let us follow the direction of the insanely powerful creature that modified our bodies with no explanation whatsoever. Who we don't know and still can't be sure has benevolent intentions. Yes, that does indeed sound like such a marvelous plan."

"That's the spirit!" his twin chirps, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

He accepts the second and even third piece that Vergil foists on him, chewing contentedly. Probably as hungry as Vergil has been after that change, then. Dante isn't normally content to go down without a fight about food, after all. It has become a bit of a competition between them, after all.

Food polished off he turns in a circle, before unerringly settling on south with the precision their demonic instincts give them. Well, what is presumably south. Vergil can only speculate that this world's compass works the same as theirs.

"It's Professor Oak, actually," he corrects belatedly.

"Yep. Tree doc. Just like I said." Dante's grin is blinding and disgustingly endearing. 

Vergil loves him enough to lay this world and every other at his feet, if only he would want it. He sighs again, not bothering to hold it like he would in polite company or before enemies. Controlling himself is utterly useless when Dante can read him like a book made for children and will therefore still get his amusement out of exasperating him, even if Vergil fights to not show it.

"C'mon, Verge, it's better than wandering around at random." Dante starts towards the trees, knowing full well that Vergil will follow him. "And who knows, maybe we'll find a way back home without having to rely on pap to come pick us up like unruly teenagers."

"We are unruly teenagers."

Dante gasps in mock outrage and whirls around to face him with the most affected look of insult on his face. "You talk for yourself, I'm a delight!"

Vergil lifts an unimpressed eyebrow while Dante effortlessly walks backwards, swerving around the trees and plants without looking. 

"Must I remind you, little brother, about who it was that landed in the pond due to trying to balance on a too thin branch?"

"Hah, hearsay and conjecture. Not admissible in court." He wirls back around with a whistle, doing a completely unnecessary pirouette while he is at it. 

His tail makes a mesmerising arc through the air that Vergil can't quite keep his eyes from following. His own tail swishes contentedly in reflexive answer to Dante's dramatics.

"Sadly for you," Vergil says archly instead of grinning openly, "I have photographic evidence. You looked like a drowned cat, by the way. Very sad and miserable."

"And you looked like a cute little bedraggled ferret, the last time you landed in the pond."

"Did not."

"Did too."

----

"Oh hey, signpost. Let's see. Route 22, or Route 1 and Pallet Town, Viridian City goes over there... huh."

"Let's go this way, this follows south. Dante? - No."

"This tree looks hilarious, Verge. Come see."

"You are getting distracted."

"Is that honey? That looks like a honey comb. Cool."

"You are going to get stung."

"Tastes like honey too."

"..."

"Want some? Come on, it's nice and sweet, you will love it."

".... Fine."

"Good, right?"

"It is surprisingly good, yes. Now, let's go that way."

"But there are more interesting trees this way."

"You wanted to go south and meet the professor."

"Verge. Psychedelic trees. With weird critters creepy crawling all over them. What more could you want."

"A bed, Dante."

"Adventure, Verge. Without annoying low life demons interrupting us every five minutes."

"Oh, like the annoying bee that interrupted us just now? That you stole the honey from?"

"Come on, Verge, that was nothing. Also, very weird bee."

"We don't need another detour just because you got distracted."

"Fine, let's fight for it."

"We are not going to fight until we know how we got changed."

"Ugh fine. We don't have to fight fight. We can just do a game or whatever."

"Fight fight, little brother?"

"What? You knew exactly what I meant."

"...Fine. Rock paper scissors."

"Nice, I will definitely win then. You always choose rock."

"I do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Whatever. Let's just go. On three?"

"One, two, three."

The psychedelic trees are surprisingly fun. And indeed have more weird animals in them, and more weird bees too. That always attack when they shake the trunks, which makes for great entertainment. Some of those critters taste excellent roasted over a fire and drizzled with the honey. Not the pine cone one, though. Disgusting little thing. 

Chapter Text

Dante wakes up slowly, contently curled into his twin. Wings, legs and tails hopelessly tangled together. He hums and lazily rubs his cheek against Vergil's shoulder, before he buries himself closer, trying to flee the bright morning light. A comfortable purr starts up in his chest, much to his surprise.

Huh.

That's definitely new.

The arms around him tighten and pull him even closer as Vergil stirs in his sleep. The chest against his own begins to rumble in an answering purr. Dante firmly decides that he really doesn't want to wake up just yet. Their little cocoon of toasty warmth is much too comfortable to leave it. He determinedly closes his eyes and settles back down to laze the morning away. Vergil will want to sleep in anyway, Dante might as well join him.

Their sleepy bliss is violently destroyed when Vergil moves again. Dante adjusts with him and in the end his brother's thigh ends up pressed between his legs and he instinctively grinds down on it, sparking a warm wave of lazy arousal through his body. He has barely a split second to feel the heavy weight of Vergil's morning wood press against him before the ward erupts violently between them. 

In a split second they are forced apart and Dante is tossed back like something is shoved straight through his gut. With a startled yelp he rolls right into the tree trunk behind him. Said tree shakes widely from the impact, ouch, and shrill chittering explodes as the wildlife takes offence. Dante can commiserate, he too is offended. Bruises flash across his skin and immediately disappear, leaving him momentarily achy. A few leaves flutter down to land on his chest. 

He blinks at the canopy of green above him, noting Vergil growling on the other side of the clearing. His nerves are sparking, a bad mix of adrenaline and his overly eager teenage hormones bubbling into a toxic cocktail that leaves his heart pounding and his stomach vaguely nauseous. Feeling very much like using some of those truly foul words the mercenaries taught him so long ago, right now. His leg twitches in need to do something. Everything is in hyper sharp focus. Both his demon instincts and the weird new ones are going haywire.

What a bad wake up call.

Vergil has started cursing. It's getting increasingly creative. Dante is slowly coming down from the sudden adrenaline high and it feels like garbage. His lips twitch in stupefied amusement at the absurdity of the situation on the whole. 

Jeez. Here they are, in another dimension, turned into another kind of hybrid creature - because why not, right-, roughing it in nature like they haven't since their journey through hell so long ago. Blue balled by mam, even though she isn't even in the same dimension to laugh at their suffering. Vergil is still cursing and it's definitely things he learned from demons now. Probably exhausted his knowledge of human ones. Dante absent mindedly notes that demonic curses are just weird all around and often physically implausible.

The thing is. 

The thing is, Eva anchored the warding spell in Dante. He is the more receptive one to human magic and therefore the logical target for her work. It's at his fingertips, he can feel it rumbling merrily away in his gut. Active, sly, and content to keep them apart. Like mam is right there to sneakily stick her tongue out at him when no one else is looking. He definitely got his awful sense of humour from her. This is clearly all her fault. Vergil can just go to her to complain about his antics from now on.

Dante has used magic for decades now, even before he relearned everything properly at Eva's side. Used it to fight, to ward the shop, to seal curses and demons, to do everyday stuff. He is very good at magic. He is powerful. He is this close to ripping the stupid ward apart and riding his twin's cock until they both can't see straight any more, consequences be damned. 

The ward pulses at him and he can just see mother's disapproving look, mocking amusement barely hiding underneath it. Just taunting him. She is long over any misgivings she might have had about any sexual relations between them, now that they are no longer little kids in body. She also knows Dante could rip the spell apart if he put his mind to it. 

She's just waiting for him to give in, to admit defeat, so she can mock them for the rest of their lives about it. Hah. And people think they get their competitive nature from Sparda.

Darn it. He can't let her win. 

Waiting it is.

He lets his head fall back down with a dull thump. 

The ward will be active for a few hours now. Hours in which they won't be able to come closer than arms length. Dante breaths deeply and tries to calm his raging hormones. The loud excitement from his sudden introduction to the tree has calmed down at least. All is quiet and peaceful again. A bird is chirping in the distance. Leaves are rustling in the gentle breeze. 

Curse this stupidly sunny and beautiful day, it's mocking them. 

"This sucks," he declares, mostly to the world at large. 

Vergil curses affirmatively.

Dante looks at the canopy above him and very firmly reminds himself that this is a good thing and there is a good reason for it. Really. No breaking the ward early.

Vergil has stopped cursing and is now growling lowly. He is always very grumpy when he doesn't get to sleep in and that kind of wake up call isn't going to help with that. 

The noise rumbles pleasantly in Dante's bones. It's really not helping with his resolve.

Vergil sighs deeply from much too far away. 

"Just seven more weeks," he sounds more like he is trying to convince himself than anything else. "We can manage seven more weeks. We managed eight years."

Yeah, without inescapable teenage horniness to make it extra hard. Haha, the pun. Ugh. 

But Vergil did actually hit on something that cheers Dante up considerably. He, more attuned to the ward as its anchor and therefore able to keep track of it better than Vergil, hides a grin by turning away and doesn't correct his brother.

With a regretful last thought to the pleasantly lazy morning they just lost, he heaves himself up. Stretches his arms and back out luxuriously, lifting up on the balls of his feet, reaching fingertips brushing the leaves above him and causing something to rustle away into the crown in fright. 

When he looks over, Vergil is sprawled out on his back, limbs tossed all over the place, eyes closed against the morning sun. A deeply unimpressed scowl set on his face. 

Dante laughs at him, though his eyes do get kind of stuck for a few seconds. Vergil's glorious new form is on full display and there is warmth pooling in Dante's gut at the sight of the long lines of skin and scales and hide all nicely leading the eyes down to-. 

He turns away sharply, before he can be even more tempted. Too late to stop the observant bastard from purring in proprietary satisfaction though. Dante sticks his tongue out at him, more amused than anything. His own dark contentment at so obviously having his brother's attention nowadays curls like a purring beast in his belly. He may not have his brother's cock yet, but he has everything else, and soon the rest will follow suit.

Really, minor hiccups and blue balls aside, Dante's life is so good he still has moments he can't help but fear he is dreaming.

"Wanna continue going south now?" he asks, blithely ignoring that it's his own fault they have been off on a wild goose chase for the last day.

The way Vergil eyes him when he looks over his shoulder makes it quite clear that his brother is not so courteous as to not be petty about that. His own fault for indulging Dante's whims so often, really. Add to that the fact that Vergil obviously not so secretly loves it and Dante has zero regrets. He grins winningly.

"Breakfast first," Vergil demands in censure. 

Already he is scanning the surroundings for something to eat, while Dante's smile falls into a frown that may or may not be just a bit petulant. 

His brother is obsessed with at least eating two meals a day, preferably ones that don't include Dante's own indulgences often enough to make it worthwhile. Dante has lived a long life only eating when he wanted the comfort of it and had the money to spare. And that was fine! Perfectly acceptable even, no matter what Vergil or mam or pap or Nero or Lady or Trish or Patty or Morrison or anyone has to say about it. Dante was perfectly fine while he lived on his own. Vergil himself, if left to his own devices, tends to overeat. The result of of having to survive in hell for so long, hunting whatever he came across and managed to down. Which is the reason Dante only nominally fights the abundance of food, knowing that Vergil won't eat when Dante doesn't. He isn't going to deprive his twin of food after what he lived through. At least the two of them manage to balance each other out somewhere in the middle.

Either way, a weirdly fleshy, enormous bug with very large horns falls prey to Vergil's obsession with breakfast. Dante shakes some fruit off the tree they have slept under, to make their meal a bit less boringly bland. Much to the aggravation of the purple monkey creature chittering away at him for disturbing its rest. Weird little thing. It sends a tiny lighting bolt down at him for his troubles, which tickles pleasantly. He bares his teeth in a smile and it scampers off, terrified. 

Dante shrugs and goes to try to hoist most of the food off on his twin, because he really isn't hungry right now. Vergil does not appreciate this and immediately retaliates in kind. Which ends with Dante feeling uncomfortably stuffed for his troubles, forced to eat the lion share of the fruits. At least they taste vaguely like strawberry. Which is probably why his twin pushed them onto him.

How Vergil can pack so much food away in one setting with no obvious signs of discomfort is a mystery to Dante. He swears his brother is a vacuum for food, comfortable to eat anything and everything not nailed down or rescued fast enough. 

It's kinda mesmerizing to watch.

----

A day later the ward has calmed back down and they are wandering more or less randomly through the forest. After travelling a bit along the road they found they decided to veer off when it started curving up to some mountains. Looked interesting, but getting more information about their changes is kind of important and they have tarried long enough. Though Dante refuses any responsibility on those detours. Clearly the fancy trees are at fault.

"You know. There are enough weird trees here to actually rate a tree doc. Seems the right way to go," Dante idly muses. 

"I highly doubt the professor is that kind of doctor."

Vergil is a party pooper. When Dante informs his twin of this, it leads to a lengthy tangent about the fact that neither of them actually know all that much about doctors. And that they can't even be sure if a tree doc is a thing that actually exists in this or their own world.

A long, thrilling call above them derails Dante from the argument, which means Vergil is all smug about winning. 

Dante ignores it for now and licks his lips instead, letting his brother get ahead. Familiar prey drive is kicking in something fierce. Whatever new instincts he has are just as eager to hunt and fight as his demonic blood, it seems. The presence of the prey above his head is making his teeth ache with the need to bite something. A bit like what he feels when he sees weaker demons scuttling about. He always ends up just itching to chuck them high into the air and bat them around until they break. It's always so funny.

His fingers twitch at another thrill, sharp claws unsheating themselves. Hmmmmm. He really, really needs to cut through the air and hunt those bird things down for sport now, actually. Maybe bat them back and forth with Vergil. Now that would be so much fun.

Dante shakes his wings out experimentally and contemplates the high tree tops they are wandering under. The limbs are different from what he is used to from his sin, more sinewy and seemingly fragile. But presumably functional, considering the instincts glamouring in his blood right now. 

They can't normally fly for long distances, their triggers usually running out too soon even if they preserve energy as much as possible. But that's not a problem now, isn't it.

And Dante reaaally wants to play. An eager smile crawls over his lips.

Testing, he gives a few experimental flaps and -

Well.

He is clearly doing something, wrong or right depending on the point of view. His efforts manage to produce a small concentrated hurricane that nearly bowls Vergil over, who sidesteps only by the grace of his supernatural instincts. The trees behind him are not so lucky.

There is a moment of silence, as the accidental attack peters off. Both Dante and Vergil contemplate the destruction he has wrought. A tree branch makes a sad little noise as it looses the battle with gravity and falls into the mess of broken debris on the floor.

".... whoops," Dante says.

Before Vergil can do more than turn to glower at him, he beats his wings in earnest -trying not to repeat whatever that was- and takes off with a running start. He always does best under pressure and escaping Vergil's retribution is a pretty good motivator actually. The newly created clearing is big enough that he has the room to easily lift off. Dante decides to take this as instinctual forethought on his part and not a rather embarrassing accident.

He breaks a few more branches on the way up, but smooths out as soon as he clears the crowns of the trees. Huh. This feels quite nice, actually. Really really nice.

A sharp swish from behind makes him turn to see Vergil following closely, wings carving elegantly through the air, an elated grin on his own face. Dante cackles and barely dodges the claw swipe aimed at his legs. He tries to use his tail for a playful swat as his twin pulls past him, but is too late already. Before Vergil can turn around he banks off to the side, trying to flee again. Vergil snaps after him with a huff. Twisting out of the way of a fast swipe with just a bit of a trickster dash leaves Dante tumbling off to the side, too busy laughing to level out properly until he nearly collides with a startled chicken. Oops.

He beats his wings widely and banks to the other side, dips under another attack and brushes the crowns of the trees. That startles a red monkey creature into chittering angrily up at him but Dante is focused on how Vergil glides over him, a sharp twist of his brother's wings sending his own tornado in Dante's direction. Trying to disrupt his flight path no doubt. Something energetic wells up in his gut, begging to be let out.

Before he can figure out what that is Vergil speeds up and overtakes him with a challenging baring of teeth that practically spells out "race you!". Dante snaps after him but already he can see what his brother has discovered. Through the trees water glistens in the distance. Elation stretches his cheeks even wider, feeling the intense need to beat his twin to the shoreline and dunk him in the water as the juicy price for winning the race.

They fly right through a dense flock of little bird creatures, who all screech in outrage and try to attack with their own weird wind attacks and dive bombs. But Dante and Vergil outstrip them with insulting ease, more focused on each other. A particularly large one with an incredibly long beak still manages to distract him with a cry impressive enough to rattle in his ears and he turns his head to glance back over his shoulder despite himself.

Probably trying to defend their territory, if he has to guess why they are attacking predators so clearly out of their league. Animals in their own world flee his and Vergil's presence after all, instinctively fearing the devils within. Their father has it even worse and Dante feels kind of bad for him, because he so clearly wants to pet all the dogs he sees.

"Already giving up, Dante? How sad," Vergil, noticing his distraction and always possessive of his attention, calls back with an undercurrent of mocking that just can't be ignored. 

It snaps Dante's focus right back to him with an outraged growl. The grin he gets is full of fangs and that's absolutely not on. With three rapid dashes he rams himself into his brother in revenge, race completely forgotten with the need to make him eat his words right now. Vergil is prepared, though, and catches him around the middle, twisting around him until they are a tangled mess left hurtling through the air. A mess rapidly nosediving now that no one is actively flying any more, wings as trapped up in each other as everything else while they tussle.

Their fall takes out a few more trees on the way down, until they finally hit a field of flowers, rolling ass over tea kettle all the way through it. Leaves, flowers and grass get tossed every which way. 

The rather hard landing doesn't deter them much, still grappling with each other to get the upper hand. Vergil wins the round in the end, because he is a dirty, dirty cheater and goes for Dante's weak sides with probing fingertips. It absolutely buries Dante's concentration under squeals of laughter, body uselessly twisting and turning against the onslaught. It's unfair. It's mean. It's awful. Dante is very ticklish on his sides and Vergil knows it far too well. It's a fact his brother loves to exploit, after all, and Dante can't repay properly, because Vergil is only ticklish on the soles of his feet, which are currently armed by thick hide. So unfair.

Either way, that ends with Dante pinned down in a bed of colourful flowers and Vergil leaning over him looking way too smug to let stand. Sadly, Dante can't stop laughing long enough to retaliate, still weakly struggling but mostly just uselessly pawing at his twin while he wheezes for breath. Miraculously, Vergil only indulges in a little bit of gloating, before he lets himself face plant right on top of Dante, forcing a weak huff form his already struggling lungs at the sudden weight. His brother starts purring into his neck, which is nice but does not help at all with the wheezing laughter.

For a few short seconds everything is calm, petals and grass slowly falling back down on them. Probably all very picturesque, if one ignores the destruction they have wrought.

Before he can even properly recover a sparkly pink energy catches his attention, and he glances up in confusion, still faintly panting. A weird flower fairy thing is hovering over them in the air, squeaking angrily and shaking a fist, the other clutching a flower stem tightly. It doesn't look particularly threatening. Dante can't quite stop the snort at the absurdity of the thing.

The creature rains a tiny beam of dim light down on them in retaliation.

Vergil doesn't show any signs that he has noticed his back getting so viciously attacked, too busy burying his face into Dante's throat and purring loudly enough to rattle right down through Dante's chest. It feels really very nice but Dante is weirdly fascinated by the little thing now. It's just so... tiny. And angry. So funny. He wants to playfully swat at it. 

It's doing an even weirder dance now, with an incredibly put out expression on its tiny little face. Another beam comes down on them, this time with... sparkles?

Again, nothing happens. Vergil continues to not even notice, which is quite a feat for his paranoid brother.

This is getting better and better.

The fairy, getting really angry now, starts singing. It sounds like a bundle of really high bells that prick in Dante's sensitive ears. Annoying enough that even Vergil comes out of his haze, turning just enough to glare balefully up at the thing.

Before either of them can do anything, another creature comes out of the grass to the left. It seems to respond to the call of the first one? This fairy looks like the grown up version of the little thing, with quite an impressive hairdo of flowers and very impressive leaf shoes. If those are supposed to be shoes.

Another heap of petals and pollen rains down on them. They are already covered in the stuff from their tumble through the field, so that seems kinda counter productive. And Dante has kind of assumed that fact is the whole reason for all the outrage. He sneezes when some of the pollen gets into his nose. Ugh. Smells weird. Vergil huffs while his lower back gets absolutely covered in the stuff, clearly the centre of the attack. The little things need to work on their aim.

The desired effect becomes rapidly clear when Dante feels his eyes growing unnaturally heavy, mind sluggish with sudden exhaustion dragging him to sleep. 

Argh. 

Some kind of poison? It doesn't burn in his veins like the usual devil attacks do. In fact, it feels more like a gentle hum lulling him to sleep. Which is probably why his body hasn't burned the stuff out yet. He reflexively draws on his trigger to flush it out, but it's already too late.

Before he slips under, he feels Vergil fall back down on top of him, just as asleep as he is.

Chapter Text

Vergil comes to with a start, snapping up and into a guarding position immediately. Dante is blinking up at him, thankfully awake this time. As there is clearly no need to guard him, Vergil focuses on the fluttery presences around them instead, shoving down the sense of déjà vu. He dearly wishes for the Yamato, to be able to cut all the cowards down in one slice, along with the flowers that hide them. But the only weapon he has for now is his body and he will not move from their spot while they don't know yet if what put them down is still around them. Energy stirs in his body, building with his frustration, like a great pool growing in his gut and crawling up his throat. He spits it out on instinct and a cloud of purplish blue spills from his mouth, roiling over the field and drenching it in shimmery gas. 

The chittering and whistling abruptly stops, the field falling deathly silent but for the faint whisper of the wind rustling through. Vergil blinks. Already the smog is settling down into the ground, seeping away and leaving only the picturesque field behind. The view is only ruined by the large swathe of destruction they made while landing.

How interesting.

"Huh. That's new," Dante says and Vergil reaches down to help him up without taking his eyes off the last of the residual gas blowing away. "You know, I am not at all surprised that you found a way to make yourself poisonous, brother dear."

Vergil, relaxing now that all immediate danger has clearly been taken care of, turns to frown at him. His twin is curiously waving his hand along the flowers, then looks at his fingers to study the faint blueish residue sticking to them. It shimmers purple in the late afternoon sun. In a move that boggles Vergil's mind, he sticks his finger into his mouth.

"Hm. Tastes good. Kinda tingly."

Vergil stares at him for a long moment, lost for words.

"What?" Dante blinks innocently, licking the rest of his fingers clean. "You would have done the exact same thing, if I suddenly decided to breath whatever that was. Knocked them all out, too. Useful."

Vergil, firmly shoving down the admittance that he absolutely would want to taste the residue of Dante's powers if their situation were reversed, sighs at his brother's carefree attitude. Then he scans said brother for any possible side effects of either of those attacks, thankfully finding not even a ripple in his energy. Dante merely watches him, amused, and let's him do as he pleases. Likely doing the exact same, if he hasn't already. Vergil has the sneaking suspicion his twin has woken up long before him and decided to just lay there doing absolutely nothing. He narrows his eyes at him.

"Don't like that weird sleep powder, though," Dante finally mutters with a frown and Vergil can only agree with a sharp nod. 

It is disconcerting that they were both not only caught so completely unaware, but have been taken down by such a weak creature, comparatively. He licks the aftertaste of the gas in his mouth. Whatever that flower creature was doing, it didn't taste or feel the same as what he himself just did, even for all the surface similarities.

"We will have to be more careful. Their powers are much more similar to demons than our animals, it seems. Even if weaker and far less deadly."

Dante nods distractedly, peering down at one of those creatures that has fallen out of a flower under Vergil's attack.

"Do they... feel different to you? The animals?" he asks, clearly distracted. 

Vergil lets him chew on it and doesn't answer. Dante likes analysing and categorising enemies and attacks and weapons, always eager to try new things for his versatile styles. It is one of his most annoying qualities when fighting against him. Vergil himself is far less invested in understanding the ins and outs of his opponents. He likes to just skewer them on the Yamato until they stop moving.

"These ones seem, dunno, grassy. Like the flowers around here. But you feel sharp like a sting and the birds feel like a sharp wind." He nudges the creature with his foot and gets even more pollen over himself in turn. "Yeah. I think the attacks felt that way too. Think they have some kind of typing system here?" 

Letting his twin puzzle about it, Vergil turns to look around. The flower field borders a steep cliff looking out over the sea. No doubt the water they chased through the trees before Dante derailed their path with sudden wrestling. The sun is slowly inching towards the horizon but they did just have an impromptu nap and are both wide awake now. There are bound to be more interesting creatures at night to see.

"So weird. Whatever, let's go find oak tree guy and get some more info. I'm curious now," Dante finally concludes and Vergil looks back at him curiously. 

He gets a smile and a shrug in answer and lets it be for now. His twin will tell him when he works out something useful.

"Do you think they make for good food?" he asks instead, dubiously eyeing the little creature. 

It seems rather bony, but for all he knows it would be more like eating a bundle of flowers.

"Dunno, don't seem worth the effort." Dante is clearly similarly unenthused.

Something else then. Vergil is determined to enforce the two meals a day rule even in this dimension and he doubts he will succeed if he starts feeding Dante flowery creatures. Not even his brother's laid back nature will tolerate that. Never mind that Vergil himself is not going to be satisfied with it either.

"Let's follow the shoreline and find something else to eat then." That way they can also take a bath to rid themselves of all the pollen and greenery residue. 

The mulish look he gets for his suggestion tells him everything he needs to know about what Dante thinks about the two meals a day rule and its continued intrusion into his life. Vergil bares his teeth in answer. Just because he does not have their mother's formidable might at his back right now, does not mean he will let his brother get his way of eating either pizza or nothing at all. 

The exquisitely crafted sad face Dante sports is mighty but will not sway Vergil.

"Hey," Dante says, brightening considerably when he sees the water, "you think we can get some kind of fish down there? There's got to be some watery animals too."

Vergil hates fish and his twin knows it far too well. While Dante may be resigned to his fate full of regular meals, he clearly won't go down without a fight.

Fine.

Vergil has never once backed down from a challenge.

----

"Those were not Cthulhu monsters, Dante. They were just this world's octopi."

"Suuuure they weren't. The big one definitely had more than eight tentacles, Verge. Cthulhu imposter, tentacle monster, deep sea abomination, whatever. Patty showed me some Japanese horror porn once, you know. It looked exactly like that."

Vergil stares at him for a long moment, not quite believing those words have just left his twin's mouth. Sometimes these asides about Dante's life make Vergil question the sanity of every single person that has ever stepped foot into Devil May Cry. 

"No. Do not talk to me about Japanese horror porn ever again," he demands, tail lashing in aggravation.

"Whatever," Dante waves it away carelessly, clearly intent on the more important topic. "We could go back and find out, you know. Catch the Cthulhu monster and count the tentacles."

"You were the one who didn't want to catch it. In fact, I distinctly remember you making retching noises about it."

"Seafood is disgusting, Verge. The texture is all weird. I don't like it. We are not eating weird Cthulhu wannabes."

"Cthulhu would not be classified as seafood. Ergo it is an octopus."

"That's it. We are going back and counting the tentacles."

"We are not getting sidetracked again. We saw the town and we are going to the town. I want to sleep in a bed," Vergil declares, lengthening his stride in an effort to discourage his unruly twin.

"Ooooh, now you want your creature comforts," Dante responds snottily, demonstrably just barely not keeping pace and falling back. It's utterly aggravating. "You didn't seem to mind when we were slumming it in hell and I wanted pizza."

"But pizza is such a boring food, Dante. I would rather have octopus."

Dante abruptly stops and when Vergil looks back at him to reap the spoils of his victory, he is greeted by the most agonized expression known to mankind. Even the wings are drooping in shock. It is delightful to behold.

"...you monster. I can't believe I even like you. I should disown you for that," Dante declares dramatically, hand over his heart like it pains him. Vergil bares his teeth in a big grin. "Also, it so was a Cthulhu wannabe, not an octopus."

"It was not."

"Do you even like sea food, mister fish hater? I saw you make a face when we were at that market with father and he looked over the mussels. You just don't want to admit I'm right."

"Because you are not."

"Am so."

"Are not."

"Am so."

"Not."

"So."

"No," Vergil sniffs disdainfully at how very wrong his brother is. "You are so clearly wrong it is not even worth arguing with you about it."

"Oooh, giving up, are we?" Dante grins widely, mischief and challenge dancing bright in his eyes. He gives a faux casual flick of his tail that does nothing to hide the goading intent behind it. "Well, that puts me up one, doesn't it."

Oh, he is so aiming for a brawl, isn't he. Well, two can play that game. Vergil is all too eager to respond in kind, the spines on his back and tail flaring in eagerness. There is little more satisfying than settling an argument between them by fighting, after all.

"I am well aware of the score, little brother. But didn't you just complain about being tired? Don't start what you won't be able to finish."

Dante's eyes bore into his, focused on his every move. The intense attention makes Vergil want to preen and posture. He steps closer aggressively, Dante does the same. Every move barely controlled violence just waiting to break out on each other. Step after step until they are nose to nose, blood lust pumping through them and saturating the air all around. His brother's eyes are thin slits in a see of red.

He grins wide, all his sharp teeth on full display. "Ooh, don't worry about me, big brother. I'm never too tired to grind your face into the floor."

It has been far too long since they have fought properly. Fought all out with nothing held back, pleasure and lust singing in their veins. He can feel his heart pound in excitement and anticipation. The pleasure that always accompanies their bloodies bouts. Every cell in his body is demanding for him to attack, to touch, to claim. Vergil's eyes slip down to his brother's lips without permission, electric arousal warming his gut-

"Just a few more weeks," his brother laments, abruptly disengaging from their stand-off, turning away.

Dissatisfaction wafts off of him in waves. His tail lashes in rare aggravation behind him. Vergil watches him, frustration running sour through his own veins like it folds over Dante's shoulders. 

He grinds his teeth at the abrupt reminder of what they can't have yet and the sudden disengagement both. As satisfactory as fighting is and always will be, at the moment they both crave for something more, outweighing even their vast battle lust. Teenage hormones are the bane of existence and Vergil will hear nothing else. Curse this painfully eternal horniness.

Still, he refuses not to get something out of this. There is still a small consolation prize to tide him over to be claimed.

He steps up behind his twin, careful to get as close as he can, just a hairs breath away from touching. Goosebumps pebble over Dante's skin, his twin stiffens. Vergil smirks in satisfaction. Even if they cannot have their carnal union yet, teasing his brother will make for a passable replacement for now.

"Soon, little brother," he murmurs lowly. 

Infuses his voice with all the desire he harbours for his twin. All the promises of what will come once the accursed ward finally falls and Vergil is free to lave the attention he deserves on his brother. It's heady to even imagine. Hunger and possessiveness burns through him at the thought alone. He will worship his brother's body until all he can think of is Vergil and the overwhelming pleasure he brings.

"Soon."

----

Dante's breath hitches at the lust-filled whisper ghosting over the skin of his neck. Vergil is so close he can feel the heat radiating off of him. Just barely, tantalisingly out of reach. 

His mouth drops open on a shivery exhale as arousal pools in his gut. He wants it so much his gut clenches with need. Memories flit themselves into his mind, the night they found each other for the first time after the fire, the nights in hell after the Qlipoth,

He can't help but remember that perfect night so long ago when they found each other for the first time after the fire and celebrated their reunion in the best possible way. He groans softly, feels Vergil's laugh caress him, because his twin always knows exactly where Dante's thoughts wander. He wants his brother so much it hurts, wants his hands on his skin, his lips and tongue mouthing up his spine, his heavy cock dragging along him in teasing strokes until finally, finally he sinks in in one smooth, long push that completes them both. 

The ward pulses warningly in his gut, their close proximity just flirting with the line where it will kick in.

He needs to calm down.

It's so unfair that Vergil can get him going like this, with just a few words and the hint of presence. And then he doesn't do anything about it. Can't do anything about it. 

Even worse that Dante has no way to finish what his evil twin starts, save for riding his own fingers in a deeply unsatisfying imitation of the real thing, with Vergil right there to watch. And Vergil loves doing it too, the ass. Tormenting him just to see him flushed and wanting for more he can't get until this stupid thing will finally run out. Another evil laugh ghosts over his skin if in answer to his thoughts and his twin is such an unmitigated asshole.

But Dante won't have to wait for much longer. Vergil may love little more than driving him into frustrated insanity, but Dante knows more about the ward and therefore when exactly it will run out. He just has to hold out a few more days, maybe a week or two. And then he can turn the tables on his brother. Tease his twin just as badly and Vergil won't know the end of their suffering is in reach until Dante sinks down on him with no warning. He can't wait to see his brother's expression.

Dante heaves a deep breath, leaning away from his awful brother and ignoring the warmth pooling between his legs with the practice of being a fifty year old horny man having to deal with an even hornier fifteen year old teenage body and the horniest demon instincts. He can do this. Vergil will rue all the times he taunted Dante with no way to get the release he needs.

"Hey, look. Chicken for dinner." He nods up at the seagull like birds flying over the cliff. 

It's a poor distraction, even more so with the way it's appealing to Vergil's obsession with food. But it's all he can manage right now, so he will take it. Vergil laughs, full of promises and amusement, but by some miracle doesn't call him out on it. Even allows Dante to step away with no protest, like he is a magnanimous saint instead of the worst devil ever. Dante will enjoy it so much when he finally shows him the error of his ways.

Soon, indeed.

----

They break out of the trees and onto another winding road. It is more dirt path than anything else, really. Surprisingly, there seems to be a town in either direction. Dante and Vergil both turn their heads to the right, then turn their heads to the left. The second one is closer and seems bigger, the first one is certainly more south on the whole.

"Hm," makes Dante.

"Hm," makes Vergil.

There is a moment of tense suspense, before Dante tries to trip him up by hooking his foot behind his ankle and Vergil reaches over to tug at his twin's wing to unbalance him. The inevitable scuffle leaves Dante the winner, sadly. To the right they go. 

Surprisingly, despite the late hour and the sun already having set, there are people still loitering about. Though for now they are distracted and have not seen their passing yet. Still, they make their way mostly through the cover of the tall grass, instinctively trying to keep undiscovered.

These are the first humans they have encountered since they have arrived in this world. Vergil hasn't thought much of the absence until now, but in hindsight it is striking that they haven't seen anyone else up until now. Already it has been a few days in this world, after all. It must either be far less populated, or they have been lucky to consistently miss them. Especially so considering they have intermittently travelled on presumably human made roads.

Seeing the people around, it suddenly occurs to him that they will not be able to blend in well. While it has become easier to resettle in their human skins, it is still temporary at best. Altogether like a reversed trigger, amusingly enough. This may actually be a problem, as they try to meet up with the professor Oak. Who presumably lives in a town. And is himself a human being.

He turns to Dante to get his opinion, finding him already eyeing one of the men prowling about himself, head tilted contemplatively to the side. Though that could also be because the man is not only strangely dressed in a white overall, black gloves and a glaringly red R blazed on the front, but is also prowling suspiciously around. Badly so. 

Vergil despairs of the human race.

No wonder he has Dante's attention, though. His brother smells a prime target for teasing from miles away and with his eyes closed, after all. Vergil nudges him in the side, before he can go and hound the man who is so clearly trying, and failing, to hide behind some sparse bushes. Dante pouts at him in reaction but obligingly turns his attention away from the spectacle. But before Vergil can share his realisation about their appearance, a different man spots them from the side with a loud exclamation, eagerly stalking into the tall grass.

"Double fight, yes! Staryu and Rattata I choose you!" He holds out two red and white marbles and with a beam of white light two little creatures materialize out of them.

Vergil blinks. What strange technology.

One is the rat thing that tastes quite dreadful, the other a sea star that is vibrating excitedly. Vergil is distracted trying to puzzle out the marbles, so he doesn't react to the screeching that is clearly supposed to be a battle cry. Dante, with his perpetual need to piss off any and all opponent he faces, does not have similar priorities. Rather, he chuffs mockingly low in his throat, a sound that would have any demon instantly livid with rage. Taunting is presumably blind reflex for his brother by now. Vergil doesn't even bother to fight his amusement about the situation. Though why Dante is more intent to provoke the animals rather than the human is curious, as the man is so obviously the one in control.

The stranger, possibly not content to be ignored, continues shouting, "Rattata, use tail whip! Staryu, tackle!"

Vergil lifts a disinterested eyebrow. The nonsensical words do seem to mean something to the animals, as the rat ... whips its tail around. A bit on the nose, isn't it. Vergil can't help but relax upon the ridiculous display. 

The sea star mutation rushes forward to attack instead, but is so painfully slow and telegraphed that Vergil sneers while he neatly sidesteps the thing. He resists his need to kick it into a nearby tree though, somewhat curious to see where all this is going. After all, people usually don't attack them out of the blue like this, especially so with the local animals as weapons. A very curious world they have found themselves in.

For a moment nothing more happens, beside the sea star gamely returning to its place beside its partner. The stranger seems to be waiting for something. As are the animals. Vergil looks to Dante, but his twin seems to be content to simply watch the display. And he himself feels no need to attack the things, ridiculously weak as they are.

Nothing more happens.

Very boring. Vergil is starting to contemplate simply walking away from this farce now. A movement to the side distracts him momentarily, and when he looks over he sees the strangely dressed man in a nearby bush, watching them.

Again, nothing happens.

"Hah! You two seem strong and will make a good fit for my team!" the man finally shouts, recapturing Vergil's wandering attention.

For reasons unfathomable to him, the stranger tosses two of those red and white marbles at them. Vergil bats them both away with a lazy flick of his tail and a disdainful sneer. Interesting as the technology may be, he does not appreciate people throwing things at him.

"Aw, was that supposed to do anythin'? Having performance issues, are we?" Dante taunts right back.

Clearly the man isn't prepared for them to talk to him, if the suddenly disturbed, horrified face is anything to go by. Vergil can admit to somewhat understand the surprise, what with their looks. Still, he does not think it warrants the screaming or the undignified scramble of limbs as the man grabs his animals and runs away.

Coward. 

Vaguely he can make out some shouts about a professor from the continued screaming. How interesting.

Easily dismissing the fleeing man Vergil turns to his twin, who has tilted his head to the side with a grin and is watching the man's retreating back. A few of the nearest travellers have looked up at the commotion. Thankfully, it seems he and Dante are covered enough by the tall grass that they all loose interest before Vergil has to deal with more people.

"Well, that was fun. Let's go after him and see if the village is as welcoming. He screamed something about a doc, right?" The smirk Dante sports is blinding and just this side of mean.

And people call Vergil the cruel one. He isn't the one that plays with his food. Vergil smiles back contentedly all the same, reaching out to link their fingers together. "Hm."

"Think the Oak guy is there?" Dante asks, his eyes lingering on the distant village for a moment. 

If Vergil squints, he can see the man reaching the first few buildings. He is fast at least, Vergil will give him that. He nods in answer.

"It does seem likely, yes."

Chapter Text

----

He claims first shower by dint of ramming his elbow into Vergil's side in a strategic moment of inattention from his twin, and slips around him while he wheezes and grabs half heartedly after him. Vergil's own fault for being too dignified to play dirty. Dante knows no mercy when it comes to being a little brother and claiming first shower. 

The warm water feels absolutely amazing. He vigorously scrubs off all the dirt off himself and then luxuriates in the soft spray for a little bit longer. He likes anything he gets to do together with Vergil, but he can't say slumming it out in the wild is his favourite activity, on the whole. Sue him, he likes his creature comforts. And city life.

He hasn't bothered closing the door to the bathroom and as such there isn't enough steam to fog the mirror when he gets out of the showerstall. Curiously he peers into it, finally seeing the changes the alien goat magicked onto him properly. Pretty much the same as he sees in Vergil, really. Human face framed with leathery scales, horns, red glowing rift in his human chest. All in all just a nice mix between devil and human. Nothing to write home about. Well in himself. Vergil looks absolutely hot, but that's beside the point right now.

"You think the goat turned us into some kind of Pokémon then?" he asks Vergil, sticking his head out of the door for a second to check on his brother.

Said twin is sitting on the bed, reading one of the books they got from Oak. Something about types if Dante's squinting right. It seems in line with what he puzzled out after they fought that flower field. Weirdly distinct categories, for Pokémon and attacks both. Seems way too limiting to him.

"We look like a weird mix of all of our forms, just with added bits. But your energy feels pretty different now. Sort of...  spicy and slippery," he grimaces at the lacking explanation. 

It utterly fails to describe how nice it is nestling against Dante's senses. He kind of just wants to bury himself in it and nap for days.

"As is yours. Different, I mean. Still beautiful, of course," Vergil's voice brings him back to the present and he smiles at his mirror image when he hears the fond undertone in his twin's voice. His mirror image goes faintly pink, though, even as his brother continues, "Like an overcharged spell, but even more distilled. It is quite... enjoyable."

Dante slants his eyes to the doorway at the charged way his twin says that. His teeth sharpen and he presses his tongue to the back of them, licks along his gums. Vergil has always smelled divine to him, a heady mix of demonic and human half. And now there is something equally alluring added to the mix, something that whispers promises to him, if only Dante were to have a taste. It sings with each beat of his twin's heart. He wants to bury his teeth in his twin and indulge in blood, enjoy that slippery, filmy slide of his energy against his tongue too. Wants Vergil to do the same until they have sucked each other dry. 

He bites his lips, thinks of asking Vergil for a small taste. Just a little bit. In the mirror his eyes have gone hazy red, pupils blowing out, and he shakes his head to dislodge the insistent thought. Bad idea to go there. Their blood is quite an aphrodisiac to each other and neither will be able to stop their reaction, no matter how little they take. The warding will inevitably kick in and force them apart and Dante has had quite enough of that for a while, thank you very much. He really doesn't like not being able to even touch his twin. The forced separation always makes him antsy, even if it's only for a few hours.

He firmly forces his mind back on track.

"So... you think that's what happened? Arceus hit mute on our corrosive demonic power and added Pokémon juices to fill the leftover space?"

Vergil sighs heavily before he actually answers. "Why you would formulate it like that I will never understand, but it stands to reason, yes." 

The eyebrow is back up, Dante just knows it. He grins to himself, utterly unrepentant. Bothering Vergil with over the top analogies and crazy imagery is hilarious and Dante will never not do it. With one last look into the mirror he ambles out of the tiny bathroom, stretching his arms to the ceiling as he goes. Hmmm, he feels much better already. Now he just wants to huddle up with his twin for a good long nap.

"According to this," his twin indicates the book he is reading, "there are 18 types of Pokémon. Like fighting, dark, fire and so on."

"Huh. So all Pokémon belong to one of them?"

"Some are double types, but never more than that."

"Huh. Got an idea what we are supposed to be?"

Vergil smirks, eyes slanting over to him. "Well, there is a fairy type."

Dante blinks for a moment, confused, before he snorts an ugly laugh. "Wow, thanks. Well, I have been called worse, I suppose."

He face plants himself into the bed beside his brother, swatting at him in the fall. Misses, though, and Vergil laughs again.

"I don't know. It fits you so well. Their attacks are all about friendship, after all." Vergil grins even more, eyes glittering in amusement even as he nudges Dante off his wing.

Dante growls playfully, trying to cling closer. He is comfortable, darn it. "Hah! I mean, all my friends are really awesome. And Lady and Trish were always ready to defend my honour."

"Hm."

Dante looks at him for a moment, weighing their choices in this strange new world. "You think we should ask the prof for help figuring this out? He is our best source of information if we really are Pokémon."

Vergil grimaces, always understandably paranoid about involving anyone he doesn't trust, let alone someone he has just met. But Dante can see the frustration hiding under it. His brother knows that they kind of need the help here, if they don't want to make a mess out of things. He understands the aversion well enough, though. 

Before their second childhood, Dante just hunted books and artefacts down to figure out what he couldn't by instinct alone. Or pressed the more intelligent demons he had access to until they gave him what he wanted. Nowadays he simply asks Sparda about it. Having to lean on others outside his closest friends and family always galls him, though, and he knows it's even worse for Vergil.

Still. They have been stuffed full of new power and unlike when he reaches a higher trigger, or learns new magic or even gets another Devil Arm, he doesn't just magically know how to handle all its intricacies through a mix of experience and instinct alone. It's aggravating. But he accidentally made a twister with just a few half hearted flaps of his wings and still has little clue what else he can do now.

While Vergil is the perfectionist between the two of them, Dante has his own compulsions for control. He can't help but detest not having complete and utter mastery of himself and all his assets. His fighting styles are built on the fact that he excels at being able to handle every tool in his arsenal to the highest precision, from his body, to his magic, to his weapons.

The fact they can't seem to properly figure it out themselves tastes like ash in his mouth, but needs must. 

"We can bribe him with info on Arceus to keep mum. He knows something fishy is up already, anyway. Not like we can hide it like this." He gestures vaguely to his horns and finally lets Vergil pull his wing out from under his arm with one last comforting caress of the leathery surface.

His brother remains silent, hands tight around the book he is staring at without reading.

"Yeah, I know," Dante sighs, rubbing a hand through his wet hair. "At least he seems nice. And we will be gone long before he can use any knowledge to hurt us with it."

Vergil visibly unclenches his jaw and nods once. With precise care he loosens his grip on the book and places it right before Dante's nose. Yeah, not happy with this decision at all. Well, neither is Dante. Yay for company.

"Fine. Tomorrow when we go to his laboratory. But if he does anything untoward, I reserve the right to skewer him on my tail," Vergil sniffs finally, carefully scooting out from amongst the books he has scattered around himself to go take his own shower.

Dante rolls over into the spot he vacates, enjoying Vergil's residual warmth. Eyes closing in a bid to forget what they just decided on, enjoying his brother's scent wrapping around him instead. Vergil's fingers caress his cheek for a moment, moving up to carefully card his damp hair away from his eyes before they disappear, his twin's soft steps moving into the bathroom. Dante hums after him, and determinedly relaxes into the soft bedding. 

Soon enough the shower turns on. It's quite nice actually, the warm bed and low noise of the shower nearly lulling him to sleep. The energy inside him ripples distractingly, and he focuses on it, curiously trying to make sense of the changes again.

Different types, huh. He and Vergil share a large part of their base energy, identical as always. Especially so now that they are growing up next to each other and spend nearly all their time together. But on top of that, there are familiar differences as always. Something unique to each of them. Where Vergil's new energy signature has a filmy feeling to it, Dante's own is more ephemeral than his brother's, sparking like energy. He focuses inwards, reaching deep down.

As soon as he turns his attention to the molten ball inside him that normally hosts only his devil's power, something surges out of it, burning into a blinding star that fills him up to the brim until he can feel it shine through his whole body. He laughs softly, feeling giddy and slightly punch drunk with the swell of energy. It's like he is on the brink of a trigger, so full of energetic power he could burst into a supernova. He rides that edge, enjoys the exhilaration of balancing on the thin line where the energy is full but not yet bursting out. On and on it turns, like a full Royal Guard meter looping around itself, never allowed to snap over into exploding out.

"Dante, you are glowing."

----

Chapter Text

Vergil enjoys the hot shower and enjoys even more how his brother's presence swells outside the room, the thrumming core pulsing with contentment. He is tempted to do something about the heat pooling in his gut at the feeling, unsheath himself and think of nothing but sinking into his brother's welcoming heat until he finds release, wrapped up in Dante's swelling energy. But he refrains with a sigh. Pleasuring himself, especially with his brother so near, leaves him unsatisfied and his instincts screaming to do it properly. It is frustrating and he is often better not even jerking off at all. Distraction and patience is the solution to the problem of the ward, even if it leaves him pent up and with no proper outlet, as even a bloody bout has come to fail in releasing the frustration nowadays. Accursed teenage hormones. He does not remember his first adolescence being quite such torture. Of course, he was overly focused on getting power back then and did not have constant access to his brother, even if that was mostly his own fault.

He finishes his shower and takes a few careful minutes to reassess the changes in his body, trying to map them to what he has learned from the professor and the books. Without further information he can't quite pinpoint what type he is supposed to be, though the poisonous gas he released gives him at least a very good idea. 

Dante is right, as he so often is. They will need help for this, as they lack far too much fundamental knowledge to understand it on their own. Despicable as it feels to have to rely on someone other than Dante and their parents, he will have to make do.

Outside, his brother's presence pulses bright, feeling like he is seconds from triggering and releasing it all in a powerful burst. So powerful that it would level the building with Dante standing above it all, resplendent like a god in mortal form. It urges Vergil out of the bathroom, if only to see it happen. Dante triggering is one of the most beautiful sights he knows and he wouldn't miss it for anything. 

If they can even trigger any more, a nasty little voice in the back of his head reminds him and he stamps it down in irritation. There is no need to cut his dreams down so cruelly.

When he opens the door the sight that greets him is not at all what he expected, though still utterly mesmerising. Dante is glowing. Like a supernova his form is lit with deep red that pulses through him until he looks like a shell of delicately spun glass with the power of his infernal core burning brightly inside him. The most exquisite piece of art, a true masterpiece.

The words slip out of his mouth without him even really registering it, too mesmerised by the sight in front of him. "Dante, you are glowing."

They utterly fail to describe the beauty Vergil is witnessing and he would be shamed by his lack of eloquence, but such is his twin's influence on him.

A smirk sneaks across Dante's lips as he notices Vergil's amazement. It's an expression straight from the time he was a cocky teenager, ready to take on the world. He leans towards Vergil, an obscene display of raw strength wrapped in a thin veneer of civility, seemingly oblivious to what is happening.

"Is that your way of saying I'm hot?"

And there goes the mood. Vergil does not sigh like we wants to. His brother is a menace, no matter how many people he manages to convince that he is a perfectly innocent man.

"Yes, you are very hot. Ravishing, even. You are also glowing. Like a light bulb." Vergil keeps his tone as flat as possible, letting none of his fond exasperation bleed through, lest it only make his twin worse. 

Dante's smirk shifts, becomes a victorious grin that lets Vergil know that he's been had. His brother knows very well that he is currently imitating a glass light and he was just waiting for Vergil to come out of the shower and notice. They are over fifty, the fact that he can keep being such a brat and get away with it is nothing short of a miracle.

Seeing as he has gotten what he wanted, Dante lets the energy dissipate and the light goes out like a switch has been turned off. Vergil blinks the spots out of his eyes. His brother still looks smug and distressingly attractive. Vergil really only has himself to blame for encouraging this kind of ridiculous behaviour.

"Seems like I'm some kind of energy related type. Can't really tell which, though, just from reading this." He gestures at the open book beside him, but it's surprisingly half hearted. 

There is clearly something else on his mind other than Pokémon typing. Vergil shifts gears accordingly. "What has you preoccupied?"

Dante grimaces at Vergil's pointed question, remaining silent in uncharacteristic stubbornness. It must weigh more on him than usual, if he is so obstinate about it. 

"Dante."

A shake of the head answers him. "Never mind, it's nothing. You want food now?" 

Vergil arches a brow at him. It has taken a long time to break Dante's habit of diverting and hiding. He isn't going to allow it to come back. Especially not if his twin is going to stoop so low as to start using food as a distraction. He crosses his arms and stares unrelenting. Steps forward to force his head to face him when Dante averts his eyes.

"Tell me," he demands, unrelenting.

For far too long Dante says nothing, does nothing, but Vergil is far more stubborn than his twin. He will outlast him in a battle of will. And as predicted, Dante's hesitation breaks and he all but slumps forward, sulkily pushing his forehead into Vergil's stomach. Vergil wraps his arms around his shoulders. The way Dante noses at his wrist gives him a good idea of what must be on his brother's mind.

"It's dumb. We shouldn't," Dante grouses and Vergil has to swallow a snort at seeing him so malcontent. "The ward will kick in."

He reaches up to cup his cheek with his hand. "It is yours, if you wish for it." 

Dante shudders in his arms, nuzzling into the pulse point with a breath that speaks volumes of his desires. Vergil craves the same of course, mind periodically circling around to it since he first felt the changes in Dante's nature. His brother's blood calls to him like a siren. He wants to taste, wants to know the difference of what it was before and what it is now. His teeth ache at the thought alone. 

It does not matter what will inevitably happen, what that accursed ward will do. If it is his blood Dante wants, he will have it, as much as he wants until he is gorged with it. They can deal with the consequences afterwards. 

"Take it, little brother," he offers, just as eager, "taste my blood."

Dante stiffens at the offer, his scent growing heavy, a hum curling through his throat. Still he pulls away, shakes his head, just as the ward gives a warning pulse as if to underscore the point. 

"No. We can't, the ward-"

"Yes," Vergil says firmly and follows his retreat, pushes his wrist at him as he clearly won't get Dante to take from his neck. An admittedly wise precaution, so Vergil will allow him the concession. 

Dante's eyes are transfixed on the strong pulse under his nose, pupils sharpening into slits with a predator's hunger. Vergil scores a claw across his own wrist and presses the bleeding skin to his twin's mouth. As soon as the scent of copper hits the air Dante's resistance crumbles, his hands snapping up to close tightly on Vergil's arm as he seals his mouth over the already healing wound. There is a pinch as he bites down, an airy sigh and then the distinct pull as he starts sucking. To Vergil's surprise the sigh morphs into a content purr, his tail uncurling behind him to swish lazily back and forth, wings drooping in relaxed stupor.

Vergil blinks in confusion. He knows the reaction they have to each other's blood all too well, felt the euphoric fire in his veins, the few times they have come together before. When they were teenagers the first time around and just found each other. At that accursed tower Vergil raised, after a year of absence and misery. And again in the underworld, after the Qlipoth, already high on adrenaline and only growing more frenzied when they tasted each other. Always it stokes a manic inferno in them that is not quenched until their union. 

That Dante hasn't shown any reaction yet is quite astonishing. The ward continues to be calm, not triggered in the slightest.

Finally, after a few more moments his twin backs off, licks the wound closed. He hums again, swaying slightly back and forth, a sudden giggle slipping out of his lips while he clumsily wipes his face with his arm.

"Dante?" Vergil asks as he reaches out to secure the tilting chest.

His brother looks up at him blearily and when they lock eyes Vergil can see his pupils have blown wide open, only a thin ring of pale blue left. This is not the reaction he should have to Vergil's blood. He looks almost... high?

"Verge. Verge, this feels amazing," he laughs breathlessly and brings up both his hands to clumsily frame Vergil's face. "Like m' flying. Wait, wait," he pats at Vergil's cheeks excitedly, "we can fly. Let's go fly, Verge!"

Vergil reflexively clamps his hands onto Dante's forearms before he can launch off the bed. The force of the lunge still sends them both tumbling to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Dante, mostly buried under Vergil's bulk, laughs happily, even breathless from the impact.

Vergil pushes up to his elbows and tries to look his brother in the eyes again. Dante does not make this easy as he's busy trying to wriggle under the bed. He somehow succeeds despite Vergil's best effort to keep him contained and the large wings going every which way. A hand belatedly sneaks out to drag the bed covers in after him. He is still giggling incessantly, with little bursts of purrs mixed in, stuttering and choppy. It would be terribly charming if Vergil wasn't so confused right now.

"Let's make a pillow fort, Verge! Come on, come here!"

His brother is high. Vergil sits there beside the bed, stunned speechless. High as a kite, even. Completely baked. Absolutely stoned. 

He contemplates this monumental revelation while Dante tries to build a pillow fort under the bed, with only a flimsy comforter and one tiny cushion. He seems to be having great fun at least, if the continued laughter is anything to go by. 

Drinking Vergil's blood has gotten his brother high, instead of unbearably aroused.

What has Arceus done to them?

----

Keeping his twin from any harm turns out to be quite difficult when he is hopped up on Vergil's blood. While unimpaired, Dante is a sly creature by nature and he loves to have fun, which he will make on his own if life gets too boring. But generally his level headed and lazy nature prevents him from going too overboard with the shenanigans. 

Not so when high. 

Wanting to go flying, which he remembers while counting dust bunnies under the bed, turns into skinny dipping in the canal the village is build around. It seems not to matter that they have been functionally naked this whole time already. Vergil is summarily dismissed when he tries to point this out. No, it has to be skinny dipping, as Dante argues ferociously. Vergil does not quite know what he said to finally placate his brother, but they do both end up in the canal either way. And somehow the little shit finds some kind of potion while doing so, which Vergil immediately confiscates to prevent him from actually drinking it. 

After that Dante finds some other tentacled Pokémon and chases it into the trees, then gets distracted by finding another rosebush, this time with a blooming blue flower. Which he gets quite besotted with for some time at least. Vergil will gladly take the break. And the implied compliment. Sadly this is not the end of the adventures. No, Dante then finds some kind of scaly guinea pig to hunt down and eat, offering half to Vergil with great ceremony. The fact that high Dante agrees to the two meals a day rule pleases Vergil enough to leave him most of the good parts.

After that Vergil wrangles him back to the water to clean off the blood, which somehow ends in sea shell hunting, one of which also turn out to be a Pokémon. Dante immediately tosses the hissing thing far away from himself, with great disgust and a very passionate rant about the evils of seafood, how disgusting the texture is and how it absolutely ruins a perfectly good pizza nearly as much as olives do. It isn't very coherent, but surprisingly convincing all things considered.

Then he looks at Vergil, very gently and insistently cradles his face in his hands again and equally gravely declares that they should go find the end of the rainbow now. What rainbow he is talking about, Vergil can not even come close to guessing. They wander around the town in an incomprehensible zig zag for a while afterwards, presumably in search for said rainbow. Vergil is thankful that it is the middle of the night and no one is around to attract Dante's attention. It would not do to hamper their information gathering by killing off the villagers for getting to see his twin this way, after all.

When he finally convinces Dante to return to the inn it's much closer to morning than evening. 

The high has slowly petered off in the last half an hour, and Vergil is therefore able to pour his suddenly boneless brother into the second bed without much complaining, thankfully. He is eternally thankful Dante isn't normally this energetic.

He dreads to find out what his own reaction to Dante's blood will be. There is no doubt he will find out, of course. His twin won't let this rest after this, once he wakes up and remembers what has happened. 

But Vergil will fight tooth and nail to procrastinate as long as he can manage all the same.

Chapter Text

Hungry, is the first thought in his head when Dante wakes up. So, so hungry.

He mutters grumpily into the pillow his face is smushed into, blindly pawing around until he smacks Vergil in the face. An angry growl answers him and his twin jabs him into the ribs in revenge. Dante blearily lifts his head to stop suffocating himself and blinks, half-heartedly shuffling away from the very sharp elbow digging into his side. Vergil grumbles some more and demonstrably turns his back, clearly intent on go back to sleep. Dante would join him, really, feeling like he could manage a half hour more at least, but-

Huuuuuuuungry.

He rolls off the bed, nearly overbalancing under the wight of his wings, and spends a few seconds in earnest contemplation of whether it is too cold to actually leave the furnace that is his brother or not. Huh. Cold doesn't normally faze him like this. Another thing to thank Arceus for, presumably. The hunger and a sudden call from his bladder win out in the end, even if he is left shivering until his body readjusts to the temperature drop. Really. Vergil's heat output is insane. Thank god they are normally so resistant to any temperature or Dante would have been slow cooked long ago, sleeping next to him.

When he returns from the bathroom Vergil is dead to the world again. As expected. Dante's twin is useless in the mornings, often sleeping until noon at least if he can get away with it. Which just means if their mother lets him. 

Dante on the other hand usually sleeps minimally during the night, only to crash multiple times during the day in a series of nice refreshing naps. Their parents are increasingly exasperated by both their poor sleeping habits, but Dante has carefully cultivated his lack of a proper sleep schedule for four decades now and isn't about to give that up. It works out between them anyway, as by the time Vergil is ready to get up Dante has often already joined him again for a nap and they still get to wake up together. Win for everyone as far as Dante is concerned.

The hunger leads him out in search for something to eat. He meets the portly inn owner, who gives him a suspicious looks but thankfully doesn't comment on his strange appearance. That nets him a plate full of things he doesn't recognize for breakfast, though. He scarves the food down in record time and feels much better afterwards, even if he cannot for the life of him tell what he has just tasted. Also, it's ridiculous how much food he has packed away in the last twelve hours. He feels a bit like a bear preparing for hibernation.

He blinks. 

Hopefully his body isn't actually preparing for hibernation. He doesn't want to sleep for months on end. Did that already and it was no fun at all. Just to be sure, he makes a mental note to ask someone about it later.

Contemplating the time, late morning at best, and how long Vergil will want to keep sleeping, he contemplates what to do to wile away his boredom. He is still feeling a little restless too, even now. The last night is a bit of a blur, though he remembers more or less what happened. Even if what he was actually thinking is a bunch of nonsense to him now. It's very nice that he doesn't have to deal with the ward kicking in, though. The euphoria of indulging in their properly infernal blood is still better but at least he doesn't have to deal with forced separation. 

Vergil's reaction to his own blood is going to be hilarious, no doubt. Knowing his brother he will have to strong arm him into it after that display, but Dante will get his way in the end. No way is his twin weaseling out of this one.

Vaguely he remembers chasing a ball of tentacles with legs from last night. Finding that again could be great fun, actually. His tail swishes eagerly behind him, as he peers out the window. Hunting time it is.

----

When Vergil wakes, Dante is in bed with him and snoozing away into his ear. It's vaguely tickly, though Vergil doesn't care much. As Dante likes to remind him, he is a freak of nature who doesn't have any ticklish spots. No, not even his feet, no matter what his twin claims. He grins muzzily at the thought of how red Dante gets from laughing when Vergil dips his fingers just behind the lowest rib bone. 

There is a scent of the woods sticking to him, though.

Vaguely he remembers getting a hand to the face sometime during the night, but he dropped off again immediately after, when Dante got up and therefore wasn't rustling around in the bed anymore. With a short blink out of the window he curls tighter around his brother and determinedly goes back to sleep. There are no parents around to come chase him out of bed and Vergil plans to milk every drop of extra sleep out of their trip he can get.

----

Vergil finally manages to peel himself out of bed by late lunchtime, looking a bit like a ruffled bear. Dante is being very magnanimous and doesn't tease him mercilessly for the vague blinking and the minutes of staring it took him to actually be functional. It's always hilarious to watch his twin get up if he is comfortable enough to sleep deep. Dante won't ever get tired of it.

Oak told them about a training session while they walked back to the village together and invited them along. Stands to reason it would do them good, so Dante chases his growling brother into the bathroom to get ready to go, seeing as it will start soon. He feels disturbingly responsible doing it, though, and determines to stop doing that now. It will not do for people to think he can actually be trusted with responsibility or whatever. That way lies awful things, like paperwork being foisted on him by his awful friends.

The training turns out to be a two hour long lesson they spend with five other teenagers. All of whom are far more interested in them than whatever the professor is talking about. The fact that a lot of those stares are lustful in nature is something to be expected but still somewhat annoying. 

Dante has quite a lot of experience with how people tend to look at his body, of course. There is a reason he walked around shirtless as a teenager and a lot of it was how easy he pulled free drinks and meals and suckers to make some quick cash on. Of course, he also quite liked the attention, but yeah. All of which he is very careful to not mention to Vergil, even when his brother teases him about his wardrobe choices. He doesn't need to poke that particular possessive beast until he can reap the reward of some really good sex.

It's still very curious that the looks are nearly the same even now, what with them looking far more demonic than normally. People didn't often look at even his first trigger, the most normal one, with as much lust as these teenagers look at their weird new hybrid forms. Huh. Perhaps monster fucking is a far more widespread kink here than in their home dimension. The professor did show them some Pokémon that are quite human in physique at least, after all.

Hilarious. He will need to test if he can weasel some free drinks out of people here too. After the ward breaks and it pokes at Vergil's possessiveness. That's sure to get him some nice fun time, and if he gets free stuff on top of everything else, well. That's just good fortune, right there.

He smoothly shoves down the memories of his previous experiences with actual monster fuckers that thought brings up. Those were... interesting. And not to be thought of again, please and thank you. Good for them for living their best life, but Dante is so not interested in those fantasies. The brief glimpses he got on the ladies' phones when they shoved it in his face in unaware moments are more than enough for him, thank you very much. He still can't get all those tentacles out of his head.

Vergil is very put off when the professor explains to the class that trainers don't directly fight Pokémon but rather use other Pokémon in their stead. His twin sulks for the rest of the lesson after that, much to Dante's amusement. A bit hypocritical, admittedly, but that has never stopped Dante before. Maybe they can pretend to fight for each other if not directly fighting is such a huge sticking point as the doc is making out to be? Dante isn't going to capture some rat thing to fight for himself. No way. It would make him feel down right embarrassed to have something that weak fight in his place. And he goes to great lengths to never feel embarrassed ever.

The professor takes him and Vergil to the side after the lesson, to even more gawking of the teenagers who make little move to actually vacate the classroom. Too busy drooling. Wow. And here he is thinking his own hormones are bad.

"You did quite well for being so new to Pokémon in general. You will be well prepared for the exam!" He bends down behind his desk, rummaging around in a couple drawers and fishes three more books out. Dante is beginning to see a pattern here. "These will help you get up to speed on what you are still lacking." 

He seems to catch himself before he hands them over and looks up at Dante with a sheepish expression. "If you are still interested in the license, of course."

Well, might as well. Not getting bothered while traipsing about can only be a good thing and he is curious enough to go with it. Vergil nods in tandem with him, so clearly heis on the same page. Well, now they only need to solve the proxy fighting and they are set.

"And, if I may ask for a favour, perhaps you would come to my lab tomorrow morning before the session. Maybe tell me a bit about where you are from and how you got here? I am quite curious, you see."

He so suspects more than they have given him, isn't he. Well. Not like Dante tried particularly hard to come up with convincing lies.

----

Evening sees them stalking through the forest, because Vergil is hungry and Dante loves watching him hunt. It's always exhilarating to see the way he stalks his prey and runs it down. His twin finds a fat pink bear to take down in a beautiful twist of its head and a pretty spray of blood. Dante can't help but lick his lips at the mesmerizing sight. 

It turns out to be an excellent choice of prey, deliciously juicy and fatty and large enough to provide enough food to gorge themselves on. It's mouth watering enough that Dante actually joins in on the feast, even though he isn't hungry at all, after the overindulgence of the night and this morning. It's worth it though, the tender meat is nearly as good as pizza.

He hums contentedly, gnawing on a bone of one of the legs in some weird new instinct that feels frankly amazing. His brain sparks pleasantly each time he bites down on the brittle thing. Makes his chest rumble like a satisfied cat that just got the canary, the cream and is promised a fat mouse next. Nice. He could spent hours like this actually, hazily chomping away and leaning into his brother's side, perfectly happy. 

Vergil packs away most of the large carcass like he hasn't eaten in a week, purring back just as pleased. Dante makes a mental note to hunt more of these things in the future, if his twin likes it this much. It's rare that Vergil shows such an obvious preference for certain foods. His time spent on the run in hell resulting in him often eating whatever is placed in front of him with not a care for how it tastes. Also frequent overindulging, thought that's gotten better under mother's care. Still, Dante keeps half an eye on it, when his twin reaches for ever more of their delicious spoils to devour. The waves of contentment and satisfaction radiating off of him nearly put Dante down for a nap, though, the endorphins rushing through him pleasantly. Yup, definitely eating this bear thing again sometime soon. 

This is good, this is awesome, this is great-. 

There is someone coming too close.

He stiffens, bares his teeth just as there is a rustle to their right.

"Ewww, gross," an annoying voice shrieks right on cue, grating across Dante's hearing and quite effectively shattering his pleasant haze. 

His body tenses even more at the unwelcome intrusion, wings spreading wide. He did notice the lingering presence of a human sneaking around near them, but ignored it until now. Most people are too squirmish to interrupt something this bloody and tend to instinctively avoid their demonic natures anyway. Having someone interrupt now, when they were both so content, it's enough to actually get Dante miffed. And on top of all that the pitchy voice has that universal cadence of a childish bully to it. One that manages to annoy even Dante enough to actually get cranky about it. 

With a snarl on his blood-stained lips he twists around to glare at the intruder, one of the boys from the training session with the prof. Beside him Vergil is bristling, always angry at people reacting negatively to their more demonic traits. Or Pokémon traits, now. Another new instinct bubbles up in Dante, a need to defend their food from the interloper. He drops the remains of his bone and leans forward threateningly, wings opening wide to make a large display, baring all his teeth in a snarl. Every instinct in his body demands to attack the kid, chase him away from their prey and territory. 

The thought thankfully brings Dante up short, blinking in confusion at the aggressive impulse. Demons are territorial in their own right, but even in his trigger Dante has never felt it quite this keenly before. Not over something so simple as food. Strange.

"Leave," Vergil growls, voice full of dark threat, the spines on his tail and wings bristling much like the fur of a pissed off cat.

The boy does no such thing. "Are you some kind of savages eating a Pokémon like this? Disgusting."

"What, you think the meat in your food doesn't come from these things?" Dante asks carelessly, his new aggressive urges carefully packed away for now.

His mood shifts to amused satisfaction at the discomfort they are causing. Good. The boy needs to be gone and if he can get some petty revenge for his broken bliss, then Dante isn't above taking cheap shots. He carefully twists his tail around Vergil's in an effort to calm the very sharp edges back down, though. Wouldn't do to have an accident. He isn't in the mood to hide a corpse right now. Especially as they will be the first suspects people point their fingers at.

Before the boy can answer, the good Professor Oak steps into the clearing. What is it with all these people intruding on his and Vergil's nice little outing. It's enough to make a man crabby.

"Oh my, Gary, what is this then?" he asks with a a censoring frown. 

Dante doesn't miss the sharp eyes watching him and his brother. Clearly making careful note of their behaviour, studying them.

"They are eating a Chansey, grandfather! Look at them, they are covered in blood! It's unnatural," the boy whines and gives them both a haughty, scathing look. "They shouldn't get a trainer license if they do things like this."

"The only requirement for earning a licence is to take the training sessions and pass the exam, Gary. Everyone can do it. Even a Pokémon could, if they so intended and could communicate effectively with us!" The doc grins at them over Gary's head, twinkling eyes bright. 

Oh, he definitely suspects.

"What? No, that's stupid. Pokémon can't do that."

The Professor turns to his grandson with a surprisingly stern frown, looking a bit more put out than he probably should by the kid's words. He really likes his Pokémon, doesn't he. 

"There are Pokémon we have never seen before, Gary. Like the mythical ones, whose capabilities are still very much unknown to us. The bird trio, Lugia and Ho-Oh, Arceus and all the others. No one knows what they are capable of. And there are still many Pokémon undiscovered in the wild. There is nothing to say they can't learn the human language."

Arceus, huh. Dante absentmindedly licks away the blood on his fingers as the man rambles on, delighted when the kid makes a half disgusted, half aroused noise, eyes firmly fixed on his lips. With a nasty little smirk he looks over Vergil's tense shoulder and fishes around in the chunk of leg his twin is clutching still, grabbing one of the surprisingly many delicate bones in it. Humming softly he puts a broken end in his mouth and makes eye contact with the boy while he hollows out his cheeks and sucks the marrow right out with a long, soft slurp. 

The kid flushes blotchy and the distinct scent of arousal hits the clearing, Dante's lips twist into a smile. It's not the most pleasant smell coming from the kid, but it's too funny to mind too much. Vergil rumbles under him, too low to be heard by the others but a warning nonetheless. Dante just tugs the newly hollow bone out of his mouth with a pop and snickers at them both.

"Now, I already told you not to go into the forest, Gary, and if I catch you out here again I will disqualify you from the examination, no matter that you are my grandson. You have to follow the rules like everyone else and you know the tall grass is off limits to those without a license."

That sadly distracts Gary away from his sexuality crisis, which is just a shame. Dante was only getting started, after all. Giving those around him awkward boners was a very amusing hobby of his way back when. He leans more into Vergil with a satisfied smirk curling over his lips. Still got it.

"What? But they are out here too!" Gary points at them, rage making his flush even worse. 

If Dante were to put just a bit more pressure on him, he bet he could get him red as a traffic light. Wouldn't that be fun. He licks his fingers clean, lingering suggestively every time the kid flicks his eyes over.

"I only followed them to make sure they didn't break the rules." The kid leans back, eager smirk on his lips at supposedly having found a loophole.

Now that one is an obvious lie. Both Vergil and Dante would have known if the boy followed them and would never have tolerated it. The kid happened on their feasting spot on accident, probably attracted by the scent of blood the way all stupid teenage boys are. He saved enough of them from swanning into demon nests in his past life to know that all too well.

"They are travellers from far away, the abide by different rules. You, on the other hand, are to remain in the village. No matter the reason you come up with for being out here, your mother is very clear on that. Now back home with you. Go."

Gary scowls in their direction one last time before he petulantly stomps away into the trees. Dante gives a soft snort at his retreating back. "Good riddance."

"Hm," Vergil agrees, finally backing down from his territorial rumbling, using the pad of his thumb to wipe at a stray drop of blood on his cheek. Dante kind of gets fixed on it for a moment, really wanting to lick it away. Vergil prods him out of it, "are you still hungry?"

He looks down at the rest of the delicious bear thing and shakes his head. He didn't eat because of hunger in the first place and the intrusion destroyed any lingering desire to indulge any more. "Nope. You?"

Vergil shakes his own head and they both get up to leave the carcass behind. It will be nourishment for the scavengers the scent of blood has already attracted. Dante nuzzles his cheek to Vergil's with a satisfied purr, gently licking a streak of blood away now that he knows the consequences will only be a slightly tipsy feeling. It's so small he won't even really feel it. Out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of the professor, still there and watching them avidly, so he doesn't groom his brother properly like his instincts want him to.

"Would you like to come to my lab for a cup of tea and a chat?" said Professor asks, smile open and inviting and projecting harmlessness in a way Dante knows too well. He uses it himself often enough.

Dante grins back with a hefty amount of teeth and only pulls back after he gets a slightly sheepish smile in return. Point and warning made and received, he nods lazily. 

"Yeah, sure. We wanted to ask you some things anyway." 

Chapter Text

The way back is short and filled with the professor telling them about the Pokémon they hunted. It's surprisingly entertaining, the man is a surprisingly good storyteller if nothing else, but ultimately uninteresting. At least it soothes some of the bristles Vergil is still sporting.

When they finally get to the lab Dante is pleasantly surprised to find it quite normal looking, in spite of what he expected. He has had the unfortunate honour of a few hunts in private and government funded labs, Angus' and Arkham's most prominent amongst them. None of those looked this clean, bright or welcoming. It looks used and homey, makes him feel better about their visit, at least. The old man settles them all down around a table and looks at them excitedly. Dante resigns himself to his fate. Vergil is not going to say a single peep if he doesn't absolutely have to here. This is on Dante or it isn't going to happen. 

So he tells the good doc a heavily doctored version of the events that got them here, while Vergil hovers behind him, agitated but outwardly stony. Rather than sitting like a civilized person, he is looming over Dante like a grumpy shadow. It's very cute and he will mercilessly tease his twin for it later. Even more, after he keeps calling Arceus the alien goat Pokémon, Vergil even deems to interrupt him with the actual name of the thing, much to Dante's amusement. The professor markedly perks up at that but remains silent until Dante is finished.

"What an interesting story!" he remarks at the end, eyes twinkling with scientific avarice.

"Oh? Think it's a tall tale?" Dante doesn't much care if he is believed or not, but he is curious how much the good doc is willing to swallow on his word alone.

"Oh, not at all! Pokémon are quite amazing things and capable of great feats. And your very existence is anomaly enough to provide ample evidence. But to think I would be part of such an amazing discovery. Why, I can barely contain myself. And you mentioned Arceus themselves! They are said to have created the entore world, you see. Amazing, truly amazing. Would you mind if I ran a few tests? Nothing big, of course, some scans, some questions. Arceus! You must tell me all about them. How they look, what they said, what it felt like when they used their power on you- Oh my oh my oh my, so much to research, so much new information to consider."

Dante blinks in the face of the sudden explosive enthusiasm. "Okaaaay. I can, uh, draw Arceus for you. If you want." 

The prof nods so much he looks like a bobble head. 

"As for the scans-" Dante looks over his shoulder up at Vergil to check, "-as long as it's nothing invasive or anything," he turns back to the professor who looks at him with sparkling eyes, "I suppose you can run a few tests. You get no blood or other samples form us, though."

"Of course, of course! You may always tell me to stop!" The man springs up spritely, only Dante's fast reflexes saving the tea cup he sets haphazardly down on the edge from falling, and hurries off into the depths of the lab. 

Dante looks back up at Vergil, equally amused and bemused. Vergil stares back with the most deadpan face ever. A loud crash sounds to their right, underlined by exited muttering.

Well. Guess they are going to be test subjects for the afternoon now, seeing as Vergil does not look to be in a great hurry to spear unsuspecting scientists on his tail. Yet.

Yay or whatever.

---- 

Dante tries to recreate an acceptable representation of the goat alien while Vergil stands on a strange technological device getting flashed by light. Dante eyes it for a moment, absolutely clueless about what it is doing. He does not much care for any technology more advanced than a jukebox or his old rotary phone, not really seeing the point of it. A fact both Lady, Patty and later even Nero cursed him out for. Especially as he had the supposedly bad habit of leaving the mobile phone they forced on him behind wherever he went. Accidentally, of course, no matter what anyone else said. Not his fault the thing was so inherently forgettable. 

He shakes his head and turns back to the paper in front of him, eyeing the image critically. While he is somewhat adept at drawing he's far from a being master, so the success is debatable but at least there is a recognizable goat here.

When Vergil steps off the weird scanner thing, Dante pronounces the drawing the best he can manage and gives up on it. The professor has been muttering happily for the whole time, sometimes interrupted by Vergil's own low tones, but Dante mostly tuned them out. Now he hops up and wanders over, staring quizzically at the computer screen the professor is raving over. The text and diagrams do not tell him anything useful. He turns to Vergil, who just shrugs back, face as disinterested as Dante feels. 

The professor jumps when Dante waves his drawing under his nose and then waxes more poetics about the incredible discoveries, clearly torn between the screen and the paper. The enthusiasm reminds Dante of Patty when she has found a new manga to talk his ears off about. He leaves the good doc to his passions, knowing better than to engage before the crazy is back under some semblance of control. Lest he be sucked in and has to endure traumatising rants about things he has no interest in. 

Vergil steps up to his side and Dante turns to wrap his arms around him instead, sniffing delicately at his shoulder. He blinks when he catches himself but it's too late, his brother is already looking at him with amused confusion. Dante grimaces back and resolves to try to figure out all these new instincts, so he doesn't fall for them so badly anymore.

"It seems I am an as of yet unknown kind of Pokémon." Vergil rolls his eyes, because yeah, obviously. "Dark and poison double typed, as we suspected. Which does possibly explain your reaction to my blood," he grins, teasing.

Dante blinks at him for a long moment, before he nods thoughtfully, ignoring the jab. He will trick his brother into drinking his blood yet and get all the revenge he could hope for. Their demonic heritage makes their reactions to poisonous substances weird to begin with, as aptly shown by Dante's habit of downing bottles of bleach to get plastered faster in his previous life, when regular alcohol stopped working properly the more powerful he got. Of course, he has never told Vergil about that particular habit of his, knowing his twin wouldn't take it too well. Dante doesn't even want to think about the ridiculous things Vergil would do, if he found out how badly off Dante was for a while there. Better to let sleeping devils lie. No doubt his twin is similarly keeping things about his own life hidden from him, for the exact same reasons no doubt.

He really needs to find a way to let them get revenge on Mundus. More revenge. They already took down the ass back home. But well, they did just manage to get themselves here via the Yamato. Surely they can figure something out to allow them to get access to more Munduses to kill.

"He gave me a few more books on the two types and all possible attacks," his brother continues when Dante doesn't answer, and he snaps his attention back to his twin.

"Huh, cool. How did the scan feel?"

"Nothing at all. It seems fine enough." Vergil is leafing through the books, face set firmly.

That's a grudging admission if Dante has ever heard one and he smiles a crooked grin at his crotchety brother. Who only stares back at him with a flat look, when he finally stops pretending to be reading and looks up.

"Oh, oh! Are you ready to go next then?" The professor finally surfaces from his frenzy and flutters over. 

Amiably, Dante goes to stand on the strange little circle, while Vergil writes down what he remembers about Arceus' magic. He curiously leans forward to look at the screen as it begins listing out results from the light show wandering up and down his body, and gets a quelling look for his troubles. With a sheepish smile he stands straight again, but keeps an eye on the screen. Text and graphs appear on it, most of it technical lingo that goes straight over his head. Though he does get some of the gist of it. 

An assessment of his type and stats, measurements of his physical features like height and weight, wing and tail type, and also weirdly enough his footprint. A short paragraph about his general appearance along with a picture. Hm. Dante doesn't know if he likes that there is so much information about him in the machine now. It's really a good thing they don't plan to stay in this world for long.

"And we are finished," the professor mutters before going off to the book shelves and picking up another pair. Dante steps off the little pedestal and trails after him, they are probably meant for him. "You are a dark type like V over there, Tony. Which certainly explains all the similarities you share with each other! But you have a psychic secondary typing in place of his poison. Interesting, quite interesting. Are you two related? You share a lot of pysical features but that doesn't mean much in Pokémon."

"Uh, yeah. Twins, actually."

The professor looks up at him again, utterly elated.

"Oh! Twins! Interesting, so very interesting. To have the same chemical make-up. That you then would differ so in typing and your physical manifestations of your Pokémon features... I see I see, yes your faces and general body structure are quite identical, oh but the rest. Oh, how interesting. There haven't been a lot of Pokémon twins, something in their biology making it virtually impossible. Ah, this reminds me of the Eevie evolutions. My, my, so much new data to analyse. I must consult with the other professors about this!" He descends back into muttering. 

Dante clears his throat, momentarily shocking him out of it. "You need anything else?"

Which is the moment that the electricity in the lab abruptly flickers, and cuts off, leaving them in the dim of the evening light coming in through the window.

"Not again!" the professor cries in dismay, scrambling for the computer. "This keeps happening. Oh, hopefully nothing has been lost."

The faint scratching of little claws sounds from one of the cracked windows, accompanied with tiny meeps. When Dante sticks his head out of it, a tiny yellow mouse looks up at him, teeth buried deep in an electric line and sparking gently. He presses his lips together against a laugh and pulls his head back in, turning to the prof. 

"Yeaaaaah, there's a mouse eating your cables, doc," he drawls, pointing a lazy thumb out of the window.

"What?" said prof asks harriedly, patting away at his screen. 

Which keeps flickering. Presumably on account of the mouse that is eating all the electricity outside.

"Yep. Mouse. Eating cables and sparking. Better go take care of that, if you want to keep using your doohickeys."

"Oh my!" Prof strides over to look out of the window himself. "You! Stop that!"

The Pokémon eeps and scampers off and the prof hurries out of the room after it, leaving Dante and Vergil behind, blinking at each other. Dante finally succumbs and laughs helplessly at the absurdity of it all.

Ah, well. That's that then. At least they got what they were here for.

----

Dante wakes up the next day curled up together with Vergil in their tiny hotel bed. He can feel a definitive shift in the wards energy, when he does his now habitual check. It has noticeably slowed these last few days, especially after they accidentally activated it.

Now he can tell it's running on its last leg, the energy beginning to drain rapidly. A slow, giddy smile grows across his face. He gives it a few more days at most before it sputters out. He firmly taps down the resulting surge of arousal at the thought, carefully shifting away from Vergil's furnace warmth, just to be safe. Dante has no desire to spend his day away from Vergil right before they will be able to pounce each other. 

He buries his excited smile in the cushion instead, just enjoying the fact that he is so so glad to be alive right now. Then he rolls out of Vergil's arms and off the bed, resulting in much sleepy grumbling from his twin, who buries himself in Dante's left over warmth and promptly goes back to dream land. Dante very firmly doesn't reach out to card his fingers through his hair, but only because he can't trust himself not to do something monumentally impulsive that will result in no fun consequences. 

He goes out the window in search for a distraction instead. Then he stands in the middle of the town, contemplating what to do.

Vergil and Dante are, first and foremost, very horny teenagers. Very demonic horny teenagers, who will be going at it like rabbits once let off the leash, with all the violent enthusiasm and endurance their demonic blood brings forth, even if it's muted right now. Which does indeed also mean some violent bouts of fighting in between. Because what better foreplay than to stab each other a few times with sharp swords and claws. Hmmmmmmm. Anyway. Nicely violent sparring. Which will no doubt attract attention and maybe demolish a few things, like trees or houses or stuff.

He doesn't think the inn keeper, or the village proper really, would like to be witness to the event. And while Dante is utterly shameless and does not care one bit about the opinions of others not directly related to him in some way, he does not want to deal with the hassle of the outrage. Also, they kind of need at least the professor's continued good will until the exam is over. He can tell that Vergil's perfectionism has kicked in with a vengeance and his twin will hate to fail to get that license now, with the highest possible score and all. Fondness warms his chest at the thought. Silly brother. Silly perfect brother that Dante will never ever let go again. Silly perfect beautiful brother that Dante wants to climb like a tree and ride into oblivion- nope. 

Nope nope nope, not going there, never mind.

Hm, now that he thinks about it, the professor would probably love to observe their, uh, mating ritual, and then babble about it excitedly to all his other academic friends. He's weird like that. And while Dante wouldn't mind giving him a show, be it as jerk off material or academic research, Vergil would have some choice words for any bystanders seeing them. Very physically pointy choice words, possessive asshole that he is.

Dante's lips twitch into a grin. He isn't going to complain about being Vergil's complete focus like that, not after their last attempt at life. But he also doesn't want to have to waste time on corpse disposal, when he could spend that time being fucked straight through whatever flat surface they manage to find. Sounds just about the opposite of fun, that.

He spends a few distracted minutes fantasizing about the flex of Vergil's abs, so nicely tapering down to- Anyway. Moving on. Preferably before he has to take a cold shower or take care of some urgent business while trying not to jump his twin. Dante hates cold showers and masturbating is boring without any toys or a partner.

Back to the matter at hand. Not having a sex marathon in the middle of Pallet Town is definitely a good idea, if only so they won't get disturbed in the middle of said sex marathon. No matter how much the good doc and all the horny teenagers would like it.

Dante won't exactly mind just going off into the wilds and finding a nice cave or whatever, but there has to be a better alternative. He really likes the fact that they have currently access to a comfy bed. 

So while Vergil sleeps on, blissfully unaware of the good times to come, Dante goes to the professor. Which results in a strange electronic doohickey on his wrist that has some kind of map on it, where a red circle indicates a lone cottage in the middle of the woods. Nicely far into the forest, where no one goes. Private. No one to disturb them. He can tolerate the weird armband thing in exchange for that, though he will foist it onto his twin as soon as possible.

Oak even restrains himself to keeping Dante in the lab for only an hour with ever more probing questions. Dante, being very very shameless and just as eager to be amused by silly antics, indulges him and only widely lies on maybe half the answers he gives, big grin full of teeth. The professor smiles back full of knowing mischief. Good fellow. He seems to enjoy trying to puzzle out where Dante is telling the truth and where he's spewing nonsense out the wazoo. Dante admittedly likes him, despite the lab coat.

All in all it's a good, productive morning. 

About three more days to go.

Ho boy. Possibly Dante will burst from blue balls before that.

----

When Vergil wakes up with the sun shining in his eyes in the most annoying way possible, he finds the bed besides him empty and cold. With a malcontent growl he heaves himself up and hones in on the side of the room with the instinct of a devil with only half a soul and a doubly aggravating twin. Predictably, Dante is grinning at him from where he is sitting on the floor and messing around with some backpacks he has conjured from somewhere. The smile is bright and mischievous and full of teeth and altogether unsettling.

Shit.

He is up to something and exited for Vergil's reaction. It is distracting enough he doesn't even pay any attention to the supplies strewn about until it's already too late.

Dante is a locked fortress and keeps mum no matter how much Vergil pushes, even fuelled as he is by the adrenaline of little brother antics right after waking up.

His brother grabs his hand in a firm grip and pulls him out into the much too bright sun, still stumbling and cursing. No one should be awake this early in the morning. No matter that it's already lunch time. It is a crime against demonkind and humanity both. Curse his brother's lack of proper sleep schedule that means he is wide awake at the most ludicrous times and off in snoozeland when Vergil wants him to do something.

After scrounging up enough brain cells to be somewhat functional, Vergil throws his weight back and digs his claws into the soft ground, bringing them to a sudden halt, wings flaring to keep his balance when Dante pulls on determinedly.

"What exactly are you planning?" he asks, deeply suspicious. 

Dante has been acting shifty and horny all week and it sets Vergil's instincts on edge like nothing else. The answering opportunistic display of teeth only the blind would call a smile is enough to make Vergil regret ever asking.

"Oh, you know," Dante begins slowly, positively energetic with diabolic intent, "nothing much."

"Do not!" Vergil hisses at him, tightening his grip on his twin's hand to keep him from haring off to do untold amounts of mischief. 

He does not know what Dante shouldn't be doing, but he does know that he doesn't want it to happen.

"Aww, where is your sense of adventure, brother dearest?" 

The toothy, opportunistic smile grows toothier and even more opportunistic. A fact which momentarily stuns Vergil, who did not think this possible. His inattention is ruthlessly exploited by Dante, who drags him off into the forest before he can complain or stop him.

----

As the professor has promised, the cabin is a slightly dilapidated wooden building in the middle of the forest far from any routes or settlements. It's a cute little building squatting right in the middle of the trees, but more than enough for his plans. Admittedly, any secluded and secure spot would do right now, but Dante does appreciate having a bed at least. Even if they certainly won't be contained to it.

"This is where you wanted to go? An old cabin in the woods?" Vergil sounds supremely unimpressed, which is his default setting, so Dante doesn't take it personally. 

Even if he has so thoughtfully arranged for such a nice, sheltered, secluded spot for them to fool around in to their hearts content. Admittedly, Vergil doesn't know this part and still thinks the ward breaking is a good six weeks out but that is neither here nor there. He should be more appreciative of Dante's thoughtful efforts anyway.

"Yup," he chirps, utterly delighted by this situation, life in general and Vergil's continued presence at his side.

"What, exactly, are we doing in a cabin lost in the woods, Dante?"

Dante grins at him. There is a constant chant of soon, soon, soon in his head he can't quite silence anymore and it's making him a little bit manic. But first, brother tormenting time. Insert evil cackling here.

"Getting brutally slaughtered by an axe murderer, of course. What, never seen a horror movie before?"

"Hilarious, brother." Vergil's deadpan expression is a work of art, honed from many, many years suffering Dante's brand of horrible humour.

He is very proud of himself for his hand in it.

"Thank you, brother. I try."

Vergil's face slowly shifts back from deadpan to the deeply suspicious look it has sported all the way here and wow, hurtful. Dante is a perfectly nice little brother, what with preparing such a good surprise for his twin. He does not deserve this mistrust. His grin widens again into what mam once called the face of the actual devil. 

"Dante." 

There is a clear warning in Vergil's voice that Dante magnanimously ignores, whirling around and loping up the front steps of the definitely not murder cabin. Even if there is actually an axe murderer about, they will kill him before he even gets into the house, anyway.

"Come on, Verge, let's see what we are living with for the next few days," he calls over his shoulder, unlocking the door. 

He has to give it a bit of a push as it's stuck to the frame, but it opens up on silent hinges after. 

The well kept living room he steps into is surprisingly cozy, with a kitchenette to the side and a small table to eat. To the side is a couch before a fireplace and directly to his side is a wardrobe clearly meant for shoes and coats. He ignores it in favour of the kitchen to unload the supplies he brought. See Vergil, he even thought to bring food with them, even though he himself will definitely have better things on his mind than eating.

"Why are we residing in a cabin lost in the middle of the woods for the next few days, Dante." 

He looks away from where he is stuffing weird canned goods into an empty cupboard, turning to his brother. Vergil is standing in the middle of the room, looking very put out by this new development but thankfully not altogether opposed. Wouldn't do if brother doesn't play along until he cottons on to why this is actually a genius idea.

"Come on, have some fun, Verge. The old professor needed someone to check up on his cabin and I said we would do it."

Vergil just stares at him and crosses his arms over his chest, clearly not willing to back down anymore.

"All we are doing now is just waiting for the exam to happen, which is still a good few days out. We don't even really need to learn anything more for it. It's boring, Verge. I am bored and I want a change of pace. We get out of the village this way and have some fun trying out our powers without nosy people around to watch every move we make like we are animals in a zoo." Dante pulls a face before he schools his features back into a winning smile.

Vergil, who has not only excellent demonic senses but also an incredibly well honed little brother bullshit meter, narrows his eyes at Dante. But in the end he relents anyway, more resigning himself to the antics than actually believing the fib. 

"Fine. I will admit to being glad to be away from the humans. The scrutiny was getting bothersome."

Their obviously different physics has been a point of attention form the very beginning and the longer they stay in Pallet Town, the more comfortable the residents get with gawking and commenting on it. Dante doesn't like incessant attention like that, least of all if he doesn't get something out of it. There is a reason no one has ever known what he did with Devil May Cry, before the Qlipoth and the annoying media attention it brought them. Vergil is even more adverse to it, a mix of his natural abhorrence for much company at all and residues of his experiences in the previous life.

Dante smiles at him and easily steps into Vergil's already waiting arms before he even really thinks about it, fitting them close together. They have both been more on edge about the town than Dante really realised.

Really, the cabin was an excellent idea.

----

(The abandoned cabin is from a fun game called Coromon, a Pokémon spoof. I have chosen its location pretty arbitrarily.)

Chapter Text

Dante claims the couch for a nap, declaring his good deed for the day done and that it's therefore leisure time now. Vergil scoffs at him but leaves him to it, busying himself with exploring their new residence instead. The main room is surprisingly comfortable, cosy even. One door to the back leads to a tiny bathroom with an even tinier shower that Vergil is dubious even works right up until the turns the knob. The clean, warm stream of steady water is quite a pleasant surprise.

The only other door leads to a small bedroom with two narrow beds and an empty closet. It's spartan but comfortable enough. They can probably shove the beds together to make room for them both. While they aren't yet as tall as they will grow to be, they are lanky enough to make more room desirable. Not much else is to be found so he returns to the living room, resolving to walk around the property while Dante sleeps. Maybe they can spar properly afterwards, seeing as they won't have to take care to tamper themselves anymore. No humans to spook and no properties they need to be careful not to destroy with stray attacks. Now that they know what they are and have started getting a handle of their powers, he is eager to test them out properly against his twin.

He is just stepping into the living room when he abruptly chocks on his spit at the sight that greets him.

Dante is sprawled languidly over the sunken cushions, splayed out in a way that can not be comfortable but easily manages to short circuit every one of Vergil's braincells. Long legs artfully splayed to highlight what is nestled between them, one hand resting on his chest, the other on his hip. So close to the V of his crotch that his claws brush the dark scales preserving his modesty. For a moment Vergil can only follow the long, elegant lines down to the alluring sight that Vergil has to constantly keep his horny teenage mind away from.

With great willpower Vergil rips his gaze away, only to be equally mesmerised by his twin's face. Dante seems to be having a wet dream, if the way he lets out a whispery moan is any indication. Which does not help with the way Vergil's mind is steadily being consumed by lust now.

Before Vergil can recover from the sight and noise, Dante stirs with another breathy exhale, head arching back to expose the long column of his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing in a swallow. Vergil feels arousal pool warm in his gut, attention skipping from his twin's pleasure filled face down to his crotch where his sheath is slowly opening, exposing flushed flesh to Vergil's ravenous gaze, beckoning with lewd promises. He grinds his teeth against hot desire, tries to distract himself with all the reasons he cannot follow his screaming instincts and touch. The scent of Dante's arousal fills his lungs when he takes a deep breath to steady himself and Vergil can feel himself harden in answer, no doubt adding his own eager scent to the heavy air.

Dante chest heaves on a deep sigh and Vergil can see how affected he is by the hormones suffusing the air, hips canting up in search for touch.

"Ve-erge," he breaths and his eyes flutter barely open.

His dazed gaze finds Vergil's own under the cover of his lashes, face a mixture of need and invitation. A pink tongue darts out to lick his lips, his cheeks flushing under Vergil's intent gaze.

He always loves watching his brother, could spend hours simply observing him, no matter what he does. But there is something so magnetically stirring observing him engulfed in pleasure. Like he is a maddeningly compelling piece of exquisite art just for Vergil to enjoy.

Dante's hand dips down under his gaze, the sheath that encloses him breaking apart under probing fingers to let his cock spring free. They are intersex in this form just like they are in their triggers, as Vergil has found soon after transforming. As such his brother is lewdly wet and dark promises nestle behind his erect penis. Vergil yearns to sink his fingers into him, wrap his hand around his cock just like Dante is doing right now, long fingers wrapping tight around himself. Dante pants a breath, slowly curls his fingers up and down, hips canting up into the pressure. His other hand comes down, curious fingers prodding under his sack and sinking down into himself.

Vergil staggers under the sight, stumbling forward to grab hold of the back of a chair by the table, desperate to keep himself back from reaching out and replacing those fingers with his own. He would give anything to feel that firm length against his own palm, feel the warm, slick skin give way under his own fingers as he sinks them deep. Fuck.

While his fingers curl around the head of his cock Dante pushes deep into himself, up to the first knuckle, then the second, until they can't go further and Vergil glories at the sight of it. The pale skin is such a beautifully stark contrast against the dark red scales and swollen flesh. The tendons on the back of Dante's hand flex, standing out starkly as he moves inside himself. It takes a bit until his brother finds the right spot, and then his hips buck up, another breathy moan escaping him. The wood creaks under the strength of Vergil's grip. He can so easily imagine the wet heat around his own fingers, the slick slide and welcoming heat.

His cock aches in his sheet and he allows it to breach free with a spine curling relief of pressure and his eyes would close in pleasure if only it wouldn't stop him from seeing the feast of his twin. Every cell in his body screams at him to satisfy his brother, to bury his aching arousal in those slick folds, sink deep into the wet heat until he is fully seated and united with his twin in the closest union they can achieve. He loves watching his brother, enjoys little more than seeing him reach new heights of pleasure while at Vergil's mercy, but the long separation strains even his control and willingness to wait.

"Oh fuck, Verge," Dante whispers brokenly and Vergil's gaze snaps up to his face, needing to watch Dante's expressions. 

His twin has the most beautiful look while in the throws of passion, hazy eyed and flushed red, and Vergil wants to see it all the time. Their eyes lock and hold, captured in each other while Dante moves, fast and desperate.

A beautiful shade of pink runs from Dante's heaving chest up to his face, staining the marble of his skin with the colour of the blood flooding below. He has a delicate expression of need painted over his face that calls for his other half. It is nearly Vergil's undoing, he so wants to consume him.

"Dante," he growls in frustrated desire.

The sound hits his brother like a physically touch, like a cock pushing between his legs. Dante's eyes widen for just a second, before they disappear under fluttering lashes. His fingers bury as deep as they can go, fisting tight around his cock as he spills all over himself, his whole body going rigid with a broken whimper. And Vergil watches as he reaches his peak, held in orgasm for what seems like eternity. It's beautiful. It's ensnaring. It is the most arousing thing Vergil has ever seen. That it is not Vergil's own fingers driving him there is maddening.

When Dante finally goes slack with a heady groan, fingers slipping out of him glittering with slick, Vergil finally caves under his own greedy desire and the impatient hormones coursing through him. One hand flies to his cock, fingers wrapping tight around the girth of it and rubs fast to the sight of his sweet twin still caught in the aftershocks. Nothing but the fantasy of slipping between those slack lips or under that heavy cock fills his head. Nearly there, just a little more and Dante brings his hand up to his mouth, licks at his wet fingers and Vergil tumbles over with a hoarse moan, spilling into his hand.

He pants and finally lets go of the chair he nearly crushed, uncomfortably unsatisfied even after orgasm. Nothing will be truly satisfying until he can finally get his twin under him. When the damnable ward breaks. A hoarse laugh from the couch has him glowering at his brother. "Did you have to?"

"Hey, don't look at me. Can't stop a nice dream."

Vergil closes his eyes in frustration and an effort to restrain himself, and determinedly whirls on his heels to stalk out the front door. The low laughter following him out is not helping matters.

Pest. Dante did that on purpose, he just knows it.

----

When Vergil comes in from a long run around the house, blood barely calmed down, it's to find Dante grinning brightly, body wet and flushed from a shower and splayed out in an utterly sensual sprawl again. His smile slides over right into something utterly shameless and goading when he sees him.

Vergil intently contemplates just turning around and going right back out. That would mean giving Dante the victory, though, and he obviously can't do that. So he resigns himself to the torture Dante has clearly hatched for him. Though he demands lunch in censure anyway. Dante doesn't even protest, the reason of which becomes obvious when he somehow manages to eat the fruits he brought in the most led way possible. Spilling juice all over his fingers and licking it off with burning eyes boring right into Vergil's own.

Vergil is fine. Perfectly fine even. He is in control and will not succumb.

He is fine.

His twin spends the whole rest of the day teasing him with ever more goading. It's torture and Vergil can't flee it, because that would mean Dante wins. Not even sparring helps expand the frustration. In fact, the sudden close proximity and adrenaline just makes Vergil more susceptible to the continued teasing Dante insists on heaping on him.

Vergil doesn't regret the way he has taunted his brother with words and voice and presence before, but he does understand Dante's muttering now. It is torture to not be able to do anything about the inevitable arousal hitting him when his brother decides to be a little irresistible shit and sets Vergil's blood to boiling again.

But yes, Vergil is completely fine. If one counts not being fine at all and seconds from loosing his composure as fine. He spends a bit too much time trying to decimate the local flora and fauna, but that does not mean he is not fine. Obviously. And if his thoughts can't quite stop circling soft, flushed skin and gasps of his name and the memories of fingers delving deep, then no one has to know. Even if Dante keeps laughing at him from the sidelines while he determinedly doesn't look at him.

... Vergil is perfectly fine.

He forces himself into an ice cold shower in hope of calming down, even though he detests those even more now that he is more sensitive to temperature. Sadly, this is all for naught as the moment he steps out Dante is there to grin brightly at him from right on the other side of the door. By now Vergil is so keyed up that even his brother's mere presence and smile is enough to send his blood racing. It takes every ounce of willpower that he possesses not to reach out and rheel the brat in, devour that awful smile right off of his lips until his twin is dazed and flushed with need for more. Dante smiles smugly while Vergil fights his baser instincts, holding his eyes for far longer than necessary, challenge obvious in every line of his face. Probably his body too but Vergil does not look.

Instead, Vergil bares his teeth at him in turn and brushes past him. Which leaves the shower for Dante and the sound of running water has images of his twin wet and soapy mercilessly drilling through Vergil's mind until he slams his head down into the table in frustration.

He is fine.

----

It's nighttime and Vergil has come to the conclusion that he is not fine.

Masturbating is of little help. It just intensifies the desire to grab his twin and pin him to the floor, fuck him into next week.

But he can't.

Vergil is laying face down on one of the beds and dying a slow but sure death of unsatisfied arousal. The ward is still up and running even if he has noticed the energy noticeably flagging, pulsing gently the whole day long because both of them are so unbearably aroused right now. Still, four more weeks left to go. Four agonising, excruciating, torturous weeks. During which Dante has obviously decided to torment Vergil with the most exquisite show of temptation he can possibly need or want. He would enjoy it significantly more if he could fuck his twin through the floor in answer. He growls into the pillow in helpless frustration.

A soft moan makes its way over from the other bed. Dante has suggested they sleep in different beds, citing the steadily pulsing ward as the reason. Better not to touch right now, right? Vergil, naively, concurred, thinking of his own increasingly agitated state. There is no way they won't trigger a reaction right now if they try to sleep against each other, not after a day of this torture. 

Now that he is experiencing the reality of it, he knows it for the trap it is. No, Dante clearly isn't afraid of the ward, he just wanted to have the ability to make Vergil's life even worse by masturbating again, without the thing going off due to accidental touch while doing so. Vergil curses into the pillow and tries to distract himself, but comes up blank with what. His ears are hypersensitive and the sounds he hears are the only thing he can think about.

Rustling of sheets and a wet noise of skin on skin, another moan that has Vergil rock hard and ready to go in an instant, desire abruptly coursing through him.

Shit.

Damn their teenage nature for making them not only so inescapable horny but providing the stamina for marathon masturbation too. Vergil is in the sweetest of hells.

"V-Verge."

Distraction is very hard to achieve with Dante moaning his name like that on the other side of the room.

Every sound his brother makes is geared exclusively to make Vergil's life miserable and his self control stretches like an overwrung spring, liable to break any moment. He is so painfully horny right now that he is loosing track of why he can't just go over there and ravish his twin.

“Dante, you ass.” His voice, like his grip on his self control, is strained. 

Vergil loves his brother, he really, truly does, but sometimes he worries about Dante's sanity. The low, rough laugh he gets for his cursing does not help the impression at all. If his brother wants him to pounce and activate the ward in some diabolical scheme Vergil can not make head nor tail of, then he is very close to succeeding.

"Pro -hah- problem, big brother?" The way Dante manages to infuse his voice with both dripping condescension and an obscene amount of lust, is quite awe inspiring and very curse worthy. He gives another breathy moan, long and drawn out.

Vergil has an insufferable little shit of a brother and he would suffocate him with his pillow if only he weren't too blindingly aroused to do anything but fuck him through the floor. And if only touching him in this state would not make Vergil even more miserable.

This is revenge for all the times he teased his twin, isn't it? He should have known Dante took that too docilely. Of course he takes his revenge for it sooner or later. It would not have stopped Vergil from getting the satisfaction of getting his brother riled up with his voice and presence alone, but there is the thought at least. 

More rhythmic rustling. A gasping hitch in his twin's breath sparks memories of all the other times Vergil has heard that same noise, in the life of before. Always just before Dante's eyes roll closed, hips twitching up desperately, so close to orgasm Vergil only has to push him a bit more to make him come undone beneath his hands. Vegil groans again, cock twitching insistently against his sheath at the memory of the way Dante always constricts so perfectly around him just as he comes.

God. He wants to bury himself in that welcoming furnace heat, wants to see Dante spread on his cock and writhing as pleasure turns him into an incoherent mess. Before he can think better about it his hand slips beneath the cover, cock rapidly filling out and pushing out of his sheath at his prodding. At the next hitched noise Vergil has his fist wrapped around himself, rubbing in blind search of an orgasm. He doesn't even care about it, much more intent to listen to his brother's noises, desperately wishing to see but whatever Dante is doing is hidden behind his own blanket like a tantalizing secret just out of reach. It just adds to the desire he feels course through his veins.

Mere seconds later Dante throws his head back, mouth falling open on a silent exhale as he comes, frozen in the throws of orgasm while Vergil can only watch in awe, cock pulsing in his clenching hand as he follows suit, spilling into his fist like an afterthought, focus firmly locked on Dante's ecstatic face.

His twin, after he recovers, stretches luxuriously, spills another obscene moan of deep satisfaction into the air like a targeted attack and goes to sleep right then and there. Leaving Vergil frustrated, dissatisfied and wide awake from the sudden need still coursing through him even after his own release.

Damn him.

Despite himself, Vergil can’t help the fondness whelling up inside him, can't stop the helpless laugh that spills out of him while he tries to find something to wipe his hand off on. When it comes to Dante, charmed is sadly his default way of being, no matter how ridiculous it gets. Even as that awful, mischievous sense of humour is turned on him.

Still, his brother is a sadistic brat and will rue his teasing when Vergil can finally get his hands on him properly. Vergil will make him cry before they are done.

----

Dante has been giddy the whole morning, barely able to keep still. Vergil has never seen him so agitated and it would concern him far more if there was not an euphoric quality to his twin's restlessness. Whatever is happening is good but Vergil can't quite figure out what it is.

Still, he is deeply suspicious. The incessant torture of the day before seems to thankfully be over, but this is just as concerning. If Vergil didn't know better, he would think it's because the ward is close to giving out. It is the only thing that comes to his mind to make his brother this agitated.

But no. He checks, regularly, obsessively, even if it is muted through his brother's shielding core, even more so now in this new form of theirs. The ward is still humming away, far weaker than ever before but still going. Vergil entertains the thought that Dante noticed the flagging and decided to finally break the thing, but he doubts it. They both have come to see that it is a good thing they have waited until now, for the sake of their relationship and the trust and connection they managed to build up again. And Vergil freely admits that he likes the building suspension, the waiting. It will make the price all the sweeter, in the end.

Still, the thought of it finally breaking brings a smirk to his face, dark and possessive. Soon enough he will be able to have his brother properly again.

Dante makes a half appreciative, half tortured sound, clearly seeing the expression on his face. Good. Vergil has been tortured enough at his brother's leisure, it does Dante good to taste some of his own medicine. Even if the teasing is merely revenge for Vergil's own actions.

Vergil smirks even more and uses his twin's distraction to feint to the side and come close enough to whip his wing around for a quick jab across his brother's gut. Dante nearly stumbles from the impact, but keeps his footing and retaliates by trying to grab the limb and twist Vergil to the floor with it.

They have been fighting for the whole morning now, because Dante wouldn't stop pestering him until he relented. Not that Vergil had to be convinced all that much, seeing as he is only too glad to get some of the build up of frustration out of his system. Slamming Dante into the floor is not quite what he wants to do but is still better than nothing. Even if his wicked twin just laughs loudly and twists away, when he goes to spear him on his tail.

But even in this there is something not quite right. Dante is evading far more than he is fighting, often resorting to long range attacks when he can. Flowing around Vergil like water if he can't get distance, right up until he slams up that accursed guard of his. Or something like it, at least. The blinding white mirror like barrier is not what Vergil is used to from the Royal Guard, but it is just as frustrating all the same. Especially as his twin always laughs delightedly when it stops Vergil in his path.

The behaviour is annoying and intriguing both. It feels almost like his twin is waiting for something, keeping out of touch and getting more exited with every passing second. Vergil reaches for a grapple, nearly catches his brother with a feint, but only manages to score a line of red across his hip with his claws as Dante scuttles away again.

Something breaks, noticeably enough that Vergil feels it skittering over his skin, what is-

"Ah," the low breathy sound nearly distracts Vergil enough to make him stumble.

And then Dante lunges and Vergil falls onto his back under the sudden weight when he slams into him without much grace, too distracted to brace properly. The- Is the-

He ends up laying on his back with Dante above him on all four. The scent hits him next, like a punch to the gut. Arousal abruptly subsumes them both and Vergil is mesmerized by the burning red eyes above him.

The ward, oh-

"Dante, wai-"

And then Dante bends down and before Vergil can stop him fits his lips over Vergil's own, settling his ass firmly down astride Vergil's hips. For a shocked moment Vergil does nothing, just apprehensively waits for the ward to kick in.

But nothing happens. Nothing at all.

He frantically brushes out with his energy, heart pounding in his chest as his mind finally puzzles out what glorious thing is happening. Dante shudders above him when he brushes his energy and -

Nothing, there is nothing there. Nothing to keep them back. No ward keeping them from each other.

----

It takes a too long moment for Vergil to get with the program -hah, slowpoke- but his twin understands fast enough. Good, because Dante really has no patience to wait for more right now. Not even to tease him about his denseness and how he didn't see this coming at all.

"Hurry, hurry, oh god, get inside me," Dante demands, fingers scrabbling frantically down Vergil's chest while he wriggles his hips into place.

While torturing Vergil the whole day long yesterday was great fun, it also left him so desperately, painfully horny for more that he can't even be bothered to be anything but desperate right now. He needs his brother inside him and nothing else in the whole universe matters.

His hand reaches that glorious cock and steadies it as he positions himself above it. His brother growls, hands clamping down on his thighs and pulls at him when Dante moves too slowly for his twin's liking. Normally he would tease him for the impatience, but his own head is filled with nothing but brother's cock right now and how it's still not inside him yet, so who is he to complain.

Then he feels the blunt head of his brother's cock against his cunt right behind his own painfully hard cock and even that little touch punches all the breath out of his lungs, leaving him panting for breath. Finally. A litany of relief chants in his head while he sinks down on it, the hot weight of his brother pushing into him so perfectly. All the way in one smooth, hurried trust that he feels reverberating through his whole body. It's utterly graceless and far too hurried but still the best thing he has ever felt before. Dante throws his head back while he feels his twin's balls slap against his ass, overwhelming pleasure and satisfaction crashing through his body. Vergil snarls under him and bucks up into him and it makes Dante laugh with elation.

Finally.

Fuck, neither of them are going to last much longer, rapidly approaching orgasm just from joining together after so long. Dante starts rolling his hips hurriedly and Vergil forcefully pushes his own up into each roll, hands clawing deep into his ass to pull him into each shove.

Once. Twice. Dante drowns in sensation as Vergil comes deep inside him, the heat of his come unspooling deep inside him and pushing him right over the edge too. He shakes, body a lifewire still sparking for more as he spills over them both.

Shit, that's perfect. So much better than what he can get on his own.

It's not enough. 

Just a drop of water on the hot stones of years of sexual frustration and being separated from his twin for decades even before that. Too hurried and fast in their desperation at finally being able to touch each other like this. 

But it takes the edge off, at least. A little bit. Now they can do this properly. Maybe. Or not, fuck, he just wants another blinding orgasm. Still. Outside, when he so toughtfull arranged for a comfortable cabin here.

"Bed," he gasps as soon as he recovers, even as his hips roll hurriedly on, never breaking rhythm. "Bed. Com-come on, let's go inside, bed-"

Vergil's cock twitches in him and his brother claws him down into an utterly consuming kiss, just as messy as their coupling. Dante's belly spasms in tandem with his cock, sparking more bone deep waves of arousal. Fuck. Nevermind. He kind of doesn't want to fuck out in nature for the rest of the day, but getting them inside will be a chore and a half, if it means he has to Vergil pull out of him. His whole body tightens at the mere idea of not having brother's cock right now, clamping down all along the length inside him. Nope, not gonna happen.

Vergil clearly agrees, groaning at the pressure, fingers clenched down on Dante's thighs until his claws drawing blood in an effort to pull himself deeper. 

"If you want to go to bed," he growls and wow, that sound goes straight to Dante's dick, "you will have to let me go." 

He is grinning meanly, always happy to frustrate Dante, but the way his hips are grinding up tells another story.

Dante snarls half heartedly at him and rolls his hips, eyes closing at the sensation of the heavy weight rubbing against his walls so perfectly, finding all the spots that spark fireworks up his spine. Never mind. Who cares about uncomfortable ground or comfy mattresses or really anything but this.

"One more," Vergil demands with a heavy breath, hands pulling him down into another trust. 

Yeah. Yeah, good idea. Dante shifts, grinds down on on the next roll, making Vergil groan again. There is nothing artful to this, just primal need. Together they race towards another orgasm, movements still as frenzied as before, gracelessly chasing the next peak.

Wait. Wait, wasn't there something in the books-

"Ah, fuck-" he whines when Vergil shifts the grip on his hips and somehow finds a way to slam even deeper. 

Concentrate. Gotta concentrate. There was a psychic power in one of the books the prof gave him. Teleportation. Like Verge so loves to do, when his demonic nature isn't muted. Hah. Now Dante is the one that can pop up all over the place like a demented wack-a-mole. Wait, whatever. Not important right now. Just gotta concentrate enough to get them inside. Can't be that hard, if Verge managed it, right.

Fuck, this feels good. Warmth builds up inside him with every roll of his hips, threatening to break over again.

With a grunt he wrenches his mind away from it, reaches for that something deep inside his gut that normally houses his trigger, and prods inelegantly at it. His concentration is kind of shot right now and also, he doesn't even know how to do this exactly, only has an outside description from a book made by humans, not the beings capable of it. But that has never stopped his instincts before and it certainly will not know.

With a faint plop, feeling a bit like the relief of ear pressure after he ascends too fast, the word shifts in and out of focus and they thump down on the bed inside their little cottage. The jostling forces him further down onto his twin, cock burying deep and they both groan in tandem.

Hah. Still got it.

Vergil uses his distraction of success to surge up and twist them around until Dante's back hits the soft surface of the bed. Then he starts trusting in earnest. Dante welcomes him eagerly, meeting every thrust, wrapping his legs tight around his waist to pull him closer still. 

His brother has such awesome ideas. 

Chapter Text

Vergil knows without a doubt that Dante will forever hold it over his head that they are nearly late for the exam. He will maintain that it is not his fault. His brain is sex addled and nothing but his twin actually matters in his current processing of reality. A random licence from a foreign world, that will only get nosy humans off their back at best, is very low on his priority list right now. He may have been invested before out of a sense of pride, but then the ward broke early and everything else has simply blurred out of existence as far as he is concerned. 

Right now his rather short list of tasks consists exclusively of sex with Dante, shower sex with Dante, food, watching Dante come on his fingers for a few hours, a nap, a good fight with Dante and then some more sex. Rinse and repeat with a good night's sleep in between. Really, Vergil would not have minded simply staying at the cabin for the entire rest of their stay in this world. But to his great disappointment their peaceful, pleasurable retreat had to come to a close.

The exam is sadly somewhat of an obligation by this point. At least for their vague agreement with the professor. Vergil does not like missing an obligation and feeling like he owes compensation. Especially so to a random human. Also, as absolutely earth-shatteringly euphoric as it is to fuck Dante in every possible position on every possible surface he can find, some distractions from time to time are not amiss. They have great endurance, yes, but even that gives out after days of non stop sex only sparsely interrupted by bouts of fighting that inevitable turn into more sex. Even ever hedonistic, insatiable Dante gets enough after a while.

Therefore, they have made their way back to the town for the exam. Even if only by late evening of the day before it is scheduled. The fact that they still nearly miss the start of it the next day is admittedly a mix of Vergil's aversion to early mornings and his instinctual need to keep Dante in the warm nest of blankets with underhanded methods. 

Like eating him out when his twin makes to get up for example. And then Dante looked absolutely evocative and irresistible in the throws of the afterglow, so Vergil obviously had to ravish him again. This necessitated a shower and Vergil would be remiss to not help wash his twin's back. Which he had to do two times, after fucking him into the tiles for looking so erotic all wet and soapy and with a goading smile on his lips. All of which, vehemently not Vergil's fault but rather simple nature at work, means that they barely make it with only a minute to spare. 

But they make it, so Dante can stop looking so incredibly amused and therefore attractive about the whole situation. Vergil didn't hear him complain about any of it, after all.

The exam is a fight against a wild Pokémon and the subsequent catching of it. Distastefully easy, Vergil would have preferred something more challenging at least. Aggravatingly, they aren't even allowed to participate in the fight themselves. A fact that leaves even laid back Dante sulking. Vergil scowls malcontentedly while a weak little rat thing fights another weak little rat thing in his stead. This is a farce of a fight and the fact that the other participants are so impressed with it just makes Vergil want to eat them all. Rats and humans both. He refrains for Dante's sake, who does not like to cause humans undue distress that results in screaming and crying and an abundance of other noises. Vergil has made reluctant peace with this fact. 

Of course, there is also the fact that Vergil will not allow himself to fail this inane thing now that he is here, and killing off his fellow participants will no doubt get him disqualified. It is irritating, but he will have to endure the circus.

As Vergil's interest in the performances of the other examees could not possibly be lower, he spends his time sending little jolts of dark energy in Dante's direction while the professor's annoyance of a son boasts smugly about his fighting prowess or something similarly inane. His twin retaliates with a psychic beam of his own, prompting an unseen battle between them. 

The pleasure of which rather abruptly ends when one of the candidates faints right in front of Vergil. He watches unconcernedly as the girl stumbles and falls, head hitting the ground with a loud crack. Well. It seems they have let their stirring bloodlust slip out a bit too much, if it is affecting the humans enough to make them loose consciousness. How unfortunate. He nearly managed to get Dante to break out into a fit of giggles with that last attack and now he has lost his chance.

"You are supposed to catch fainting maidens, Verge, didn't you listen to pap's fairytales?" Dante's voice murmurs in his ear and his twin's arms snake around his waist as he leans into his side. 

Vergil wraps his own arm around him in turn and pulls him closer, pushing their cheeks together as they watch the professor tend to the girl. "Pap's obsession with them is bizarre. I much prefer the old versions over the newer ones he likes so much."

"He does love the Disney movies to an unhealthy degree, yeah," Dante laughs, rubbing their cheeks together. "I like the one with the queen in the burning iron shoes, dancing and dancing until she dies from exhaustion. Funny image."

Vergil buries his smile into Dante's hair. He hasn't realised his brother has spent time reading the old versions of the tales. "Hmm, Snow White? A classic. I am prone to the Water Nixie myself." 

It is not his favourite, but he is curious to see if his twin knows the more obscure ones too. Dante hums at him, an amused, knowing glint in his eyes, but he refuses to comment either way. A mystery to solve and a challenge both? How generous of his brother, Vergil will enjoy teasing the truth out of him.

"Of course," he murmurs, angling his head down against Dante's throat, nosing the skin hidden behind the long hair, "Little Red Riding Hood is certainly not to be dismissed either."

Dante snorts, chest shaking with suppressed laughter. "My my, grandmother, what big teeth you have."

Vergil smirks, grazes sharp teeth over the steady thrum of blood.

 "All the better to eat you with," he grins and Dante snorts again, fingers digging into his side in censure.

Vergil swats them away and pulls back with a satisfied hum as the good professor finally finished with the girl. Who is awake again and blinking around confusedly. Oak stands back up and claps his hands, catching everyone's attention to continue on.

----

Vergil has not previously realised they would be forced to receive a Pokémon. It does make sense in retrospect, but he can't say he appreciates it. While the typical human trainer will no doubt need a defender against the attacks of wild Pokémon, neither he nor Dante have this problem. What a waste, to be in a world with such an aggressive, territorial species and simply remain blissfully weak and defenseless in turn. It sets his demonic and the Pokémon instincts to sneering. 

This persisting, wilful weakness is one of the many reasons Vergil cannot properly shake his indifference for humanity as a whole, no matter how much it hurts their father. At least Dante doesn't care. As long as Vergil doesn't raise any more infernal towers or jumps into hell without him, his brother is perfectly content to leave him to his contempt.

Now the handful of trainers that have passed the exam are lined up before the professor, more or less patently waiting for their turn to choose. Vergil's patience thins steadily, with every one of them that takes far too long waffling over the choice. They really should know themselves well enough to be able to know which partner will complement them in a fight. Ridiculous. He scoffs low under his breath when the girl of before hovers for too long minutes, while Dante snickers at his lack of patience.

Contemptful muttering from the side makes him glare at the noisy pest distracting his thoughts.

The professor's idiotic grandson. 

Vergil has not forgiven that particular annoyance. The boy has been glaring daggers at them throughout the whole exam already, obviously still hung up on finding them eating in the woods. Or perhaps, Vergil thinks with a sneer after catching a certain smell, the boy is still grappling with the fact that Dante's antics had him questioning his sexuality like a dog in heat. If only Dante wouldn't sigh in exasperation if Vergil were to simply... dispose of the problem. 

Alas, Vergil has to admit they will be better off not hunted across the country because he killed the grandson of the famous professor or some such nonsense. Dante would certainly complain loudly and incessantly about not being able to nap in peace anymore. 

At least Vergil will not have to endure the dullard for much longer.

Dante's fingers brushing against his own brings his attention back to the professor, who seems oblivious to his grandson's degenerate fantasies. Maybe Vergil should enlighten him and have the problem dealt with in this matter. Dante digging a claw into his wrist means he knows very well what Vergil's mind has come up with and will not like this course of action either. Curse his twin's mellow, lazy nature.

The Professor is waving them forward to make their own choice, waxing poetics about the advances of each creature. Vergil could not care less. They will undoubtedly end up releasing the thing into the wild, after this. He has no use for something meant to fight in his place and even less interest in having a pet underfoot on this journey. Though perhaps, if they find one interesting enough, they may try to bring it back with them. Their mother always laments the fact that she cannot have any pets with their demonic presences spooking them away. A thing to contemplate later.

Dante gives a lackluster hum beside him, poking one of the balls half-heartedly. Some kind of hologram pops up at his touch, showing a picture of an orange salamander that seems to be on fire. When he moves his hands there is a green and a blue turtle hovering over the other two balls. Vergil frowns in disinterest and wishes for this whole thing to be over. Dante looks at him from the corner of his eyes, amusement playing in his gaze at Vergil's expense. Vergil sneers at him. It is not his fault he is in a malcontent mood. He had to wake up much too early and has not been compensated with a whole morning full of sex for his sacrifice. It's an atrocity. And now he has to content himself with horny teenagers lusting after his twin. Clearly the world is a despicable place and he is right to hate everything in his path that is not his brother.

Said brother's lips twitch, barely schooling his face to swallow a wide grin. The fact that he then follows that with hooding his eyes and tantalisingly licking suddenly sharp incisors reminds Vergil that Dante is an unrepentant brat. As if he could possibly forget.

The last trainer still waiting impatiently behind them shuffles nervously, though the boy does not dare say anything.

"Eh, I will take the blue thing, V the red one," his twin drawls lazily, waving vaguely at the said Pokéballs.

The others mutter at their lacklustre attitude, but the Professor doesn't seem to mind. Probably knows what will inevitably happen anyway. Good, at least he will not be indignant about it, should he find out later on.

The professor claps and waves them on. "Excellent, excellent. Here you go then and off with you two. As for you, Ash, I have quite a special surprise."

The last boy carefully steps forward, obviously leery. He is one of the few that barely spared them a glance, for either their strange appearance or any physical attraction. Vergil supposes he is tolerable.

"This little fellow very much wants to go with you, it seems!" the Professor says excitedly, handing over a weirdly green Pokéball this time.

Vergil blinks. He was under the impression the only colours the balls come in are red and white. At least those are the only ones he has seen up until now.

The boy immediately summons his new Pokémon and a yellow mouse with a faintly sparking power about it appears. Electric type if Vergil has to guess. Dante hums in recognition. When Vergil blinks at him he shakes his head in dismissal, absently turning their two balls around and around in his long fingers like meditation balls.

"Well, congratulations you all and I wish you a good journey on your way to become outstanding trainers. May you find the adventure you yearn for, hohoho! And now, off with you lot." The professor shoos them all out of the room with a grand wave of his hand. "V, Tony, may I speak to you two for a moment before you go?"

Vergil twists his lips, aggravated by even more distractions. He wants to be alone with his twin now.

"Don't you worry, I won't keep you long," the professor says brightly. "In the days you were gone I have prepared a few things for you two. Some documents and items that will help you along the way."

He hands them a few sheets of official looking papers that Vergil does not see the utility of. Something about gyms?

"Now, there is a scientist who is currently looking into teleportation near Cerulean city on Route 25. He has a cottage right beside the sea, you can't miss it. Bill has made quite a lot of breakthroughs in the field and will hopefully be able to help you find out a way to return home. Here, let me mark his cottage on the maps in your Pokédexs."

He takes the armband Dante has gotten for their trip to the cabin and fiddles around with it.

"There is also a shipping port in Vermilion city, if you want to leave Kanto and visit some of the other professors." He returns the band and gives Vergil his own. "I have added my number to the phone book, should you need more advice. Feel free to call anytime! I will contact you should there be another breakthrough on my end that may interest you."

"Sure sure. Thanks." Dante nods, somehow managing to foist his band off onto Vergil with an impressive sleight of hand.

His twin really doesn't like anything too technical, often avoiding such things like the plague. It's hilarious. Vergil himself has no such compunctions, of course. The moment he found out the phone Nero kept trying to talk him into gave him access to the internet and therefore near unlimited new reading material, Vergil was quite invested in learning more about it.

"Now, this here is an Everstone," he gives them one round grey stone each.

It feels strange the moment Vergil touches it. Like a solid, fixed focal point that seems to tug gently at his energy while he weighs it in his palm.

"As you are not naturally Pokémon this may help you with returning to your more human forms. It is a wild guess, of course, but it is the closest I have found that might help you. These stones are normally used to keep Pokémon in their current evolutions and with some fiddling, may be useful to return you to your original bodies instead. Please tell me any breakthrough you make with them."

Vergil nods thoughtfully, letting his energy engulf the thing in experiment. It seems to store and fix any Pokémon energy he feeds it. Once he tugs on it it flows out into his body again. Indeed quite an interesting stone. Perhaps feeding it more of their new energy will help them hold their human bodies for longer than the few minutes they manage right now. That will certainly be useful on their journey. He is not looking forward to the attention they will no doubt earn in any interaction with the local population.

"And last but not least, I was getting the impression that you two did not really want the Pokémon, yes?" The professor looks seriously at them both, a faintly disapproving air around him now. "If so I will ask you to return them to me, instead of letting them go free. They are bred for trainers and not fit to survive on their own in the wild."

"Oh, sure, yeah. Thanks. We don't really like to have others fight for us. Feels bad." Dante tosses the two balls into the professor's hand with obvious relief.

"Yes, yes. Pokémon are quite known to be territorial and aggressive, prone to tussling even just because they are bored. Your instincts must have been altered by Arceus' transformation, heightening your aggression accordingly. Fascinating, utterly fascinating. Ohh, this requires much more research-" 

And off he goes into his own mind, leaving them ignored. Vergil grabs Dante by his scruff before his twin can poke that hornet's nest by correcting the assumption, like he so very clearly wants to. He has that gleam in his eyes that is always a precursor to untold chaos. Vergil drags him out while the professor is distracted enough not to stop them.

He has a twin to ravish now and has wasted enough time already.

----

"You want to go back to the inn?" Dante asks when they make their way out, fiddling around with his stone before he disappears it into the backpack they are sharing. "Or start our way to that Bill guy now?"

Vergil weighs the possibilities against each other. He is eager to leave this town behind, especially the burning stares of its residents. But he also wants to drag Dante back into the bed in the inn for some more pleasurable time.

In the end the decision is made for them.

"I know what you are, you know," a nasally voice interrupts from the side and Vergil narrows his eyes, distracted. 

That maggot again.

The grandson leans against the wall of the professor's laboratory, arms crossed over his chest and an arrogant tilt to his head. His newly chosen Pokémon is already out and growling at Vergil's shins. It's the blue turtle one, feeling faintly like water.

Vergil lifts his eyebrow in condescension, not bothering to answer.

"I found the notes grandpa has on you, so you can't hide it anymore. You are Pokémon," he sneers. "Should have known, with the way you look. I'm gonna catch you both and then you will have to do what I tell you to. No more strutting about like you own the place."

The professor needs to keep his research better contained, it seems. Oak warned them that he would share with his fellow scientists, but letting a nosy teenager gain access to that information is a rather different situation. Perhaps they will have to make one last visit to Oak, after all.

The boy growls when Vergil still doesn't answer, and shouts to his animal, "Squirtle, tackle!"

The thing is admittedly agile for how young it clearly is. Still, Vergil easily side steps the attack and spits a needle of poison at it for good measure. He really has no patience to indulge this bully by drawing this out. The Pokémon goes down in one hit, only barely clambering back to its feet out of what seems like sheer stubbornness alone. Admirable, but utterly useless. It is a baby at best, and has no possible chance against him, after all.

Ignoring the shouting boy Vergil turns to his brother and opens his mouth to demand they leave this place at once, when he sees a ball being tossed at him out of the corner of his eyes.

Is this pest truly trying to catch him? How hilariously presumptuous.

According to the professor a Pokéball will only catch if the Pokémon is too weak to fight the pull of it. Vergil very much doubts any of these balls will ever be strong enough to contain either him or Dante. 

He is admittedly curious about how they work exactly. It seems similar to a seal, though the continued containment even as the captured being is let out makes for a marked difference. A curious thing indeed. Seeing as he faces no danger from the thing, maybe he won't smack it away like he did the last ones, instead experiencing for himself what it feels like.

The ball opens in mid-air, not even touching him. Then, the strangest sensation, like he is being scanned by that computer but simultaneously also like he is teleporting or steeping between dimensions. He blinks and for a moment all he sees is white light. With a frown he twitches his magic, though the Pokémon energy is what answers him of course. Either way the light dissipates instantly and the world comes back into focus around him. Fascinating.

Just in time to watch Dante snarl in anger and a hole of purple tinted darkness surrounding the teenager and Pokémon. Vergil tilts his head appreciatively and watches his brother decimate the boy.

"Should whop your sorry ass, you stupid kid," Dante mutters tightly and the maelstrom of ink tightens.

There is some shouting coming from inside the attack but Vergil has not much care for it. Even if he were to be concerned by the health of some random human child, Dante won't truly hurt the boy. Is obviously holding back even in his anger. No doubt he knows Vergil is perfectly fine and just needs to expel his frustration right now. Far be it from Vergil to stop him. Though he will have to ask his brother what his brief capture looked like from the outside.

Still, they are gathering a crowd. Vergil bares his teeth at the villagers and steps close to his twin, hand fitting carefully around him to pull him back without startling more aggression out of him. There have been no pitch forks up until now, but with this show of strength that may as well change yet.

"I'm perfectly fine," he murmurs into his brother's ear, feeling the tense form under his palm. "Let's go."

Dante growls one last time before he relaxes against him and as one they spread their wings and take flight. Vergil is very glad to leave this town behind now. 

One last glance shows the boy perfectly fine if rather ruffled. Of course, Dante wouldn't ever truly hurt a human without a very good cause, he was just intent to scare the moron senseless.

"You ass!" Dante complains as they land in the forest a few minutes later to determine where to actually go, socking Vergil in the shoulder. "You were gone and I couldn't feel you anymore! Don't scare me like that."

Vergil blinks. Ah, his brother must have been more agitated than he thought. He pulls him in close. "Come here."

"Stupid ass," Dante mutters and buries himself in his arms, clinging tight. "Don't do that again."

"I won't. It isn't particularly hard to get out of those Pokéballs, by the way. Just a twitch of magic and the hold is broken."

Dante grumbles some more and then tries to shoulder toss him in answer. Vergil grins, lands on his feet and pulls him into an impromptu wrestling match.

They can determine their further path later. And maybe test out those stones before entering the next town on their way. Their looks are far too obvious, it seems.

Chapter Text

Seeing as neither of them has any interest in following the normal path, where all the other trainers are inevitably going to be, they decide to cut across the bay instead. Dante will be very glad not to see that little twit ever again. Daring to try to take Vergil from him, it still makes him grumble with anger and underlining fear. No thank you to chancing any more meet ups with the grandson.

There is a long bridge barely visible over the water. A short consult with the map feature of Vergil's doohickey, Dante has already conveniently lost his own never to be found again, declares it route 17. Weird naming convention, but whatever, not Dante's problem. From there they can hop over the next bit of water or go along the road to one of the bordering cities. Which would be nice. Dante is not looking to sleep in nature.

"Which town do you want to go from there on?" he asks his brother, eyes flitting between their choices, searching for hints of interesting stuff to go see.

They could also just ignore all towns on their way, therefore not dealing with their wings and horns and whatever attracting weird looks. Dante has enough of that for now. Maybe they can just fly straight up north instead? Presumably the scientist in question, Bill if he isn't wrong, will have been warned by Oak about their strange looks. Buuuuuut, soft beds and other such luxuries.

Aaah, decisions, decisions.

Vergil doesn't answer for a long moment, busy eyeing the stone the professor gave them instead when Dante looks up at him. He pushes his head against his twin's and watches as more and more blue energy flows into it. The thing acts like a sponge, absorbing it all and holding steady even under the overpowering amount of magic being fed to it.

Huh. There aren't that many artefacts that can hold so much of their power without combusting. Nice. They will have to take those things with them. Could be useful in seals or things like that. Though they will have to test that it also holds up to more infernal power instead of just Pokémon.

Vergil feeds even more energy into it. Uhm, that is a lot actually. Dante is not ok with this. If his brother could stop randomly experimenting with himself, that would be awesome.

Just as he nudges his twin, intent to disrupt the flow and Vergil's concentration both, the stone glows very faintly and Vergil abruptly looses all his Pokémon features, leaving his normal human form behind.

Dante gives him a few startled blinks. That did not feel like the pseudo trigger they have used before to turn their transformation back.

"Well," the ass drawls, "it seems that works as I assumed."

... Dante is going to kick his ass.

"Did you just try that randomly?" he asks, feeling bone deep exasperation.

Why does his twin always have to enact such ridiculous experiments with barely a plan to how it will turn out? Shouldn't he have learned his lesson with the moronic tower and the dumb plant and allowing himself to be absorbed into that idiotic ball? Dante is going to sit on him until all those stupid ideas leave his foolish head. And people call him the impulsive twin. Bah. Just because Vergil seems so controlled and logical doesn't mean he isn't an idiot. Dante likes to be spontaneous, sure, but he does at least spare more than two thoughts to what will happen if he pokes around with powerful energy and all.

The idiot in question looks at him with zero acknowledgement of how he is an impulsive moron and nods decisively. 

"This will make our visits to future cities easier. Though I can't say I much like how this feels, we will be far more covert and not attract so much attention," he says, like this is all very logical. Dante is going to bite him. "We will need some more experiments, to see if there is a timer on this or if it will hold as long as we maintain the energy drain."

"You think we still have our abilities in this form?" Dante asks, smiling easily to cover the underlining threat. If they do then he can exact revenge without having to worry about breakable human bodies.

Vergil blinks down at his faintly blue shimmering stone, clearly too preoccupied with fluctuating his energy levels to notice the danger. "Hm, much reduced certainly, but I think some of it is retained."

He flexes the fingers of his free hand and faint purply blue energy twists around it. Dante picks up the faint burns it leaves behind on vulnerable human skin and also notes that they get healed immediately after. Perfect. Means he doesn't have to hold back too much in fear of hurting his twin in a way not easily fixed.

"Oh." Dante tilts his head, grin growing even more in eagerness. "Oh, excellent."

And then he tackles his twin around the middle and tosses his aggravating brother into the sea beside them. Vergil sadly reacts fast enough that he chucks the stone - which turns him immediately back into his Pokémon form, good to know - and manages to drag Dante in after him.

It's sad, but Dante manages to dunk him more often than Vergil dunks him, so he is mollified. For now. Vergil better not do any more experiments, though.

----

Vergil stands impatiently in the short line before the counter. None of the people around him are paying him undue attention, thankfully. Having to feed energy constantly into the everstone is annoying but worth the comfort of not standing out at all. Even if this form makes his skin faintly crawl. Not pleasant at all, but worth it in the end.

Still, despite that amenity, he is in a bad mood. 

Some idiots nearly ran him and Dante over with their bikes on the bridge they landed on after flying over from Pallet Town. As it turns out, said bridge is a bike path and the cyclists using it are very particular about not having to deal with pedestrians in their bike paradise. Vergil very nearly decapitated the first one driving past with an incessantly ringing bell. Only Dante's fast reflexes halted his energy sharpened tail before there was a bloodbath. Quite the shame. But at least they only had to deal with angry bikers and not also the panic over a body. 

Which led them to the nearby Fuchsia City and Vergil into the tiny convenience shop to find something cool to drink against the sweltering heat that seems to plague this town. It is quite curious that there is such a large temperature difference for regions so close to each other, as Pallet was quite a bit mellower. Perhaps they can find out what makes the climate in this world so volatile while on their travel. It is quite an interesting phenomenon.

When Vergil finally leaves the shop he is unsurprised to see Dante has since gotten bored and disappeared in the barely three minutes Vergil was gone. 

His brother really has no leg to stand on judging Vergil's more impulsive habits. He is just as bad. What with his very annoying habit of wandering off in search for entertainment if left to his own devices for any length of time longer than a blink. Which always ends in a wild goose chase, because where Dante ends up only ever makes the most convoluted amount of sense. No amount of scolding, requests or outright pleading gets through Dante's head on this and the habit persists unimpeded, much to their parent's chagrin. 

Thankfully Dante normally sticks with Vergil enough for it to not be that much of an issue between the two of them. Normally. But of course he will find exiting things to discover in this strange new land. And now Vergil is left standing before an empty park bench with two cold drinks dripping condensation from his fingers in the stifling heat. 

Fuschia City is a typical coast town, peaceful and sleepy with not much to show. Barely more than the tiny shop, an inn and one of those Pokémon centres the professor told them about. Between the plaster streets and the squat stone buildings barely breaking up the air, the heat is uncomfortably still and hot, even for one of their nature. Possibly Dante, who favours colder climates, went to find some shade. Vergil sighs in exasperation at his twin's inability to wait and turns to the right where Dante's scent is strongest.

Only a handful of humans are milling around, one of which has that strange R on the chest. The one Oak warned them about. Team Rocket was it? Well, the woman seems busy in a fight or something, so Vergil dismisses her from his mind.

In the back of the town an old building squats in front of a tightly fenced in area. A strange wooden door looms beside it, with a sign proclaiming it to be some kind of safari-zone. While Vergil has never been on a safari before, he has at least a passing knowledge of what it is supposed to be. The experience does not sound particularly appealing to him, as animals in their world are instinctually wary if not outright terrified of their demonic nature. He does not think his twin has ever expressed any sort of interest, either.

All the same Dante is standing in front of the large double doors, having a spirited discussion with a very distinctly dressed stranger. Of course. His twin has clearly found himself a poor sod to torment then, as is Dante's wont in life. 

The man is sporting what Vergil understands is the stereotypical getup for a safari. Khaki pants and shirt, strange round hat, a grey green water bottle hanging from his shoulder by a strap. It is all very... beige. No wonder Dante couldn't resist with that kind of getup, he loves such tacky things.

The man is agitated when Vergil finally comes into earshot, babbling breathlessly. "-you may of course enter the viewing deck. But I simply cannot allow you into the zone itself. It is dangerous and you can't enter without having the proper training for it."

"Aw, bummer," Dante sighs, an exasperated pout forming on his lips. "What do we have to do to get in then? Some kind of test? Come on, we are definitely strong enough to flatten everything in there. We even got the fancy trainer licence thing, isn't that enough?"

That earns his twin an unimpressed look from the safari man, even if it flows off of him like water. Dante has been dealing with Vergil and Eva's unimpressed looks for years now, after all. They have immunised him against anyone else pretty effectively.

True to form Dante just smiles winningly in the face of the attempted censure. The man swallows thickly in the face of it. Vergil narrows his eyes, but he can't quite smell any arousal from the man, just nervous sweat. He will let it go for now, especially as Dante is merely having fun.

"Well," the man finally continues, the attempted firm face wavering quite a lot, "you need at least three gym batches to be able to enter and-"

"What is so interesting behind these doors?" Vergil interrupts when he reaches them, silently handing his brother the now much less cool drink. 

The man's eyes twitch to him like a scared rabbit before a snake. Then back to his twin. He seems too uncomfortable to answer.

"No clue," Dante says easily, popping open the tap of his can. "But he won't let us in there, so now I wanna go."

Of course. With a look at the mischievous twinkle in Dante's eyes,  Vergil resigns himself to going on a safari. The Pokémon have shown themselves much less terrified of their presence, it may even be worth it.

The man, clearly trying to use Vergil's arrival to quietly slip away from them, freezes when Vergil pins him with his own much more effective unimpressed look. Though there is a hopeful glint in his eyes when he sees Vergil's unenthusiastic face. Clearly he thinks Vergil will put a stop to Dante's tormenting.

Vergil looks impassively into the man's pleading face and decides that he isn't feeling particularly merciful right now. Far be it from him to steal his brother's entertainment, after all.

"What are those gyms?" he demands, careful to keep a grim, intense look on his face to perfectly contrast Dante's overly friendly smile.

The man looks desperately between them and then very obviously resigns himself to his fate, shoulders bowing round in surrender.

"With your trainer licence you can travel the region and challenge the eight gym leaders to earn batches," he explains, sounding deeply harried. "Each additional one gives access to more services that are otherwise locked. And if you actually manage all eight badges you can try to challenge the four strongest trainers and the champion of the region, too." 

The man stutters awkwardly for a bit when neither of them answer, Dante just continuing to leer at him. He colors even more and babbles on faster, "Not many manage all eight, it's incredibly hard to do. But people like the extras they get with two. Or three, if they want to go to the safari zone, haha...ha."

"Huh," Dante says and he actually sounds somewhat invested beyond the teasing now. 

Vergil himself finds his interest piqued, too. They both rather like challenges, after all. Though they will probably be expected to fight with Pokémon in place of themselves, if the rest of the culture is anything to go by. Disappointing, but maybe they will be able to get away with fighting in each other's stead. Provided, of course, that these challenges are even worth the effort and they won't simply curb stomp them like so many of the wild Pokémon they keep encountering.

"Wellllll, now I'm interested. Is there one of those gym leaders around here?" Dante asks, tilting his head to curiously.

The man smiles hesitantly, still slightly overwhelmed but getting better, now that Dante has something else to focus on other than making him squeak. 

"Oh, yes! Our gym leader is Janine, the poison ninja. She has just recently taken over from her father Koga and is very eager for challengers. See that big building over there?" He gestures to the only tall building in the village, an old fashioned wooden thing quite similar to a Japanese style mansion. "You can go there and they will tell you all you need to know about the gym challenges."

"Cool, thanks man," Dante nods shorty and turns away, clearly loosing interest now that there is something else to focus on. "C'mon Verge, let's go check it out, yeah?"

He chugs the last of his drink and tosses the can into a nearby trash can without looking, perfectly targeting it to neatly fall into the little slot to the side reserved for canned trash to be recycled. 

The man watches the arch of it with open mouthed awe. Vergil dismisses him from his attention and nods silently to his twin, grabbing a tight hold of his hand and tossing his own empty can behind his back to land in the exact same spot. Dante hums under his breath and swings their hands back and forth. In the face of possibly finding something worthwhile to fight Vergil even forgets to scold him for wandering off again.

----

They stroll through the Japanese style gate into a large, calm courtyard. The silence of it is only broken by strange bamboo fountains hiding in the greenery, clacking back and forth. It's a surprisingly nice noise. The whole building settles comfortably on his senses, something familiar lurking under the peaceful exterior, though he can't quite put his finger on what it is yet.

A girl approaches them from the right and he turns his eyes to her, assessing. Her movement is that of a fighter, certainly, though a clearly untested one yet.

"Are you two here for a gym challenge?" she asks, clearly already expecting the answer.

Dante nods easily beside him, while Vergil curiously musters the uniform done in a style of traditional clothing he can't quite place. Something Japanese presumably, but imminently more practical than such formal looking clothes normally seem. Definitely a getup that is easy to fight in. A promising thing to see, certainly.

"Yup," his twin chirps. "We are here to challenge the gym leader, or whatever. We don't know much about how it works, though. This will be our first go at it."

"Oh! That's quite alright. I shall notify Leader Janine and she will come to welcome you personally. She likes to talk to first time challengers herself and explain how it works."

Dante nods again. "Yah, sure."

"Please, follow me," she bows and then waves an elegant hand for them to follow. 

They are lead to the side of the garden and shortly after a young woman in similar, though more ornamental clothing steps out of one of the sliding doors.

"Welcome! I am Janine the Gym leader. Kana tells me you are here for a first time challenge?"

"Yup! Heard we get some nice perks from winning those things and we do quite like a good fight." Dante's smile turns sly and goading, testing. "No better workout to get the blood pumping, yeah."

She blinks in surprise but laughs delightedly a moment later, with a mouth that suddenly has much more teeth in it. "Hah! Not many who like that aspect of the gym fights but yes, really nice to indulge in some proper bloodshed, isn't it."

Well, well. It seems some of these people here have better instincts and aren't as pampered as what Vergil has been led to believe up until now. No wonder he instinctively liked the atmosphere in this gym. Perhaps they will actually find a proper challenge, after all.

Dante's smile widens to bare his own teeth in answer. "Nice. So, what's in one of those challenges?"

"Well, you make it through a gauntlet of my acolytes in order for us to gauge your level and for you to prove your skill with your Pokémon. After you prove yourself worthy enough you fight me, where I adjust my team according to what you have shown in the pre matches and how many batches you already collected. There is also a puzzle for you to solve, a little fun thing to make it more interesting."

"Oooh. I sure do like me some puzzles." 

Vergil nearly rolls his eyes at his ridiculous twin. Likes some puzzles. Hah. Dante loves puzzles to an absolutely unreasonable degree. There is a reason their father wraps all of Dante's presents in increasingly more elaborate puzzle boxes. The triumphant shout when he finally finds the solution and gets to the actual present are indicator enough to Vergil that his brother often enjoys the process far more than the actual present itself. 

No doubt, if it was Dante to raise the Qlipoth and Vergil the one fighting through it, he is sure he would have spent more than half his time running around finding fleshy keys to put into fleshy locks, just to find that he needs even more fleshy keys hidden in even more fleshy places to put in even more fleshy locks. Ridiculous.

"Hm, I am assuming the fights are Pokémon fights?" he asks, mostly to keep Dante from demanding a more interesting puzzle for their run through.

She looks at him in surprise before intent interest enters her eyes. "Well, yes. For the gym batch we will fight with Pokémon. But we are also a fighting school, although a much more covert one than other styles. I will not be opposed to a match with you two after the battle."

"Yeaaaah, so. About that Pokémon thing. I think the good professor Oak gave us papers for this situation, or something." Dante rummages through their lone backpack until he finds the said papers. "We have a bit of an, uh, special situation going on."

Both Vergil and Dante dismissed the documents after a short glance over them, certain they will hold no interest to visit some random gyms during their travel. But turns out Oak has been right to give them something for them, after all. He must have assumed their aggression would inevitably lead them to try for these batches.

Janine takes the papers curiously. Her face shows her incredulity while she reads, eyes flicking up to them more than a few times. Vergil keeps his face stony and Dante's smile gets sharper the longer she stares between them and the words, until he is grinning like the crazed loon he really is underneath it all.

"Well," she starts, then pauses for a long moment. "Well, that is certainly an interesting situation. I am assuming you will want to fight yourself then, instead of using a Pokémon proxy, yes?"

Now Vergil, too, smiles at her. A cold, bloodthirsty thing.

"Right. Yes. Of course. Hm, the rules do explicitly state a trainer must use Pokémon and can not fight themselves. Though admittedly, that ruling is in regards to a human trainer. Which does not apply to you two," she pauses for a moment, hand coming up to rub at her mouth. "Hm. Yes, perhaps if you fight for each other, it will work. I will have to consult the rule set first, but there should not be a problem that way, I think."

Dante leans further into his side, chin resting on his shoulder. Vergil tilts his head against him, eyes still on the woman. She is taking this rather well, all things considered. Though they are still both holding their human shell by using the everstones. If horns and wings and claws come out it may be different. Though he does not think so for now, surprisingly.

"Yes," she nods decisively, "please wait here. I will consult with my retainers for the official regulations. I assume you want to challenge me as soon as possible?"

Dante simply nods, which makes Vergil growl faintly at the jostling.

"Excellent. If all is well with the rule book, you can both each run the gauntlet of the assistant trainers tomorrow. It's too late today already, I fear. After you successfully defeat them I will face you for the Gym battle." She smiles toothily at them again, similar mischief as the good professor in her eyes, though nicely underlaid with a passable amount of bloodlust. "We will house you for the duration of the night, if you wish. A single room, I believe."

She laughs at Vergil's raised eyebrow and disappears down the patio, waving the girl, - Kana? - back out to presumably show them the way to their lodgings.

It really is a very interesting world they have found themselves in. Colourful and innocently childish as it has first appeared, he thinks it is perhaps closer to a society dominated by a demonic way of thinking than he has assumed until now. Very curious indeed.

He can come to like it, even.

----

Chapter Text

They spend a peaceful night in the gym, in a very small, almost monasticly simple room. It's comfortable enough, though. When he isn't sleeping Dante listens to the strange bamboo fountains. Sitting up in bed and fingers twined with Vergil's after his twin grumbled and pawed for him in his sleep.

And bright and early the next morning, too early in fact if Vergil's malcontent grumbling is to be believed, they get to have a go at this whole gym fighting thing.

Dante grins, jumping lightly on the balls of his feet. He and Vergil have long stopped using the everstones and he is feeling much better in his skin without the constant weird drain. Most of the people here don't react much more than some startled blinking upon seeing them, which is quite nice, actually.

"So," he starts, eyeing the large room full of trainers and the strangely shimmery walls in between them. "We have to fight through the whole room? And get to the other side, the spot with the markings?"

"Yes, exactly. I will be waiting there. Once you reach it, you are qualified to fight me," Janine nods beside them, then waves them on, walking off with a mischievous smile thrown over her shoulder. "Try not to walk into any walls on the way."

Dante eyes her dubiously - why would they when they are so annoyingly sparkly -, before he realises that they are probably supposed to be invisible. His eyes are just more advanced than a normal human's. Hah, so much for the puzzle then. Invisible labyrinth would have been quite fun, though. Shame.

Ah well. There is still the fighting.

The first match is with a girl with one of that guinea pig things but double the size and meaner than the ones he has seen before. Still far too easy to dispatch, though, barely more than the wild Pokémon around Pallet Town. He sulks demonstrably in the gym leader's direction after he curb stomps the thing, standing in the designated trainer spot and letting Vergil fight for his honour or whatever.

Thankfully Janine and her lackeys seem to understand, and as a result their opponents get successively more interesting with each fight. It still isn't a true challenge by any means, not like fighting Vergil or even a higher demon lord would be, but it's nice enough to get his blood pumping, at least. A bit like mowing his way through the raffle of a demon nest, really.

The fights also get much more exciting after some good old fashioned taunting, that has their opponents finally leave the weirdly stilted round based attacking patterns behind, showing some proper vigour. Even howling their own battle cries at him with very enthusiastic aggression. All around more fun, after that, even if the trainers are a bit overtaxed trying to keep in control of the situation. Whatever, not Dante's problem. He just grins at the exasperated woman he is currently fighting and wrestles her snake imitation into a very wiggly chokehold.

There is a marked difference between professionally trained Pokémon and the ones they have fought up until now, though. These are less wild and more disciplined, with specialised attacks that he hasn't seen before. A lot of them of poison type, which his twin is very methodically observing to learn for himself. Nice. Didn't the funny safari man call the gym leader the poison ninja? Dante wonders if there is a psychic gym too, or maybe a dark one. Would be fun to get some new attacks to try for himself. 

By far his favourite opponent is the very droopy and drippy flower. Gloom is what the trainer calls it. Hilarious thing. Looks like it will fall asleep any second during the fight, if it's not already off in dream land. Dante feels right kinship with it, though he could do without the drool. He too likes a good nap, after all. He brushes the too familiar dust trying to force him asleep away with a very firm wing flap, though. Not gonna fall for that one again. 

Banging his tail on top of those bulbous things on top of its head in revenge for the attempt makes an absolutely hilarious boioioing sound. As a result he spends the rest of the fight trying to invoke the noise again, much to Gloom's obvious annoyance.

"Stop playing with your food, Dante," Vergil calls from his back after he gets a bit carried away. 

When he peers at his brother out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Vergil's lips twisted into something half disgusted, half amused, though. Clearly more amused than he is willing to let on. Vergil rolls his eyes when Dante demonstrably lands another hit on a plump bulb. Still, he supposes he has played around enough and he is eager to finally be done with these pre-matches and go for the real thing.

"Well," Janine says when they reach her at the end of the gym. "It seems you are quite powerful indeed. Enough so that you may well be able to win all eight gym badges indeed. Though I will make your road there as hard as I can first."

This time Vergil fights first. Dante is tempted to turn his back and ignore the spectacle, in order to make his own fight as exciting as possible, but he is not going to miss the show of his twin mowing down his enemies. Vergil fighting is too beautiful not to watch.

Janine has actually five Pokémon in her team, which is more than they have ever seen in a trainer. Though Dante thinks he remembers Oak saying six is the limit. They are surprisingly diverse, for all being poison typed. She clearly has taken out her best team and they definitely fight well. Somewhere around a small boss fight, at least. 

It's great fun when it's his turn, even though he already knows what's coming. Weezing, the coughing double-ball of noxic gas is frankly hilarious and makes for a great if terribly uneven football.

All in all, it's a pretty fun afternoon.

Enough so they may even check out those other gyms Janine tells them about.

----

After they get their shiny new badge and a shiny new pouch to put said shiny new badge in, they decide to sneak into the safari zone. Well, Dante decides they will sneak into the safari zone. Vergil just tails along without too many complaints, so it's all fine. 

Sue him, he so isn't going around gathering two more badges and then coming back here to get into the forbidden thing. It's just not happening. Still, Dante really wants to know what's so special about it that they can't get in, so sneaking it is. Or rather, travelling along the shore to the side of it and then hopping over the fence when they are out of eyesight of the town. Easy peasy, no problem.

It's very... muddy.

Dante nearly sinks into a bog.

It doesn't get any more exciting from there on.

Vergil is distinctly unimpressed. Dante has to admit he also isn't all that on board with all this.

Why did he want to get in here again? Funny safari man sure made it sound much more exciting when he told Dante that getting in is not for the faint of heart or whatever. But really? Three of those gym batches necessary to stalk around leaving muddy prints? Ridiculous. Boring. Disappointing. Dante is going to find a way to rate this and give it zero stars. At least there isn't anyone around to witness his descend into watery soil beside his brother. It's late enough that there aren't any other visitors in the park, after all.

A blue blob like thing wobbles up from the mud to his right. It comes closer. It has a very silly grin on it's face. Dante eyes it mistrustfully. It comes even closer. Closeeerrrrrrr. Holds out its fin like arms wide, a wide dumb smile on its face that clearly spells out how empty its head is.

Oh, fuck no.

Dante tries to use a dash at first, but is pretty hampered by the sticky mud, so just all out teleports away from all that.

"Problems, brother?" Vergil asks with an amused grin, watching from his solid ground as some weird blob Pokémon tries to molest Dante. 

Ass.

"Oh shut it." Dante contemplates shaking off the mud like a dog, but knows Vergil would sidestep it before any stray drop has a chance to hit him. 

It's sad, but his brother knows him far to well for something like that to ever work on him.

"Don't you want to give it a hug?" Vergil continues mercilessly, tilting his head in the direction of the mud puddle. "Look at it. It's so very disappointed not to have gotten one."

Dante grimaces at him, catches sight of an admittedly very sad blue face out of the corner of his eyes and firmly turns away, walking off in a random direction. No matter how long he stalks off, there is just more mud.

Wow.

"I sure hope this is not what a safari is in our world. Seems very overrated," he grumbles.

"You wanted to come," Vergil blandly returns, sneering judgement down into another swamp puddle. 

Dante contemplates tripping him up into it but knows he won't succeed. Vergil is far too guarded for it right now.

Thankfully they come up on a nearby pond soon enough, that even looks surprisingly clear for its surroundings. Dante, absolutely caked with dirt from the hip down, is glad to dunk himself into it to clean off. 

It's far deeper than he expects and he sinks down quite far. While in there a bunch of eely things with very cute ears slither around him. Awfully chummy for the fact that Dante could bite them in half without even trying, they look so delicate. Pearls glimmer on the end of their tail and under their chins. He wonders absently if they have been hunted for them. Would definitely be something people did at home. Maybe this safari thing is actually more a wildlife preservation zone. Not that he knows much more about those than safaris, really.

Between the sea snake like things there are some impressively colourful goldfish wannabees. Patty had a phase of wanting one when she was fourteen. Maybe he should catch her one and give it to her as a present when they are back. The size may be a bit of a problem, though. The smaller ones are already the height of a dog and the bigger ones probably come up to his chest, wow. Talk about a large aquarium necessary. Maybe he won't bring her one back, after all.

Vergil sending a bolt of dark energy into the pond, impatient ass that he is, reminds him that he was actually doing something before he became distracted by fish life. He swims back up, checks that he got all the mud off and then heaves himself out of the water.

"Finished then?" Vergil asks archly, demonstrably stepping away from Dante's dripping form.

Hurtful. Dante wasn't even contemplating hugging him to spread the joy of the wet. Honestly, so rude. 

He throws another glance back at the pool, once again deceitfully calm, the mirrored surface hiding anything underneath it. Actually, catching some of these Pokémon to bring back home may be fun to do. Huh. Something to think about later.

"If you are done playing with the fishes, I see a cabin further on," Vergil comments, tail nudging into Dante's side.

He makes a grab for it, but Vergil pulls it back fast enough not to be caught, sadly. "Yah yah, you impatient ass. Let's go check it out. I'm not sleeping in the middle of all this mud, so if we find a passable bed I'm more than happy to go there."

They wander on, sadly finding nothing more interesting to make the trip worth it. Until they hit a rocky beach with the said cabin towering over it, dark against the glittering lights of the cities on the other side of the bay. It's unlocked and there is indeed a small bed for them to sleep in, clearly some kind of infrastructure of the safari zone. Small mercies.

"Well, that's more than I hoped for," Dante says, surveying their lodging for the night.

Vergil just hums distractedly, wandering off into what is presumably a bathroom. A short moment later running water sounds. "It has warm water."

Ooh, very nice. Dante isn't going to say no to a shower right now. Though presumably Vergil will go first, seeing as he is already in there.

As such Dante is curiously snooping through the cupboards in the small kitchenette when he feels Vergil suddenly close in from behind him, boxing him into the counter. Hands land on his hips, caressing over skin and leathery scales. With a pleased hum he turns his head into the deep kiss Vergil has waiting for him. 

"The shower is big enough for two," his twin murmurs into his ear when they part for breath.

His gut clenches, heat rolling through him when he feels wandering hands slip down to his groin. 

Vergil really has some truly excellent ideas.

----

"We are going over the bay tomorrow. To one of the cities over there or whatever," Dante declares much later, still fighting to catch his breath. Vergil is a right animal when he decides he wants to drag it out. "I'm not going back through this stupid swamp again. That's going north anyway."

Vergil hums, busy nosing into Dante's sternum and making some spirited attempts to leave marks that heal in a flash right on the edge of the glowing rift in his chest. 

"I reiterate," his twin says when he leaves off for a bit and Dante squirms at the tickling feeling of the breath ghosting over his chest. "You wanted to go on a safari."

Dante determinedly ignores that and changes the topic. "Do you think we should catch some of these Pokémon? To bring home?"

"What?" Vegil blinks up at him, thankfully distracted from indulging in even more torturous tickling. "Do you mean as pets?"

His hair is a right mess from where Dante has clawed his hands in it to hang on while his brother buried his face between his legs. With a snort he reaches up to pat the strays back down.

"Something like that, yeah? I'm pretty sure mam really wants a cat, but can't because of all the-" he waves demonstrably over them both "-demon blood and all."

Vergil gives a thoughtful head tilt, conceding that fact, though he still looks doubtful of the plan.

"And pap would love something fluffy he can pet," Dante continues. He's actually warming up to the idea now, surprising even himself. He too would like to pet something fluffy, actually. Now that he thinks about it.

"Hm. We will think about it. If we find one that is interesting enough to bring back with us," Vergil finally declares and then demonstrably closes his eyes, settling down right on top of him with not a care for Dante's squished ribcage, the ass. "Now go to sleep."

Dante should complain about the weight but he knows Vergil won't believe him anyway. Rightfully so. Weighted brother blanket is the best, after all. Makes for the most relaxed sleep.

"Will have to solve the infernal energy eating this world problem first, though," Dante mutters, right as he drops off. 

He feels another hm rumble through the body above him and the pleasant feeling accompanies him right into his dream. Which has far too many blobby smiles in it for his tastes, actually.

----

Chapter Text

There Dante is just minding his own business, namely trying to trip Vergil up without getting tripped in turn, when he sees it. The first one in this world, now that he is reminded. An ice cream shop. Jackpot. 

Or what this dimension's ice cream equivalent is, but whatever. Ice cream. Which means sundae. 

Deliciousness.

Vergil sees the dauntingly long line before it and nopes out of it so fast, he leaves a dust cloud behind. Dante magnanimously lets him escape his fate, because he is kind and generous like that. Also, he doesn't want to hear his twin's complaints for so long. Because Dante will absolutely stand in this line however long it takes until he gets his sweet, sweet bliss or dies trying. Vergil and his weak ass can go wherever he wants, Dante is getting a sundae, come hell or high water.

And sweet victory, after an unmentionably long amount of time being squished together with fellow ice cream enthusiasts, he has the best approximation of a strawberry sundae he found in the selection in his hand and delicious fruity coldness in his mouth. Paradise. He hums in pleasure while he looks around for his missing twin. It's really really good, even if it doesn't taste like strawberry at all. It's much closer to blueberry, actually. Which is all kinds of hilarious but whatever, it's good and a sundae and that's what matters right now. 

He is so going to get Vergil to taste it. His brother loves blueberry, even if he categorically refuses to admit to this fact, for reason unknowable to anyone else, but which are probably something petty. Dante isn't going to judge. Much.

Said twin has disappeared into a book shop while Dante waited in line and hasn't come out yet, it seems. With his dripping cup Dante probably shouldn't go in there. If the way he is being eyed critically by the shop assistant arranging their goods in the display window is any indication. Ambling over to an empty bench instead, he parks his ass on it while he waits and enjoys his frozen treat. All nice and quiet and well-behaved. He won't even wander off and cause another one of those cute little furrows in his brother's forehead at having to come search for him again. Vergil should be so thankful.

When the ice is more than halfway gone and he is idly wondering if his twin has gotten himself swallowed by a literary black hole that is refusing to spit him back out, a man sits down beside him. Directly beside him. With room to spare on the other side. 

Ah. 

Bummer.

It's not the first time he has been approached by hopeful strangers, especially when he isn't with Vergil, whose general aura of 'run little mortal, run while you still can' very much discourages friendly contact. Their looks are too attractive to go unnoticed and Dante doesn't exude stony murder vibes wherever he goes, so it's not too much a surprise he finds himself with company, now that said murder vibes are busy in literature land. Doesn't mean he has to be happy about about being approached, especially if he isn't currently trying to weasel something out of his admirer. And looking at this one, he probably isn't. 

Doesn't look like Dante's kind of fun. Too wholesome and tight laced. Middle aged chap, probably closer to Dante's mental age than what he looks like now, with a thick dark beard, clothing made for hiking. Solidly build with muscles backed by weight. All around lumberjack vibes. Dante has seen a few of those wanderer guys on their journey already, it seems to be a common activity here in Kanto. Bit weird of the guy to approach a seeming teenager but whatever, Dante has better things to care about and very sharp claws if people try to get frisky.

The man grins brightly when he notices Dante's attention on him.

"My friend!" he starts. Very boisterously.

Quite the animated chap, isn't he. Dante needs a nap just looking at him.

The man continues on and somehow packs even more enthusiasm into his voice. "Isn't it a wonderful day? I saw you and just knew you were a fellow minded person!"

Huh. You know. Actually. If Dante spins this right, he might actually get some really nice happy time out of this. Vergil's just gonna loooove this when he gets back, isn't he. Dante's lips shift into a mean little grin at the thought, before he smooths it out into something nice and playful before the man can notice. He so loves it when Vergil loses control of his temper and gets rough.

As such he slides his grin into a flirty look, casually turns more to the man and opens his body language in the same move.

"Yeah?" Add just a liiiitle bit of breathy quality to the voice, lean in ever so slightly.

"Yes, you are indeed an adventurer like me," the guy nods earnestly and does not make any outward sign of actually noticing the flirty antics at all.

Uh.

Dante blinks, momentarily thrown. This is not how this normally goes.

Maybe the man means kinky? Dante has indeed been proposed and accused of a wide variety of kinks in his life. Which is all kinds of hilarious, considering he never really had much sex without Vergil there to provide it for most of his life until this second puberty.

"Here, take this," the man continues, blithely oblivious to Dante's floundering. "I know you will take good care of it for me!"

And with that he plops a weird grey object right into Dante's lap, springs up, waves animatedly and off he is without a backwards glance. Dante blinks after him, confused and admittedly a bit wrong footed. Already, the man has disappeared behind a house on the other side of the square.

Okay. 

So that happened. 

Wasn't after sex at all, it seems. Pity. No way to make Vergil's possessive instincts flare up now. Dante entertains the thought of going after the man or at least chucking whatever is in his lap and nailing him in the head with it, but dismisses it as altogether too much effort.

He looks down at the thing. Finishing his sundae off with a few more bites. Balancing the spoon in the paper cup to free one hand, he carefully lifts it up. There is life in this, faintly pulsing against his senses. 

Huh. It's an egg. 

Why by all the gods above and below would a stranger give him a fertilised egg. Dante has never been accused of looking all that nurturing or parental. In fact, the times he has spent with Patty in public while she was still a little kid consisted of a lot of strangers stopping them to express their concern about a hooligan like him being around an impressionable little girl like her. Shows what the vast majority of people think about his ability to handle impressionable children. Also, that a lot of people have garbage judgement, if they think Patty at any age is impressionable, but that is another matter.

So. Why has he gotten a proto baby Pokémon dumped into his lap? Clearly the stranger is bonkers.

He hefts the egg in his hand. It's surprisingly heavy for its size, with a weirdly rubbery texture, like a waxy film coating all over the shell. Got some kind of feint greenish yellow markings on it. Perhaps an indication for what kind of species will hatch? The consciousness inside the egg is hazy and muzzy, barely there at all. No indication of even the type it will turn out to be. Probably still young enough to need a lot more time to develop.

Dante is not feeling particularly broody and really has no intention of handling that whole business anyway. For a moment he imagines himself sitting on the egg for the next few weeks, with Vergil fluttering around him like a worried new father. He nearly chokes on his spit with the sudden laughter bubbling out of his throat. 

Hah, nope.

Actually, his twin is the broodier one between the two of them, isn't he. The mental image of Vergil sitting on the egg pops into his mind and he promptly blue screens for a little bit. That's an amazing visual, thank you brain. Let's never go there again. 

Cheerfully, and slightly mentally scarred, he tosses the empty sundae container into a bin to the side and leans back, tossing the egg back and forth between his hands. They came by a Pokémon pension before they made it to the city, didn't they. Surely they will take the egg off their hands. There is no way he and Vergil will take care of this baby.

He has never really thought about producing little half devil nestlings before, never really having a desire for it. And anyway, right now they are still way too young in body to make with the children anyway. Eva would cheerfully skin them alive if they come home from their little adventure with a broken ward and tiny little babies duckling after them, demonic or otherwise. He can just imagine the lecture at the idiocy. 

Shuddering, he wills the thought away. Nope nope nope. Not fun at all. Let's not.

For a moment his thoughts wander to Nero and quiet grief follows. There is no possible way the boy will be born this time around. For all his, and by extension his demon's, laid back nature, he will not tolerate Vergil sleeping with someone else. Never mind that Vergil himself won't ever even dream of it nowadays. And naming a possible future child of their own after Nero feels like an insult to his nephew. Dante balks at the very thought of it. No, the thoughtful, kind, temperamentful boy will not exist in this timeline, painful as that truth is.

He sighs and shakes his head to dispel the melancholy that's befallen him. Presumably Nero continues on in their original timeline and hopefully he isn't suffering too much for their sudden absence from his life.

In an effort to distract himself until Vergil crawls out of his book induced frenzy or whatever is keeping him occupied for so long, he sets to figuring out how to twist this situation in a way that will get him that good, good temper out of brother dearest. Preferably in reach of a nice, secluded, horizontal area.

----

"Dante."

"Oh look who finally crawled out of the black hole he has fallen into."

"What, exactly, is that?"

"No clue. Some guy gave it to me for free. I think it's an egg."

"There is life in it."

"Yeeep."

"... Why would you take it?"

"Dunno, he seemed very happy for me to have it and I didn't want to chase him down to give it back. Too much effort."

"..."

"Also, it would be hilarious if we managed to hatch an egg, don't you think? Come on, it's funny, yeah?"

"I'm hungry. Let's eat it."

"What, no. Don't you dare, Verge!"

"Give."

"No, you keep your grubby little fingers off my precious eggy."

"You are ridiculous."

"You are ridiculous. Stop eating everything in front of you that doesn't flee fast enough."

"It's useless as anything but food. Don't tell me you are entertaining the though of hatching it."

"Good lord, no. We would kill it in two days tops."

"Then I see no problem."

"Verge. Stop trying to eat my egg."

"Dante. You must be aware how insane you sound right now."

"Whatever. If you are hungry we can go get something to eat. The sundae was really good, we can get you one."

"I don't want to wait in that ridiculous line."

"Well, if you hadn't taken so long in that shop, I would have shared mine. It tasted like blueberry. You would have liked it."

"Hm."

"Don't hm me, I know you love them."

"That is not the point."

"No, the point is that you are thinking with your stomach, Verge. Look, over there is a food stand that doesn't have such a long line."

"It smells awful. Also, I want egg now."

"Will you stop that."

"No."

"Well, you can't have my egg, no matter how hungry you are," Dante pouts ridiculously, arms hugging his equally ridiculous egg to his chest.

Vergil glowers at him, but of course it has no effect whatsoever. Dante is naturally immune to his venom, after all. It's quite inconvenient.

"Uh. Hello?"

Vergil blinks down at the little creature so rudely interrupting them. Professor Oak told them they are the only known Pokémon to be able to speak. And yet here this bipedal cat creature is, definitely speaking to them. How curious.

"Hi?" Dante asks more than answers, likewise blinking down at the little thing. 

Vergil momentarily toys with the idea of stealing the egg while he is distracted, but Dante demonstrably tightens his hold on the thing with a glowering side eye, so that's a lost cause. 

Unfortunate. Another plan then.

"Ya, not to disturb your little spat or what, but we can take that egg off your hands if ya don't want it."

Is this another victim of Arceus' magic? It doesn't seem to have anything more than the presence of a normal Pokémon. And it very much looks and smells like a regular Pokémon. If it merely learned to speak like a human, then it is of no interest to Vergil. Not too far fetched a theory, there are animals in their own world that learned the same, after all. Like parrots. He narrows his eyes at it. 

Still, if it wants the egg, then Vergil won't chase it away just yet. "Continue."

"Hey, it's my egg," Dante immediately protests, even taking a step back from them both. "I get to decide what's happening with it."

"Dante, it will only be in the way. They want it, just give it to them. I saw another gym over there." He nods to a cluster of squat buildings at the end of the pathway, hoping to distract his twin with it. The last gym was entertaining enough to be amusing for a few hours, after all.

"Oh, so now you don't want to eat it anymore?" Dante is suspiciously obstinate over this whole thing. 

Vergil narrows his eyes at him. His brother is up to something, but he can't quite figure out what it is. Frustrating.

"Give them the egg, Dante."

"You don't want to eat it, do you?" Dante turns back to the cat, pouty and stubborn like he so rarely is. 

Why he is suddenly so obsessed with not eating perfectly good food may be beyond Vergil right now, but if getting rid of the egg lets them leave this idiotic situation faster, he will well put in the effort. He glares at the cat, daring it to make the situation worse by giving the wrong answer.

"Uh. No?" the Pokémon stutters, widely looking back and forth between them. "I only eat Pokéfood."

Excellent, clearly the thing's survival instincts are up to par, if the way it is subtly inching away from Vergil is any indication. This situation may yet be salvageable. Dante eyes it suspiciously, still stubbornly resistant. Before his twin can open his mouth to no doubt spew even more asinine protests, they are interrupted again.

"And we," a loud, boisterous voice sounds off, as two other people butt into the conversation from where they have hovered at the sidelines up until now, "also won't eat the egg, pinky promise!" 

The blue haired man bows theatrically while the red haired woman with the impressive hairdo nods faux solemnly beside him. Vergil's eyebrow twitches, temper flaring. He is sick of being intruded upon.

"Swear on my poor dear mother's grave, we do," the woman continues where the man has left off, actually adding nothing at all to the conversation.

It would be so easy to dispose of them. Vergil looks coldly at them both, only barely reigning in his more murderous impulses. Especially as he can practically taste his twin's strangely obstinate mood switch to eager mirth at the entrance of the two. They seem just the right kind of morons to fall for all of Dante's teasing. And his brother clearly smells the sudden vulnerable prey in the water, if the sharkish grin he hides behind his bangs is any indication. Vergil lowly growls in aggravation. Oh, he will make Dante suffer for this charade, the next time they find a secluded spot.

Ah, Vergil blinks in sudden realisation, temper momentarily derailed. That may actually be the exact outcome Dante is gunning for.

"Oh, but how can I possibly part from this wonderful new life so trustingly placed into my care?" Dante chirps right on cue, arms wrapped around the stupid thing, gentle as if he is cradling a new born baby foal. 

The fact that Vergil has cottoned on to his brother's goal is sadly not enough to stop the embers from burning at the ridiculous display. His twin's silly, wide eyed look of affected innocence is just the final nail in the coffin of Vergil's temper. 

He demonstrably turns away, half to look for an escape from this hell, but also because he doesn't want to let Dante see that he has already won. Sadly his escape is thwarted by his twin linking their arms together, wily little shit that he is. Vergil will make him cry for this, fuck him for hours until he is an incoherent mess.

"Uh. We promise we will take good care of the egg?" the cat answers and it's too much a question. 

Curse the thing, that's just giving Dante a wide opening.

"We will care for it like it is our very own baby!" the woman beams in a truly hideous mimicry of maternal. 

Better, but not good enough to pary his twin's attack.

"Oooh? Are you three together then? A family?" Dante smiles widely and the trio is momentarily struck dumb in the face of it. 

Vergil is deeply unimpressed with his twin's antics, but freely admits Dante can pull off stunningly beautiful incredibly well. He understands why the woman is drooling, even if it only stokes his anger more.

"Yup," the cat chirps, shaking itself out of the sudden spell, nodding insistently. "And we would so love to welcome another child into our little unit, you see."

Dante absolutely beams. The man swoons. Vergil bares his teeth at his aggravating brother, but is sadly ignored while his twin leads the idiots around in merry circles. He stops listening to the idiocy just to spare himself the pain. Maybe he really should stab them all, including his brother. That will no doubt make him feel better.

A startled, outraged gasp comes from the right. 

Vergil contemplates stabbing himself just to get out of this situation. 

When he reluctantly turns to the noise he sees one of the teenagers from the trainer exam run up to them, outrage written all over his face. Fabulous. More morons for Dante to play with. At least this one is more tolerable than most others, if he remembers it right. Though he immediately starts shouting as he joins them, therefore proving himself just as annoying as the rest. 

The boy seems to be very angry at the two humans and their strange little Pokémon. Vergil catches Dante's gaze and the absolute glee in those pale eyes sadly means he won't escape this insanity anytime soon.

Simply fucking him into a bed is too nice, actually. He will edge his twin for hours, until he is so tense and overwrought he can't think straight anymore.

"You stole my Butterfry!" the child shouts, pointing indignantly at them all. 

Dante makes a show of pointing at himself with wide eyes. Vergil is getting a headache, even though he can't actually get them, what with his demonic healing. Such is the power of his little brother.

"What?" the woman shouts back, just as loud but with double the melodrama. "Are you calling us thieves? The nerve of today's youth!"

Vergil will murder them all just to get some peace and quiet. Dante's grin grows, inching into the territory of too many teeth for humans to stomach.

"Give him back, now!" the child continues, louder to be heard over the trio's squawking.

"Gasp!" Vergil's evil twin responds, hand over his heart and eyes wide as saucers with something mimicking betrayal. "Thieves? So you do want to eat my poor egg, after all?"

Why is this the man Vergil loves again?

Another gasp, this one much more genuine.

"Did you eat my Butterfry?" The boy nearly bursts into tears, face a rictus of pained disbelief. 

He grabs a Pokéball from the band on his belt. A little yellow mouse appears, sparking and as angry as its trainer. Vergil would appreciate the battle lust more if only the boy weren't in tears.

"Oh my, oh my. Here I thought eating an egg is bad, but a whole Pokémon? You monsters," Dante says, therefore deftly throwing gasoline onto the fire.

Sheer disbelief temporarily drowns out any other emotion in Vergil, as untold chaos breaks out at his twin's words. More Pokémon are summoned, electricity flashes around them, everyone is shouting about the ethics of Pokémon eating and how they definitely don't eat any eggs. Two more teenagers join the fray, one orange haired and a young man with dark skin. A large stone snake suddenly towers over them all, growling loudly. Vergil's supposedly impossible headache grows stronger. 

Dante steps back to his side with a decadently satisfied sigh, contentedly watching the chaos he has caused. It is deeply attractive and Vergil glowers at him. He still has the egg in his arms. Vergil glowers harder, right up until Dante carefully stuffs it into the teenager's abandoned backpack. Small mercies. 

Then his twin turns to him with a bright smile, looking as if he didn't just cause a brawl in the middle of the street in an effort to get Vergil to be rough with him.

"You said something about a gym?" He looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, head tilted to the side inquisitively.

Vergil should not reward this tomfoolery. It only ever encourages Dante to ever more ludicrous heights. 

He is still going to fuck him through the next bed he finds. Dante did manage to loose the egg in the end, after all. Still, his twin may get what he wants, but Vergil will not give in so obviously. No, instead he will leave him hanging for a few hours, maybe days, and then surprise attack him when Dante doesn't expect it anymore.

Vergil lets the silence linger for a few more moments, underscores by the chaotic battle tussling still going on behind them. This does not face Dante at all, of course, who is grinning unrelentingly the whole time. Finally, Vergil sighs in profound resignation and turns to walk away, knowing Dante will follow. There is still the gym. A few fights will let him dispel at least some of this temper. And distract Dante enough to stop expecting Vergil to retaliate.

His brother jogs after him a few seconds later and brushes their shoulders together, pushing something into his hand. When Vergil looks at it in confusion he sees an energy bar Dante has to have swiped from the boy's backpack. Dante smiles at him when he looks up at him. 

He only half bothers to swallow the fond laugh that crawls up his throat and tangles his fingers through Dante's in answer. Yes, let him think he lost the chance, that Vergil's temper has fizzled out. It will make it all the more sweet when he finally attacks.

It is his favourite flavour and he is actually hungry, so he eats the snack, sparing a bite or two for his brother. He still wants egg in their near future though. Preferably omelettes, actually.

----

The leader of this gym, Erika, is specialised in grass type. She puts up a nice fight, though neither he nor Dante are particularly bothered by the attacks. In fact, they feel strangely ineffective against him. Neither are there any interesting skills for them to copy, sadly.

It seems Janine has warned her fellow gym leaders about their fighting prowess, though. They are met with the presumably strongest teams from the beginning and don't have to prove their abilities first. Good. Vergil likes that they won't have to waste time with the raffle in other gyms, either.

----

Chapter Text

Dante blinks curiously at his twin when he finally pulls back from his wrist, mouth stained red. He has finally managed to trap Vergil into promising to drink his blood by promising not to repeat any egg encounters again. Which is objectively hilarious, as Dante is more than happy to give in to that demand, but now he gets his way. He can't wait to see the reaction.

For a moment nothing happens, Vergil just looks past Dante's shoulder into the distance, face blank. Then he starts vibrating in place. Still staring vacantly at the horizon.

Okay, now Dante is a little bit concerned.

Still staaaring.

And then, suddenly-

"I'm going to fight it," Vergil declares solemnly, nodding insistently.

"What?" Dante asks, confused.

Vergil springs up and off he is the very next second, dashing towards the trees to their right. Dante scrambles after him with a low curse.

His brother is really speedy right now, wow. He has already reached the treeline, coming to a sudden stop before a very large fir, clawed hands opening and closing into fists at his sides. When Dante catches up and leans around him to see his face, Vergil looks incredibly murderous. Dante follows his line of sight straight to the trunk of said tree. There is nothing else there. Just bark and leafs. He squints a bit. Huh. Now that he is looking at it, that's the same type of tree as the one they slept under when the ward kicked in on them, shortly after they arrive on this world.

Wait.

"I'm going to fight it," Vergil repeats, incredibly serious.

No way.

"Verge, no," Dante objects, slightly chocked from the snort he is trying to swallow. If his twin is as high as he has been, then it's just mean to laugh at him. Out loud. "Verge, it's a tree, you can't fight a tree."

Vergil merely narrows his eyes even more. "Face me coward."

"A tree can't be a coward, you idiot, stop that."

"I will have your head on a stake."

"How does that even work- no, wait, stop."

Too late, Vergil has already leapt forward and attacks with a claw swipe that leaves half the tree gutted out, blue poison oozing all over. Bit overkill, if you ask Dante. Vergil doesn't seem to care that the tree kind of can't be poisoned, though. Some more very creative swipes. The tree rather looks like a wooked spike now, it's been stripped down so much.

Dante steps back, resigned to let him have his way, if he needs to fight shrubbery so very much right now.

"How you are fighting a tree is a mystery to me, brother," he calls after him anyway, not exactly expecting any kind of response.

Vergil does not seem to think this enough suffering from the greenery and spiritedly goes for the next one. It's kind of cute. Dante can't help but be charmed when his twin goes on to fight ever more trees, finished with the second one too.

Dante grins helplessly after him, scratching at his hair. "Well, at least you're winning."

Remembering Vergil's declaration of head spearing, Dante studies what's left behind. There is certainly a spike there. More than one, even. But Dante wonders vaguely about the head that is supposed to go on it. A couple of rodents are scared out of the next tree's branches, chittering angrily even as they run away. They do not seem to merit his brother's attention. Dante snorts again, really struggling to not fall prey to the hilarity of the situation now. He bends down to pick up a piece of stray moss that's been ripped off and delicately spears it on what's left of the tree. 

There. Head on a spike. Or something, at least.

He looks back after his brother, biting his cheek against the laughter bubbling up in his gut. Seems getting high makes Vergil extra fighty. Like father, like son. It reminds Dante so much of teenage Nero who, when not busy being awkward around Kyrie, was always good and ready to fight anyone and anything. Up to and including the mailbox that one very memorable time. Now admittedly, the shop's mailbox was a Devil Arm that got uppity with Dante one too many times, but the point still stands. Inanimate object, even if one of demonic origins. And Vergil certainly does not have even the excuse of an infernal presence here.

At least he isn't loosing in his quest to fight any and all trees. That would be so incredibly sad, Dante would have to disown him for it. Thankfully he is mowing them down quite thoroughly, though. Even if he is far slower about it than he normally would be, on account of not just cleaving a swathe through the things but rather going after each one separately with only his claws. It seems he has forgotten that he has other means of decimating the local plant-life in his blood induce drug haze. Which is just objectively hilarious, but again. Dante isn't going to laugh at him. Much.

He slowly meanders after his brother, content to let him have his fun for now. Vaguely he wonders if this is better or worse than his own trip. Which is about the time when one of the supposedly inanimate trees suddenly shrieks loudly and flails in answer to a clawed swipe, scaring the absolute bejeezus out of Dante. Vergil takes it in stride as if this was to be expected, ripping the thing apart with his teeth while Dante tries to get his suddenly hammering heart back under control.

Jeez.

Jeeeeeez.

Dante is over fifty. His heart can't take scares like this anymore. Even if he's now a teenager in body again. And demonic physiology probably makes it impossible for him to have a heart attack in the first place. Whatever. Not the point here.

Vergil is still going strong when Dante finally manages to shove the adrenaline and accompanying fight response back down. He clearly doesn't need to fight anything right now, his brother is doing a very good job of decimating all the possible enemies that could be around. Or at least the planty ones. Dante contemplates the devastated foreast around them, while his twin and another alive tree wrestle in front of him. 

So, while Dante got adventurous while hopped up on Vergil's blood, Vergil gets extra bonkers on the aggression? Now the question is if it's simply their different personalities or if their type differences has anything to do with it. 

To quote his twin, how fascinating.

Vergil does win his fight against this tree too, but rather than just tossing the remains to the side, on top of the carnage of foliage he already bested, he picks the corpse up, turns and determinedly stomps towards Dante. 

Oh no.

Dante can't help a chocked laugh even while he rapidly backs up and lifts his hands to fend his brother off, already knowing exactly where this is going. 

"Eat!" Vergil demands, all but shoving the carcass into Dante's arms. 

Yep, there it is. The food obsession coming through.

The thing is dripping some kind of tree sap, which seems to function as its blood? It's kinda disgusting, actually. And incredibly sticky on his skin. Dante does not like the texture of that at all, actually. He will have to wrestle them both into some kind of bath to get it off, as soon as possible preferably.

"Yeah, how about no. Too leafy, Verge. Also, disgusting sap." He shakes one hand to try to get some of the goop off, but it stubbornly keeps sticking. Ugh, no. As much as he enjoys bathing in the blood of his enemies, this is not cool.

"You must eat something," Vergil insists, breaking off an arm with a weirdly stoney crack and then tries to shove it into Dante's mouth.

"No, Ver- Stop that. What are you- Verge!" Dante half laughs, half chokes as he fends off the assault. 

Sadly, Vergil is determined enough that Dante does end up with some leaves in his mouth, but he does manage to fend him off enough not to end up with the whole twig. 

For some very strange and distressing reason it tastes like chalk.

"Ugh, that's disgusting. Verge, we just had breakfast. I seriously don't need more food. Yes -" he talks loudly over his twin as he snarls, "- even with the two meals a day rule. No more food until evening."

Vergil growls again but at least he stops trying to shove twigs into Dante's mouth. Small victories.

Instead, he now seems to be studying the dead tree thing intently. Dante takes this chance to try to peer into his eyes. His pupils shrunk to tiny pinpricks, the pale blue of his iris nearly taking over the whole eyes. They are also twitching, shuffling around even as Vergil is focusing intently. Actually, he is kind of vibrating in place, too.

It's weird enough to give Dante pause. Vergil is very very good at predatory stillness, often falls back on it when he is just at rest too. To see him unable to keep still, especially as he is focusing so much, is mildly concerning. 

"Verge?" he asks, dropping the creature to the side so he can try to fit his palms to his twin's cheek and force his head up to look at him. It smears sticky sap all over Vergil's face but whatever, they can deal with that later.

"Yes, Dante?" Vergil asks, but he keeps trying to turn his head away, distracted. 

His earlier bloodlust, somewhat settled while he attempted to shove the fake tree into him, abruptly skyrockets again when something rustles to their right. It's strong enough to make all of Dante's instincts excited in answer, but he stomps it down. No fighting his twin right now. Though, maybe it would help alleviate some of that overflowing energy. He can feel Vergil tensing under his palms, clearly preparing to attack again.

"Will you stop with your rampage-" Dante barely gets the words out before Vergil is off, pouncing on something hidden in the trees, rustling around in the shrubbery. "-never mind. Ok, what did you find now."

"Hah!" Vergil shouts triumphantly, holding up his price in victory.

Dante blinks. 

He blinks again. A snort escapes him before he can stop it.

It's an egg.

Vergil has found an egg.

Or rather, a whole nest full of eggs, as Dante sees when he steps closer.

He kinda looses it a little bit after that.

Which is why it takes him so long to realise that the eggs have eyes and are actually alive and complaining loudly. Holy shit, Pokémon are so weird.

A palm tree attacks them, breaking through the surroundings with its own load cry. Looking at the slightly derpy faces on it, that's probably mommy dearest.

What a trip.

Chapter Text

"No," Vergil declares firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

He has already suffered through Celadon city, he won't do it again. Especially not after that trip. He refuses to be embarrassed, but the fact that he ended up gathering eggs in his blood fuelled high is something he is eager to forget. For as long as Dante lets him, anyway.

Said brother pulls a face, looking up at the towering buildings nestled into the middle of the sprawling city they are standing before. Somehow it's even larger and more importantly busier than Celadon.

"Yeah, ok," Dante sighs, scratching at his chin. "I will give you that this one is very... busy. And noisy."

Vergil gives a huff at the understatement, somewhat distracted by extending his senses. There is something he feels in the distance, faintly skittering over his awareness through the thrumming chaos of all the humans and Pokémon congregated here. He furrows his brows, tilting his head towards the busy street in an effort to feel it out.

"Ok fine, around the city we go," Dante continues, still staring intently at the sky rise, "Easy peasy. Whatever. Do you feel that?"

Vergil simply nods, still trying to pinpoint the sensation. It is simultaneously foreign and yet also vaguely familiar. Strange.

It is also coming closer.

"Ok. Whatever, I don't care," Dante waves it away and goes to rummage through their backpack, which Vergil is currently carrying nestled between his wings. "Not going through the city begs the question of where we go next."

"North, obviously." Vergil lets himself be pulled out of his sensing, also putting the presence out of his mind. It does not feel powerful enough to pose a threat anyway, so it is of no consequence, even strange as it is.

With a soft noise of triumph Dante pulls out two flimsy pieces of paper to wave about. "Hey, remember those tickets I got?"

Indeed he does. Vergil suppresses a reluctantly amused sigh. Somehow, while making their way between Caledon and Saffron city, Dante has acquired free tickets to a luxury cruise. Vergil is not completely sure where or when, but is reasonably certain a pair of teenage girls were involved. His twin's ability to find ways to amuse himself in ever more excentric ways is really quite noteworthy.

"S.S. Anne. Goes on a two days roundtrip along the coast, starting from Vermillion City harbour. Isn't that the next city down south?" Dante asks, peering down at the paper strips.

"I believe so, yes. You want to go on a luxury cruise, brother?" Vergil asks with an arched eyebrow and disbelief dripping from his voice. He can't quite picture his unruly brother on such a thing, admittedly. "Really?"

"Well. Never been before and now we already got the tickets. For free, even. Also," his twin grins brightly, eyes giddy in eager amusement, "old Lady Rose from Capulet always talked about them. Told me a degenerate like myself would never get to go on one. Makes a man want to cause some mischief, ya?"

Vergil stares him down, but does have to admit the reactions would indeed be very amusing. From what he understands the rich would not appreciate a leather based dress code such as theirs. If they even bother with the everstones. Still, going on this cruise is just another distraction on their way. "We will merely get delayed again."

"Come on, Verge. Don't you want to experience the joy of a salty breeze and some fancy drinks or whatever?" Dante weasels, grinning ever more widely. "Also, very much doubt whats-his-name science bro of the doc will be able to do much for us, even if he is studying teleportation. Pap will get to us way before anyone here finds a way to cross universes reliably, pretty sure."

"You don't even know what to do on a cruise," Vergil still protests, but it is half hearted at best. Dante is right, after all.

"Well neither do you. It's good to learn new things, yeah?"

Before Vergil inevitably gives in to Dante's will, the presence swells close to them and a woman steps out of the busy side walk.

"I knew I would find you here," she says, stopping before them. "Your presence is very strong."

Vergil eyes flick over her, instincts prickling. The energy about her is almost familiar in its signature. Extra human, definitely. If they were in their own world, he would assume her to have either demonic or magic blood in her ancestry. As far as he knows, this is not possible here.  Interesting. Now that she is so close, it maybe shares some similarities with his brother's new signature. A psychic, maybe?

"Who, us?" Dante grins as he turns to her, pointing mockingly at his own chest. "Couldn't be. We are innocent in all matters and especially this. No power here."

Vergil swallows a grin, carefully keeping his face stern. His brother's definition of innocence may need some work.

"Indeed. Tony and V, the two Pokémon able to pass as human. Or perhaps, humans made to pass as Pokémon. I have heard much of you," she continues, voice calm and almost ethereal. It grates on the nerves. "My powers of premonition have told me of you and your prowess."

"Aww, thanks. But you got us on the back foot," Dante answers easily even as Vergil frowns. "No clue who you are."

There is the whispering feeling of a probing energy skittering along his senses, trying to feel him out. He firmly slaps it away with a push of his own, not appreciating the nosy attention at all.

"I am Sabrina, gym leader of Saffron city." She nods regally at his brother, not showing any reaction to his harsh rejection. "Before you make your way south, I would fight you in my gym."

Vergil dislikes her.

Though it may prove a distraction, neither he nor Dante are attached to gathering all the batches. While the previous two gym leaders have been amusing enough to while away an afternoon, there is no reason to go out of their way for such things. And Vergil is certainly not feeling like going into the bright, overly full city even for a fight with this meddlesome woman, no matter how entertaining it may be.

"Aww, we just decided we don't want to go into the city, sorry lady," Dante sounds uncaring enough about loosing this fight that he must have felt the noisy presence himself. "Have to take a rain-check on that fight, me thinks."

Vergil turns away without a word, exchanges a short look with his twin and then takes flight. They will be able to get south quite fast if they fly.

"Yup, that's that," Dante laughs easily behind him and he hears his brother's wings join his own. "See you around or whatever!" 

----

The boat is ridiculously enormous. Enough to house a small city on its own, wow. Dante is kind of boggling a little bit at the size of the thing. That's too much, right? Who even needs boats that big?

The tickets do indeed allow them to get a room on to the huge thing and they even manage to only raise a few eyebrows from the staff, at least. They are a bit too early still, it's still a few hours out before they are slated to depart. No other guests are around for now to sniff disdainfully at their leather coats, so he sadly has to wait to offend more people with his degenerate ways. Very sad that.

Everything is hilariously luxurious. Feels a bit like they have entered a completely new world where everything is gold plated and full of marble. So not his thing. Give him some seedy clubs over this any day of the week. Still, there is a bar on here that gives out free drinks for passengers and he and Verge clearly look old enough to get themselves some nice alcohol without anyone asking probing questions about age. Great win as far as he is considered.

When the other passengers finally file onto the ship and the bar gets busy as a result, they do stand out quite a bit amongst the posh upper class. Though not as much as Dante expected. It seems a bunch of other filthy commoners got free tickets too, much to the consternation of the rich and snobby. It's hilarious, Dante loves it. Especially after they all start looking even more cross when Vergil glares back far more disdainfully. Makes Dante want to act out and really show them how someone from the seediest parts of Capulet behaves. A few boots on tables, a bit of drunken foolery, a few bullets, and everyone will run for the hills, pretentious assholes that they are.

He won't though, because he doesn't want to be thrown off the boat before it even leaves port. But the need is very definitely there. For now he can deal with the attention and mutterings for the free drinks and the sheer amount of ways to entertain himself on this here boat. There is a pool, an indoor and outdoor cinema, karaoke and so much more it's ridiculous. Even a bingo night, hilariously enough. Old lady Rose would be seethingly jealous to know he has made it and she hasn't. He vaguely wonders how she is doing. Probably already living in Capulet's underbelly and muttering about the bad youth, hah.

Sadly, Vergil vehemently vetoes bingo night, so Dante doesn't get to go bother even more little old ladies with his wily ways. It's sad, is what it is, but it seems his brother has reached his limits of socialisation and indulging Dante's whims for now.

Instead they end up fleeing the ever more stuffed bar and clambering up the sides of the boat, as it makes its way out of the sheltered bay and onto the vast ocean. The challenge of staying unnoticed by their fellow guests and staff, all the while fending off the very violent gull Pokémon trying to eat them, is great fun, so Dante isn't too cross about the whole thing. That ends them up on the highest deck, which is thankfully deserted, seeing as it's late evening by now and cold enough to chase normal people inside.

The coast is full of pretty glittering lights and the clear sky even more so. It's nearly full moon, probably only a few more nights off until it's all fat. That's about the time at home when the demons get really unruly and Dante's phone back in the shop rings non stop. But here there is no swell of infernal energy to gorge himself with.

"This is nice, yeah," he murmurs, settling himself on the railing and leaning back to look up at the dark sky. Sometimes things being calm is good too.

Vergil hums agreeably and steps between his legs, arms wrapping themselves around his waist. Dante can feel his smile as his brother buries his face in his neck, pressing ticklish kisses up his skin. 

Yeah, this is very nice.

They spend the night enjoying the breeze and the stars and trading lazy kisses between them while the boat sways hypnotically. They only leave their little perch when the first passengers start waking up and come to disturb their peace.

After Vergil finds them something to eat for breakfast, because of course he does, they go to explore the bowels of the ship, racing through the narrow corridors and tight corners. Hilariously enough they find quite a bit of stuff just randomly laying around and also hiding in potted plants. This is so weird. Dante kind of assumed luxury boats don't have stuff just laying around to be pocketed. Even a nugget of solid gold, wow. Most of the things they won't be using, like the potions and all, but he pockets the gold and the Pokéballs, at least. If they really do find a Pokémon to take home with them, they will be useful for sure. And the gold can be traded for some more money, presumably. If they find somewhere to pawn it off.

Dante is trying to outpace Vergil to reach the next staircase first when the ship shudders violently under his feet suddenly. He breaks abruptly, only avoiding face planting into a wall by twirling himself around a door frame he grabs a hold of. Vergil slams into him, though, and it is absolutely deliberate. Dante sees that grin that his twin is barely hiding and he will get revenge for getting squashed. Later.

"Hey, why do you think the ship is-" he pants for the breath his brother just squeezed out of him and the ship shakes even more, a metallic moan going through the hull.

Huh. That doesn't sound too good.

Now that he isn't busy keeping track of Vergil's movements and the layout of the corridors, he can hear shouting from above. The door to the stairwell beside them slams open before he can figure out what he is hearing, three men in somewhat familiar white overalls pouring out. The R across their chests stands out brightly.

"Give us all your Pokémon!" one shouts when he sees them, brandishing a handful of Pokéballs. 

The noise of shouting above them is joined by the battle cries of Pokémon.

Huh.

Would you look at that, it seems luxury cruises are much more exciting and battle friendly than he has previously thought. 

Dante lets go of the everstone and swats at the rat thing the R man conjures up, slamming it into the wall before it can even attack. Was it Rattata? Dante is pretty sure it was Rattata. Though it looks a bit different from the ones he is used to.

----

Dante leans his arms onto the railing, looking at the packed lifeboats rapidly paddling away. Okay. So they are indeed sinking and the sudden prevalence of salty taste in the air inside the ship and the general panic among the passengers on their way up isn't something he imagined. Good to know.

Dante thinks back to the brawl slash race he and Vergil had down in the bowels of the ship and cringes a bit. He doesn't think they are at fault here, especially with the abundance of suddenly very fighty R grunts and passengers both, but still. Probably should have kept that to outside the boat. Sadly, playing slightly violent tag through the tight corners was too amusing to pass up. Spatial restriction like that always makes for more creative fighting and is always a great riot. 

Still, they took care not to damage anything too badly, especially the hull, so really. This is not their fault. Yep. Dante is absolutely sure of that. Mostly. 

This is quite interesting, though. He hasn't ever been on a sinking boat before. The one in Mundus' castle definitely doesn't count, kept aloft by magic as it was. 

He looks around to survey his surroundings, thankful to find the whole deck deserted save for himself. When he listens carefully, the lower decks also seem to be devoid of noisy people, the last stragglers emptying out into the rescue boats. It seems the passengers are getting saved. Cool. Not his concern then.

He leans back and, keeping his grip on the railing for balance when a large wave tosses the ship about, peers into the corridor he has stepped out of a few moments before. Vergil is just about finished with his smack down, kicking a snake Pokémon away from himself with a disdainful huff. It flies straight out the window into the unruly sea below. Dante wishes it luck and the ability to swim. Not its fault its trainer is an idiot and tried to attack them, after all. One of the many that tried to stop them on their way up through the ship, with the stupid R outfit. 

Dante is rapidly realising that all such people are idiots ready to be kicked into the next best garbage can. The good doc was right when he warned them about that group, though he thinks he remembers Oak telling them to avoid them for safety or something. Hah, as if.

A loud screech distracts him, and with an impressively echoing crack, a rather large part of the deck breaks off and slides down into the water. The ship sinks faster. 

Fun.

Another look shows him Vergil rummaging around in the corridor, not yet ready to come out. Must be some more Pokémon there to kick around. Dante contemplates what to do next, but doesn't come up with anything too interesting for now. Maybe he should just wait for the boat to sink. By then his brother will be finished and they can have themselves a bit of a swim in the moonlight or something like that. That would be all nice and romantic. Vergil always likes that, whimsical poetry nerd that he can be, even if he won't admit to it.

There are steps echoing from another door to the deck, rapid and panicked. Still at least one straggler around, then. They sound too light to be one of those R grunts. Dante blinks as a familiar kid, Ash was it, comes tumbling out, nearly face planting onto the deck in his haste. Poor kid visibly panics when he sees Dante standing there.

"Oh no, you are still here!" His voice is high and slightly squeaky. Ouch, puberty voice cracks. Sad stuff, that. The kid doesn't let it stop him as he gesticulates widely. "Quick, you have to get off the ship! It's sinking."

Wow really, Dante wouldn't have noticed that on his own. Good that there are people around to tell him that stuff. He sends yet another look at his brother, finding him already looking back, three metal balls with magnets connected to them in his hand. The light show racing over his skin probably means the poor thing is trying to electrocute him. 

Dante wishes it the best of luck, Vergil is sadly unfriable. He knows this far too well, having tried it quite a few times with King Cerberus before he gave it up as a lost cause, all the way back when they were traipsing through hell brawling nearly every step of the way in lieu of actually talking with each other. The ability seems to have transferred to their new bodies too, as he has since seen Vergil get hit with electricity with no sign of any effect on him. Dante has the sneaking suspicion it has something to do with what Mundus did to his twin, but Vergil adamantly refuses to confirm his suspicions.

The poor Pokémon doesn't seem to have gotten the memo, magnets and screws whirling frantically while going to town with the electricity. It's even turning faintly red from the heat build up, though Vergil still doesn't react to the flashes arching all over his skin and hide.

When Dante tilts his head in question his brother gives a short nod in understanding and agreement both, so he turns back to the kid. Who is making even more distressed noises when he too sees Vergil, clearly about to run to try to help out. Presumably. Bona fide little hero, that one. Dante nips that whole business in the bud with a firm hand on the kid's shoulder that locks him into place. Not going to end well if Ash gets in Vergil's way. 

Dante pulls the boy back, intent to get him over to the railing. Maybe there is still a seat on one of the boats free that he can toss the teenager into. "Come on, let's get you-"

"No!" Ash struggles against the tight grip, though Dante easily keeps hold of him. He has to be careful with the sharp claws though, the way the kid is struggling so frantically. "Your brother needs help, we have to help, let go- Pikachu!"

Dante sighs and simply picks the kid up by the scruff and tosses him over his shoulder. He has saved enough fools to know when not to waste time trying to get through the adrenaline fuelled bravado.

The kid complains loudly, but at least is contained now, "-hey what, let me go-!"

With a flick of his tail Dante picks up the mouse too, right as it scurries past his feet. Pikachu, if he has heard right.

"Got anymore of you running around?" he asks, trying to cut through the continued shouting and the general noise of a shipwreck, eyes roaming over the unruly water below.

He really doesn't want to save the kid and then be informed that there are more idiots playing hero still busily drowning. Sounds like a bad plan. The kid ignores him, still very eager with the struggling and shouting. The mouse bites tail and scratches at the scaly leather. Dante makes a face at no one in particular, forcefully reminded of some of the worst parts of being a demon hunter. Why no one just stays put where they are save and not liable to need even more help, he has never really understood. So very annoying.

He lifts an expectant eyebrow at the mouse. Pikachu stares back, eyes wildly determined, mouth clamped firmly shut. Dante wiggles his tail. Nothing. He bares his teeth and lets a bit of bloodlust out, poking at the little thing with a small push of psychic energy. It hesitates for a long moment still, eyes wavering uncertainly. He flares the spines along his back. The mouth drops slowly open, Pikachu staring up at him all the while with wide eyes.

There we go.

Another bit of the ship breaks off into the sea with a thundering crash. Dante decides that the kid would be much more panicky and shouty if there is still someone else on the boat. Time to get them both to safety. 

He wraps his tail around the Pokémon, stretches his wings and jumps to gain enough height to catch wind. Two very loud screams accompany his actions, one right beside his ear. Ouch to the loud, why do people always scream when he rescues them, it's very inconvenient.

Sharp eyes easily picking up the one boat that's not already overstuffed with people, he banks in that direction, waving between the buffeting winds. It seems there is a storm rapidly brewing on top of everything else, yikes. He wonders absently if the large amount of Pokémon fighting has impacted the weather or if it's natural. He wouldn't put it past the things, having seen some of them seemingly conjure environmental effects for a few minutes during a fight. It's quite notable, especially as there aren't many demons able to do the same. Maybe the ones on the level of a king, but he never fought those outside of hell, so it's hard to say, really. He will have to ask Sparda when they get back.

With another deafening crash what is left of the cruise ship implodes in on itself, sinking unnaturally fast when Dante looks over his shoulder at the wreck. Well, Vergil sure is having great fun.

With a bit of maneuvering he comes to hover over his chosen boat and holds his tail out over it. It's mildly annoying to do, as it means he can't use it to course correct his position in the winds now. And even worse, the mouse hangs on stubbornly even as he uncurls his grip, clearly unwilling to leave its trainer behind. Dante sighs at them both. He can understand the concern, really, but this just drags their rescue out. 

He flicks his tail sharply. No dice, it clings on. A young woman with bright orange hair reaches up with a desperately thankful expression and finally Pikachu let's go when it sees her and drops into her waiting arms. Thank you very much, sheesh. 

A squinty eyed man stands wobbly beside the woman, similarly reaching up for the kid Dante still has on his back. With a bit of creative juggling, made so much easier with his tail newly freed, he get's the loudly protesting kid into the boat too, the small drop crashing him into the man. Now they are a tangled heap on the floor of the boat. This does not deter the kid's struggles. Or his complaining, hilariously enough. He sure got spirit, that one. 

"No! No, your brother! We need to help him!"

"Verge is having great fun, kid, stop worrying so damn much," he calls back in an effort to stop him from springing into the water or something equally stupid. He really doesn't want to play rescuer for much longer, here.

"What about you?" One of the other passengers screams over the storm's howling, an older woman with a bright crew vest.

She doesn't stand up, probably on account of the swelling waves getting ripped up by the winds now. They really need to get to the shore before their little boat capsizes.

Dante laughs brightly, salutes her sloppily and with a twist of that prickly power inside himself conjures some psychic energy to give them a boost, wrapping it around the stern and shoving it towards the shore. He maybe overdoes it a little bit, as with another couple of loud screams the rickety boat shoots towards the land, overtaking ever other boat in the process. Oops, that's probably too fast for their sensibilities.

He hesitates a moment watching them go, hovering over the water getting pelted by the sudden rain. Yeap. There they go. Right up to the pier he sees vaguely through the bad weather.

Ah, all is well that ends well. Among the chaos there are definitely a lot of newly very waterlogged people clambering out of the water. It's fine.

He needs to practice with the psychic powers a bit more, it seems. The dark ones are so much easier, he swears.

A flash of red distracts him, catching his eyes to one of the other rescue boats. A woman with very long red hair wavering behind her in the water is getting fished out of the sea. She is vaguely familiar but he can't put his finger on it until he sees a little cat Pokémon lean over the side of the boat. And yep, the man is there too, just as waterlogged as everyone else. The trio that wanted to abscond with his egg. He blinks, absently wondering what happened to the thing. He gave it to the kid, right?

Ah, well. Better things to think about.

With the people all rescued and paddling towards shore he can go search for his twin and see what amusement he has found to entertain himself with. It must be really good, seeing as Vergil still hasn't surfaced from the water he so thoroughly sunk the ship into. It's nearly completely gone now, only a heap of wooden scrap still swimming around forlornly on the water. 

Dante grins and with an excited whoop plunges right into the frothing sea where he can feel his brother strongest. As soon as he breaks surface a faint blue sheen illuminates the dark depths in a flash, luring him deeper. He dives after it, wings functioning surprisingly well to add speed to his downwards strokes. Nice. Seems they are adapted to move through the air and through the water about equally well. Very cool. He will have to rope Vergil into doing a diving competition with him later.

It's dark the deeper he goes, but not impossibly so for his eyes. Without the refractions from the water surface he can see a large dark shape battle with his brother, occasionally bathed in Vergil's lovely power.

Huh. Dante pauses for a moment in his approach, tail waving absently behind him to keep his position.

Maybe Vergil was right. Maybe what they found before wasn't the Cthulhu wannabe of this world. This thing sure fits the bill better. 

That is one big fella. Ugly, too. And also. Tentacles. So many tentacles. More even than Urizen had. Wow. Dante is duly impressed and also interested. Sue him, he really really likes tentacles. Something about them just sparks joy in his mind. 

A lot of the things are currently lifelessly floating around, clearly having encountered his twin's obsessive need to cut stuff apart. It's unavoidably, after all. Vergil will be chopping. Even if he is currently hampered by the fact that his favourite tool for said chopping is worlds away, presumably in their father's hand by now. His brother won't let such a small thing stop him from dicing the world apart for his amusement, though. Dante loves him unreasonably much.

He floats aimlessly around for a bit, content to let his brother have his fun. Watching his twin fight is always a joy to see, after all.

When Vergil finishes the large monster, leaving it a ripped apart carcass slowly sinking down to the ocean ground, he turns and smirks up at Dante, inviting challenge written all over his smile. He looks like a satisfied cat that has gotten the canary and is now going for the cream, too. A mocking wave of his hand goads Dante closer.

Dante bares his teeth in answer, his own grin full of many many teeth, and all too eagerly accepts the challenge. Lets see how long they can hold their breath in this form while doing some rigorous exercise.

----

Turns out very long, about three hours to be exact, though not as long as in their demon form. Still enough for a very nice fight, in which the poor ocean floor and the carcass floating around get ripped even further apart. What can Dante say, it just makes for such a nice cover from the poison darts Vergil keeps trying to spear him with. He retaliates with very concentrated psychic projectiles of his own that Vergil keeps dodging annoyingly.

When they finally make their way back to the surface and then to shore, a good few long hours later, the storm and the excitement from the shipwreck have both died down, though there are still quite a few stragglers around to gawk at what little can still be seen of the shipwreck. Their fighting has drifted them off further to the side, which means their arrival remains unnoticed even as they drag themselves ashore. Which is nice, Dante has no interest in being stared at for their form or the fact that they are randomly wading out of the formerly violent waters.

Shore seems to be some weirdly tropical wooden walkway with sun decks build in. He reclines in one of the lounge chair, twisting his fingers with Vergil's, who is laying on the one beside him, and eagerly drops off for a nap.

All in all, a very nice ending to their first luxury cruise.

----

The dashed line is the boat's path.

Chapter Text

The next day has them wandering along the coast, enjoying the breeze from the sea. It's getting warmer the more north they are getting. The very localised weather phenomena in this world as really quite interesting. Sometimes it seems between one step and the next the weather can completely change from one extreme to another with little rhyme nor reason. The difference is sometimes strong enough that it leaves this more animalistic form with a weirdly itchy sensation he can't quite pin down.

He wonders if there are any books about this field to be found. If it even is a phenomenon that they are studying, seeing as it seems perfectly normal for this world and he hasn't noted anyone making much note of the incongruity yet. Of course, beside the trainers, it seems not many humans travel far enough to make much note of it, really. Too cowardly to face the Pokémon.

Dante whistles beside him, bumping their arms and sides together ever few steps. He must be feeling very lazy right now, for he hasn't yet tried to trip Vergil into the water he is walking beside on the wooden pier. Vergil still keeps an eye out for any surprise attack, Dante is wily and patient enough to try to lull him into a sense of security before trying, after all. This pier is a prime spot for tripping, after all. 

Vergil notes the possibility for later, should Dante find himself on the outside sometimes in the future. His bother bristles so adorably when suddenly dumped into water, after all. Vergil could not possibly resist.

Further out a crows has gathered before a large shape, impeding the walkway. Vergil pays it little mind, they can simply fly around it after all. Less easy to ignore is the loud snoring that comes from it, destroying the peaceful ambience. It detracts rather a lot from the picturesque surroundings. A Pokémon perhaps? If so he will not hesitate to roll it into the sea to make the infernal noise stop.

"What's this then?" Dante asks when they reach the first humans, curiously going up to his tiptoes to look over the people.

"Snorlax again," a nearby woman answers with a sigh, thankfully not turning to them and therefore not noticing their appearance.

"It's a nuisance, is what it is," another adds, stemming her hands into her hips and scowling.

"Aw, come on, isn't it cute?" the man beside her asks amiably.

Vergil barely resists raising an eyebrow. That is nearly the exact same tone Dante always uses when he wants to be especially aggravating. No wonder the woman swats at her partner in answer.

"Not if it's in the way. Just like you when you lazy about on the couch!"

"Hey!"

"Snorlax?" Dante asks and turns to look expectantly at Vergil for information.

He still refuses to use his Pokédex, the Luddite. Vergil can't believe that even after one lifetime of spending most of his time surrounded by demon's and refusing to use anything human made, he is the one more comfortable with technology rather than his ludicrous twin. Vergil even embraces it, though mostly just the large amounts of easily accessible reading material at his fingertips by the way of the internet.

Still, he is curious himself, so he opens the little contraption on his wrist and checks if someone has logged an entry for this particular Pokémon yet. There is one indeed.

"Very lazy. Eats whatever is closest without much effort put in. Sleeps a lot when left to its own devices. Hm." Vergil flicks his eyes over to Dante and lifts an eyebrow, to which his twin just rolls his eyes. "As its rotund bulk builds, it becomes steadily more slothful."

He closes the watch, continuing to stare demonstrably at Dante. "How interesting."

"Wow, rude," Dante points at him. "I'm not fat."

"But slothful?"

"Ey, nothing wrong with a bit of laziness." The grin Dante sports is blinding and as satisfied as a stuffed cat.

Vergil lifts his eyebrow dubiously. "You would certainly think so, yes."

"Oh shut, you. I'm not the one that has to be dragged out of bed in the morning."

"No, you just sleep away your days while sitting at a desk."

"What can I say, it was a very comfortable desk. I miss it actually," Dante breaks off on the teasing and turns thoughtful, hand coming up to scratch at his chin. "We should go hunt something like it down again. I want my chair back."

"That chair was more dead than alive," Vergil drawls, stepping to the edge of the pier and shuffling out his wings to catch and read the winds. "And liable to collapse under your weight."

Smooth and calm.

"Rude!" Dante comes after him and tries to bury an elbow in his gut, but Vergil takes flight before he can. "It wasn't dead, it just had character."

"Character," he calls back mockingly, "Yes, of course. The character of a dead thing. Admit it, it was plywood at best, brother."

"Get back here and say that to my face!"

"Make me."

----

Wandering along the rest of the long wooden pier they see the most dopy looking dragon Dante has ever seen. It's absolutely precious. He has never seen anything better. Even Vergil is reluctantly charmed, Dante can just tell. They so need to get one of those to take home, mam would absolutely love this thing. Sadly it's huge and he is pretty sure it won't fit into their pond back home. It's a tragedy but Vergil is sadly right when he points it out. At least he looks similarly disappointed as Dante feels.

A few more hours of meandering north brings them to the quiet, sleepy Lavender town huddled into a mountain side. Both he and Vergil appreciate the hotel bed and Vergil finds some food stands to feed his food obsession with. Some snooping around the tiny town procures an even tinier mart, one of those Pokémon centres and not much else of note. Not even a gym. Dante likes the dark purple, gothic theme of the whole town, but this is just boring.

What finally peaks their interest, though mostly Vergil's, are the kids playing hopscotch in the streets while singing creepy nursery rhymes about being eaten by ghosts luring them away to a tower at night. Nice. He can certainly appreciate the gothic horror imagery going around. Vergil loves that particular literary genre and Dante has consumed a lot of it by osmosis as a result. 

Some probing questions nets them a lot of hushed and fearful whispers about an ominous building nearby that supposedly eats children. Huh. Interesting. For all his brushes with the demonic, Dante has never encountered a building that eats children.

Trapping you in a never ending mace? Sure, been there, done that. 

Transport you into a different dimension randomly each time you went through a damnable door? Yup, but Dante really doesn't want to think about that time any more than he has to. 

Be all creepy sentient and annoying about it? So common Dante has stopped counting.

But never outright eating kids. Well sure, the Qlipoth sucked the blood out of all the humans it managed to catch, but that was an organic plant and went after people indiscriminately. And also a special case to boot, stupid idiotic plant that it was.

The more they hear the more Vergil clearly wants to go. Because of course he does. 

Still, go they will, north-east of the city to check out this tower of supposed terrors and baby eating. Dante only playfully groans and resists a little bit as Vergil drags him on. Gotta keep the bloodlust nominally contained, after all.

----

When the arrive at the base of the building, Dante has to swallow another laugh. The large stone door is shaped like a monster. This tower just gets more and more ridiculous.

There is a willowy woman right next to the entrance, muttering excitedly as she pokes at the stone work and intermittently writes into a notebook beside her. She squeaks when she notices their approach, startled up from whatever she is writing. Hilariously enough she doesn't seem fazed by their looks. “Oh! You’re going into the Tower of Terrors? No one survives the Tower of Terrors! Many an adventurer has tried, but few come back out again.”

Dante isn't quite sure if she means to warn them away or egg them on here. She sounds very exited for the probable death of any adventurer lost in the depths. Also, wasn't it kids getting eaten? Not adventurers?

“Huh," he says, scratching his chin while he eyes the door, "exactly how many have tried?”

“Enough for an entire ecological niche of species specialized to prey upon them to evolve and take over!” she answers eagerly, words near tumbling over themselves in her haste to get them out.

He blinks at her, while Vergil makes himself very busy ignoring this interaction. Dante can feel his brother's energy wash over him as Vergil tries to sense out the inhabitants.

“Ooookay," he drawls, "translation for the idiots?”

"Oh. Ooooh! Well, the Pokémon in here have adapted to entirely subside on the visitors coming in. They exclusively eat human prey now."

"Huh. That's impressive?" Dante guesses, not entirely sure what to make of her or this information. 

She sounds way too gleeful of the fact that a few of the local animals have decided to eat only humans. Then again, he distinctly remembers many an idiot wandering eagerly right into devil nests he then had to fish them out of. No yeah actually, he does not doubt this phenomenon in the slightest. If demons weren't already bloodthirsty monsters, he has no doubt they would have evolved to be sustained exclusively by stupid fratboys. As his darling brother would say, reckless humans are an inexhaustive resource. 

The darling brother who is suddenly looking a whole lot more interested in this conversation, actually. Enough to even participate. "Fascinating."

Dante snorts. The woman herself looks like Christmas has come early, as she smiles gleefully at the prospect of having an audience to ramble to. Bloodthirsty idiots all around him. How does he always end up like this? Does he just attract them? And he thought Lady and Trish were bad enough. 

Surely the fact that he is also a bloodthirsty idiot has nothing to do with it.

“Right?" the woman starts eagerly, "It’s indeed utterly fascinating actually! You see, this was a simple burial ground for Pokémon centuries ago. But local legend has it that a cruel trainer angered the ghosts residing here. Enough so as to manifest into corporal beings, forming an entirely new type of Pokémon that mostly only live here, though a few have since branched out. You have heard of the ghost subtype, yes? Beautiful Pokémon, absolutely beautiful. And so very eager to eat the flesh of those that offend them! Isn't it so exiting! I’m writing my master thesis on this right now.”

Huh.

Dante has never once been to school, be it higher education or not. He has therefore no clue about anything master or thesis related, but from what little he has gathered, he is pretty sure it's not supposed to make you this gleeful about finding a predator eating humans for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seems kind of... out there.

But what does he know. As mentioned, he has never been to school. 

Well, there was that one time he got hired to exterminate a devil someone supposedly summoned in an university basement. In the end there weren't even any lower demons to be found, but Dante still got paid for kicking out a couple of ambitiously large rats out of the ancient cellars. From what he found while hunting the wily bastards, he is pretty sure the students fed the rodents radioactive waste on the down low. Thankfully not his problem, and all in all, it was a rather nice hunt. Some of the students even treated him to dinner afterwards. While trying to get into his pants, sure, but free food is free food. 

On the other hand, the fratboys getting in the way of his hunting because of a dare or something equally stupid are still some of the most annoying people he has ever met. 

As a whole, his view on the institution of formal schooling is still rather mixed.

"If you manage to survive, you must promise to tell me everything you learned!" She suddenly lurches forward, nearly slamming into him in excited mania. Dante steps back before she can touch him, eyeing the notebook she brandishes threateningly at him. "I only managed to get to the first floor myself, before I had to flee for my life. But I learned so many things! I need to know more!" 

As abruptly as she has sprung forward she turns away again, back to frantic scribbling. Dante mentally thanks their mother's decision to keep them out of schooling the second time around too. That way clearly lies madness. 

Vergil has not stopped looking at the tower since the lady mentioned the flesh eating inhabitants. Dante sighs fondly and goes to open the door. Admittedly mostly to get away from the crazy woman, though he is curious about these ghost Pokémon now.

The door opens easily under a gentle touch, but makes a hilariously spooky 'oooooooohooohoo' as it moves on smooth hinges. For being such supposedly terrifying creatures, these Pokémon sure chose a funny location to inhabit.

----

From behind one of the larger grave stones a shadowy figure looms, dark aura wafting all around it in a purple myst as it slowly ascends. Stark white eyes peer out of deep darkness, the wide slash of a grin full of razor sharp teeth hanging under it suspended in a void. Vergil lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. The thing growls, attempting to sound ominous but sadly landing on silly instead. The aura wavers like ink in water, pulsing outwards like a living heart pumping blood. Vergil has seen newborns more threatening than this nestling. He blows a tiny gust of wind at it. 

The mist disperses easily even under the small force, the pompous effects immediately cut short. A naked little ball remains, purply black but slowly turning red the longer he stares it down. It whimpers pitifully. Hovers uncertainly for a long moment, before very slowly drifting back down into its grave, projecting an air of abject embarrassment all the way down. What a silly creature. He brushes some dirt off the gravestone and turns to the next one.

Behind his back, Dante snorts and something rattles loudly. Vergil glances around to see what has him excited, but his brother is simply messing with a chest he has found. The wooden box is vibrating rather more than Vergil is used to from such things, admittedly. A long pink tongue snaps out of its depths, Dante catches it easily between two fingers. With another snort he tugs on it, to much growling from the box. 

Vergil turns away to leave him to his fun, much more interested in the inscriptions on the tombs. Most of them hold some kind of poetic message to the departed he can appreciate. A few are quite profound ruminations on loss and life and love. Excited squeaking joins his twin's intermitted low laughter. 

A whining moan comes from under the earth of the grave he is standing besides. He ignores it. More muffled cries for help follow. A bony black hand claws out of the dirt. Vergil deftly steps on it, patience frying. There is a rather lovely, insightful poem about what lies beyond death inscribed on this headstone and he would like to appreciate it in peace. The fingers scrabble around his claws for a moment, then retreat back into the dirt. Vergil removes his foot again. Standing on a grave is distastefully disrespectful, after all. He has better manners than that.

Haunting music starts playing out of nowhere. It is quite pleasant and makes for a nice accompaniment to the more morbid messages. Dante hums along, which sounds just lovely. Vergil smiles to himself, stepping up to another gravestone, quite content with what they have found in this tower, despite the misleading exterior. Spending an afternoon amongst the departed and the well wishes of those left behind is quite a pleasant change of pace from the last few days. He is enjoying himself very much, despite some minor inconveniences. 

He goes on to read the other inscriptions on the floor, methodically making his way through all of them. To his disappointment, most do not bear such moving poetry as the one next to the little ball. It is a shame, but not everyone can have such exquisite tastes and insights. Once he is finished he returns to his brother to indicate his wish to make their way to a higher level and stops short at what he sees.

Sometime while Vergil was not looking, Dante has acquired a passenger. It's a purple thing, round, with short arms and legs and large pointed ears. There is a nicely menacing aura wafting off of it, a shivery cold glee that fits the surroundings quite well. His brother has it cradled in his arms like a teddy bear, though it's a bit large for that. 

Vergil looks at it, looks at Dante's face, looks back down at the creature. Bright red eyes, wide grin full of too many teeth to be contained within, an expression of maniacal glee just waiting for a victim to torment. Astonishing. The similarities are uncanny. It seems his brother has found some sort of double in Pokémon form. Vergil swiftly turns away, resolving himself not to comment. He has seen a similar Pokémon swallow a careless adventurer whole, some stories down. It then spat out a perfectly preserved skeleton and, after patting its belly with evident satisfaction, curled up on top of a statue and went to sleep.

Yes, indeed. So very similar.

"Let's go up another level," he says, instead of voicing any of his thoughts.

Two hums answer him as he heads for the stairs and Dante's whispery footsteps follow along behind him. Vergil smiles. Coming to this tower, no matter how childish it looked from the outside, is well worth the trouble, it seems.

----

They make it up as far as there are stairs, though Vergil is quite sure the tower extends farther than this. He is tempted to break through the ceiling to check, but ultimately discards the thought. This is a place of remembrance and poetry, it would be a shame to destroy it. And no doubt the aggressively persistent inhabitants would not stop hounding them, were he to destroy parts of their habitat. They seem to be rather attached, if the continuing attacks are anything to go by. It is quite a nuisance, on the whole.

This last level holds only a single grave, ostentatiously grand and overly decorated. Center place is a stone tablet displayed grandly, with strange foreign symbols on it that Vergil can't read, sadly. It rattles ominously, cracks forming and disappearing across its surface while he looks on. Directly above it a chandelier swings gently back and forth despite the fact that there is no wind, ghostly blue fire dripping from its candles to hover and flicker in the air.

Vergil prefers the simpler but effective memorials further down than this grand display, though he does rather like the intent to camouflage from the two Pokémon. One unaware would think them harmless and lifeless both. A rather nasty shock just waiting to happen to an incautious visitor. He has to admit to a small smile, imagining the chandelier one hanging above their front door back home, scaring visitors away.

Despite the otherwise mostly barren room, he still looks around curiously for anything worthwhile to be found by the four stone statues in the corner. Sadly, beside some spare potions and a strange disk there is nothing of interest. Not even a proper message on the gravestone, despite the markings on the Pokémon still intently pretending to be stone. Presumably they are meaningless scribbles, the Pokémon's attempt to mimic writing. Truly lamentable.

When he looks over, Dante is involved in a complex game of keep away with the Pokémon in his arms to wile away the time. Involving a stick, an astonishingly long tongue, shadows and floating red energy balls. It seems to be the same game they started earlier, but Vergil is unsure of the rules, changing as they are every time he looks. But his brother is having fun, so Vergil will refrain from commenting. For now. Dante's habit of playing games with ever evolving, incomprehensible rule sets is one Vergil is far too familiar with to not be exasperated by it.

He makes one last circuit of the room, pocketing an old book he finds underneath a statue that has a very interesting curse stuck to it, before he turns to ask, "Ready to go?"

"Finished then? Cool, let's go out this way, yeah?" Dante peers out one of the dirty windows. "I don't really wanna backtrack through this whole thing.

He finally lets the Pokémon claim the stick from him absently. It brandishes it triumphantly, which is admittedly charming.

"You know, this could be so fun to have back home," he says, peering up at the chandelier himself. "Hang it in the entrance and let it scare those stupid door to door sales men away?"

"It doesn't seem to do much." Vergil comments, despite the fact that he has thought the exact same thing previously.

As if it wants to prove him wrong, faint giggle sounds and the chandelier shivers slightly, raining more fire down on them. It seems to like the idea of scaring people. Still.

"Also," he continues while Dante grins brightly up at the thing, blue embers settling in his pale hair, glittering amidst the red glow of him. Vergil takes a moment to admire the view, before he speaks again, "there are curses that will do the exact same thing, nevermind our very presence. These ghost Pokémon seem to be rather too attacked to this tower to appreciate getting forcefully moved to another habitat."

They both pause, peering up at the thing. It doesn't move anymore, silent again. Perhaps in agreement?

"Yeaaaaaah, probably," Dante sighs, nodding his head. "Well, another one then. I think it will be better to bring something fluffy back, anyway. Mam and pap will like that more."

With a bit of a struggle Vergil finally manages to get the old rusty lock to move. It opens on surprisingly silent hinges, letting out the musty air in the room. Something shrieks inside the tomb and the tablet vibrates ominously, breaking apart into what seems to be limbs, a glowing purple eye blinking open. Vergil glares quellingly at it. Some fresh air will not hurt them or their grave. Really, the theatrics have gotten rather tiresome. He and Dante were perfectly well behaved and respectful during their way up here. The least the inhabitants could do is let them pass unmolested.

The Pokémon seems to realise it is outmatched, and very grudgingly resettles back into stone under his glowering look.

The purple Pokémon his brother has lugged about likewise does not appreciate it when Dante tries to set it down on one of the nearby graves. It latches on with sharp claws, sulking mightily at the prospect of not getting carried around anymore. Lazy little thing. Vergil has to look away to hide another smile. Birds of a feather, really.

When it becomes clear Dante won't be swayed by the melodramatic display, the creature opens its mouth wide and tries to swallow him whole. Vergil observes the struggle as Dante fights it off with a loud laugh. He does not step in to help out either party, though he does contemplate kicking at Dante's knees to unbalance him. It's not like his brother is unfamiliar with being eaten by creatures and cutting his way back out. 

The poor leviathan guardian of Temen-ni-gru is proof enough of that. 

Vergil liked the leviathan. 

In the end he restrains himself from intervening, because he is above such base things as pettyness. No matter what his twin may say about it.

The scuffle ends with the Pokémon sulking off into the shadows and his twin covered in spit. Because Dante is not Dante, if he does not intermittently douse himself in strange substances for fun and entertainment. His twin looks down at his wet hands, shaking them uselessly instead of simply absorbing the liquid as usual. Vergil narrows his eyes. That is a dangerous, untrustworthy gleam in his brother's eyes.

And true to form Dante suddenly lunges forward and Vergil only barely twists out of the way to avoid the disgustingly wet hug aimed at him. "No. Don't you dare-"

A feint, another lunge, Vergil jumps away and balances precariously on a nearby statue while Dante laughs and swipes at him. "Come on, big brother. Won't you give me a kiss?"

Vergil bares his teeth at the asshole and flees out the balcony door. When he looks back Dante is graciously closing it before dashing after him.

They end up in a nearby lake in a confusing tumble of limbs, spit and laughter. Neither of them can tell who won this one. But at least they both end up clean.

----

Chapter Text

"Oh my god."

"No."

"Oh my god."

"Do not."

"It's a werewolf!"

"It's not a werewolf."

"Look at it. It's totally a werewolf."

"I am. Which is why I am saying it's not. It's not even a wolf, really. A dog at best. Look how small it is."

"Uhu. Sure. Never saw a dog like that. But what do I know, right."

"There are plenty of shaggy dogs around."

"Verge. Seriously. Look at it. It's standing on two legs. It's eyes are glowing. It's blue."

"And the one over there is red, yes."

"... you are appalling."

"Eloquence, brother? How notable."

"Well, clearly you don't get it if I use words too small for your snobby ass."

"This is just like the octopus discussion again. Do we really have to revisit it."

"It's still not seafood and no. We do not."

"Hm. I doubt."

"It could so be a werewolf. That would be so awesome. But noooooooo, not for mister logic up my ass. Your sense of whimsy is tragically lacking."

"Your sense of reality is what's tragically lacking, brother."

"And you call yourself a poetry nerd."

"I enjoy the works of wordsmiths that hold philosophical discussions of profound concepts. You mischaracterising a perfectly normal dog is not that."

"Ok, if you call that a dog, then we need to go find some kind of doctor for you. Maybe Oak can help."

"Werewolfs do not exist, ergo it is not a werewolf."

"They could, you know. We don't know the rules of this world. Maybe in absence of demons they got werewolfs and vampires and whatnot."

"I assume Oak would have told us about beings able to turn into Pokémon, even if only once monthly."

"Maybe he forgot. Maybe he doesn't know. Come on, Verge, it can't be a coincidence that it's a full moon. We are right outside the spooky tower too."

"Let it go, Dante."

"Boo. Partypooper. We are going to sleep right here and then you will see the light in the morning."

"Fine."

....

"We should get pap a dog."

"What?"

"He so wants to pet any puppy he sees, right?"

"Yes, so?"

"So. Pokémon dog. Aggressive enough to not flee on sight. Boom. Demon knight gets puppy kisses and is very happy."

"That is.... not the worst idea you have ever had."

"Ooooh, big compliment."

"Don't let it get to your head."

"Too late."

"Not the werewolf dog. We are getting a different one."

"Aha, you admit it!"

"No!"

-----

"Holy shit, it was a werewolf dog. Verge! Verge, wake up!"

"mmhnhh."

"Verge!"

"- what?!"

"Look. Look, it's all small and cute now. It was totally a werewolf!"

"... Shut up and let me sleep."

"Ahahaha! Come here little werewolf dog, come heeeeeeere-"

"I am disowning you."

"Aww, it's all cuddly and fluffy. Come feel that."

"It's trying to bite your arm off."

"Yeah. Cute, right? Feel this, it's amazing."

"... I admit it is pleasant to the touch."

"Awww, cute little werewolfie. Dogwolfie."

"I'm going back to sleep."

-----

Vergil frowns, eyeing a pair of rocks some ways behind them over his shoulder. Or rather, a pair of very shoddily constructed props miming to be rocks. That have tried, and utterly failed, to follow them for some time now, moving when neither he nor Dante are looking. This of course means nothing to their superior senses, so the three presences and their very noisy hiding attempts are rather obvious in their pursuit.

He knows Dante thinks the whole thing far too amusing to discourage their stalkers, but Vergil is getting impatient. They have been going north again in some vague agreement to return to their search for the professors friend and annoyingly the human presences have been stalking them since they have left the tower. Even managing to follow their admittedly chaotic flight to the water, catching up to them some hours afterwards, while Vergil and Dante dawdled by exploring a nearby cave before deciding that it was not for them.

He turns away again and continues walking. The pests follow again. Energy gathers in his palm, frustration concentrating it into a visible ball of darkness on top of his fingers. The grating noise of that infernal rock thing scratching along the ground sounds again.

"Enough," he grinds out, fingers tensing into claws.

Poison swirls into being in the middle of the darkness as he intently contemplates tossing the ball after those pests and obliterating them.

"Mnh?" Dante makes, distracted by peering into the bushes after some kind of strange mushroom Pokémon that looks like one of those balls.

Vergil snarls, "If you don't want me to murder them where they stand, we are going to loose them soon or I am not hesitating any longer."

"Aww, come on, Verge," Dante laughs, turning around to walk backwards and grin at Vergil. "They're hilarious, whoever they are. And won't do anything, clearly."

"Hilarious," Vergil growls, deeply distasteful. "Yes indeed. Hilarious enough to murder them for it."

"Awwww, it's all fun."

"No. If we don't loose them soon, I will drown them in the river."

"Aha!" a voice behind them shouts and a clattering like a paper-mâché rock imitation gets thrown away. "Surprised? We have been following you!"

"Prepare to fall to the might of Team Rocket!" another voice continues.

"Oh fine," Dante finally relents, nodding to the side to the steep cliff towering above them. "Fly up that mountain then? Pretty sure there aren't any noisy people up there. Feels pretty deserted."

Vergil sniffs in disdained agreement, power still swirling around his fingers. With a bit of concentration he breaks the humming sphere of energy apart into three, darkness swirling tightly around a molten core of poison.

"Yo will serve our mighty boss, and help us get- hey!" a third voice starts and abruptly breaks off when Vergil negligently tosses the attack behind him, knowing they will unerringly hit their target.

No use wasting the energy he has already summoned. To the sound of loud yells he takes a running start to lift off.

Dante remains behind for a bit, busy lifting a hand to shield his face from the sun's glare when Vergil looks back at him over his shoulder, impatient, watching the resulting chaos of the attack. Then, with a loud laugh he follows and Vergil puts the annoying presences out of his mind.

-----

Now he is sitting on the warmed stones around the pool and lazily swishes his feet in the water. The heat wafting up from the spring is enough to keep him warm even against the icy cold breeze. In fact, the cold mountain air, just barely warmed by the vapour, is a nice caress over his heated skin that sends pleasant shivers down his back. This impromptu spa interlude is quite nice, actually. 

He never really got what had Lady and Trish so obsessed with wellness days before, even and especially when they dragged him along. Dante may be a lazy creature at heart, but he doesn't like lounging in overly hot or tepid water for hours on end with nothing but the ladies' gossip for company. Not a fan at all. Give him his comfortable chair in the shop for a nice, long nap over the weirdly invasive massages and mud baths. Capulet wasn't a reputable city by any means and it certainly reflected in all their establishments, but he doesn't think even that warranted the amount of groping he always endured in the spas. He was quite content without the happy ending, thank you very much.

He eyes his twin again, notes his slightly reddened skin from the high temperatures. Should probably fish him out soon, or Vergil is going to look like a dry prune, all wrinkled and puce coloured. Normally they can't really get heatstroke but Dante isn't so sure about that now, looking at that redness. And he likes his twin with all his braincells uncooked. 

Also, he is getting a bit bored. Still, the deep rumbling purr, even distorted as it is through the water, tells him enough about Vergil's willingness to leave the hot spring any time soon. And Dante is loath to disturb his indulgence. Between the two of them, Dante is far more hedonistic than his twin, who is normally much too frugal for Dante's taste. Possibly a holdover of his time alone in hell, firmly focused on surviving and nothing else. Dante can deal with a bit of boredom, if it means Vergil enjoys himself this much for once. 

And perhaps, with that delicious scent suddenly on the wind, he can get Vergil to indulge even more. He lets his head fall back, opening his mouth for better scenting with his tongue. It's nearly masked by the fresh smell of the water, but there is a faint savoury sweet whiff in the air. It reminds him of the pink bear they found in the forest around Pallet Town. Or at least something that is very close to it, that is hopefully going to taste just as nice as the other one.

He flicks his eyes back to Vergil, who is contentedly ignoring everything but the heat slowly boiling him through and clearly has no mind to notice anything else. With a grin Dante hops up, stretching and stepping back onto the snow. It leaves him shivering to leave the heat of the hot spring, but he will acclimatise soon enough. Mostly.

The fact that they lost quite a bit of their normal temperature resistance to make it notable in environments like is really annoying. Dante is not used to being cold and does not appreciate it one bit. So annoying. He used to bury himself in snow to hide from Vergil during hide and seek without any kind of problems, and now a little bit of freezing wind makes him shudder. Bah. Thankfully the exercise of a nice hunt will keep him warm out there.

"Verge," he calls, tilting his head off into the trees when his twin muzzily focuses his eyes on him in answer. 

With a short nod Vergil immediately returns to enjoying his bath. His eyes are all blissed out and Dante feels affection bloom warm in his chest at the sight. Yup, this was a very good find on their part.

Very content himself he trots off into the trees, following his nose. His steps crunch slightly under his taloned toes, cold nipping his feet. A giddy smile crawls across his face. He so loves getting to play around in snow.

-----

Dante may not have found the same pink bear as the one Vergil found around Pallet Town, but the fat boar with the enormous tusks is similarly juicy and fatty. Vergil enjoys it very much. And there are no annoying human pests to disturb their lunch this time. Perfect. He hums, deeply pleased as he bites into the pleasantly stringy organs, the meat sweet and savoury, while Dante keeps fishing around for more bones to suck the marrow out of. His brother seems to have found a new appreciation for bones since they were turned into Pokémon.

Once Vergil has decimated all the juicy organs and more than sated his hunger, Dante's hollowed cheeks and soft sucking sounds finally manage to distract him from the bloody flesh dripping in his fingers. His twin is never not beautiful, but there is something sinfully attractive to him like this, glowing after a successful hunt, blood smeared over his fingers as he licks on the sharp claw he used to crack open a rib. 

Red has always been the most beautiful colour for Dante to wear and he does it so well. Vergil needs to taste it. With the thought another hunger crashes through him, subsuming everything else. It seems a break in their feast is in order. Or perhaps, another type of course to refresh the palate. After all, Vergil will have to show his lovely brother his appreciation for this gift Dante so thoughtfully gave him. 

And as much as the way Dante's eyes lock onto his while ruby red lips wrap tight around his price makes Vergil think of those lips stretched around his cock, he can't help but think of something different right now. His brother deserves a proper treat for his efforts, after all.

He moves closer, eyes never leaving Dante's, carefully moving their bounty aside for later. It would not do to spoil the gift, after all. His twin's knees spread invitingly when Vergil's hands come up to caress those long legs, another hard suck making the bone pop softly as fibers crunch under the pressure of Dante's mouth. Blue eyes intensely boring into Vergil's own, even half hidden under white lashes as they are, luring him closer. Vergil's own dip to those sinful lips as he settles between his brother's spread legs. 

The pelt of the swine will make for nice bedding, so he drags it over, never looking away from his alluring twin while he placing it behind him. Dante smiles around the bone, eyes growing dark and deep with lust as he stares back just as intently. When Vergil has arranged it to his expectations, he bears forward, pushing Dante to lean back and let himself be laid down onto his back. Still continuing that maddening sucking. Vergil looms over him while he waits for his twin to finish, ravenous to see as Dante empties out every last drop of marrow in the bone.

When his brother finally lets the brittle thing fall into the pile by his side, Vergil takes the stained fingers in his own and lifts them to his lips. He presses a gentle kiss to them, garnering a low, breathy sound of arousal in answer. So he presses another one to the stained flesh and then laps up the long length of a finger, gathering blood and viscera and the taste of his twin on his tongue. Dante watches him through half lidded eyes, lips softly parted as if hypnotized.

"Such an opulent present you brought me, little brother," Vergil murmurs and wraps his lips around the finger. 

The taste of iron mingles with Dante's own in a beautiful symphony. It earns him another breathy sigh and the rich scent of arousal as his twin arches into him.

"I must thank you properly." Vergil brings his free hand up Dante's thigh in a caress and dives in to capture those sinful lips with his own, swallowing the eager grin.

-----

Chapter Text

The last time Sparda has seen his sons, they were out back, squabbling about something or other as is their wont. With Eva out with a friend and the twins so distracted he has used the rare opportunity to catch up on his newest obsession. It is imperative he do so while none of his family can see, after all. Well, mostly Dante and Eva. Vergil generally does not care enough to comment, but his beloved wife and youngest son will tease relentlessly about Sparda's... appreciation of the most noble and enlightening genre of television, the Italian Soap Opera. True masterpieces of entertainment, in his humble opinion. After throughly perusing the newest episode, twice, he shuts off the tv with a quiet huff of satisfaction. Oh, he knew there was something going on between Camilla and Tony! What an interesting plot twist he cannot wait for next week. Truly a marvelous work of storytelling.

He turns slightly towards the windows, trying to listen for his sons. Not a peep is to be heard. Most curious. The twins are seldom so quiet if not up to mischief. Now that he is paying attention, it has been very quiet for a long time now, hasn't it. Suspiciously so. As all parents know, the need for supervision is most dire when the children are silent. He goes to investigate.

A quick glance outside shows him an empty backyard. A call provides no answer from inside the house either. When he goes out to the yard to see if they went out of view, already expanding his senses to try to catch their presence, he finds the Yamato lying in the ruffled grass before the garden shed, thrumming in exasperation. The Rebellion, similarly abandoned against a nearby tree, is nearly vibrating with mirth. There is a faint trace of energy awash, a taste of different worlds. Sparda sighs deeply as he realises what must have happened.

No matter how much his sons insist that they are mature adults not in need of parenting, indeed that they are even technically older than Eva, to Sparda they are still just two little nestlings wandering about causing trouble wherever they go. And judging by the residues he can feel wafting over the grass, he finds himself only more convinced of this fact. Clearly the two troublemakers have once again not been able to help themselves. Sparda finds his lips twitch into a smile, warm fondness in his chest as he turns back to the house. He wouldn't have it any other way, really. A quick note penned for his lovely wife to inform her about their rascals' newest adventure, and his attempts to contain it, will have to suffice as Eva's comfort until he can return with them in tow. Hopefully it won't take too long to catch up with them.

That done and clad in more appropriate clothing for a long travel he returns to the gardens and sets the Rebellion against his back, the Yamato still fitting neatly into his palms. With a bit of luck he will be able to find the right dimension without loosing too much more time. He shudders to think about what Vergil and Dante will get up to, if left to their own devices for too long. Even worse, he has the distinct feeling that they are definitely in need of parental intervention right now, an instinctual need to give shelter welling up in his gut. They most certainly have been up to no good then.

With another amused sigh he cuts a path after them. Such silly sons he has.

-----

Vergil is looking like a cowboy.

Why is Vergil looking like a cowboy?

Vergil doesn't usually look like a cowboy. Dante is pretty sure about that.

He would have noticed if he did, wouldn't he? Not that he looks bad or anything. It's just... odd, seeing Verge in a cowboy outfit. 

Very, very odd.

Dante likes the chaps, though. Really he does. He had his own chaps before. They made his ass look great. They probably make Vergil's ass look great, too, on account of them looking the same. But his twin is facing him, so he can't really check. Wait, is that why Vergil is looking like a cowboy? Did he want his ass to look fabulous and didn't know when to stop? His twin is extra like that, Dante wouldn't put it past him.

It's still weird, though. Very weird. Lotsa weird. He did not know Vergil is into cowboy fashion. Like, at all. And Vergil isn't only wearing the chaps and the boots, like Dante did when he was trying out the look. No no, he is all decked out, even wearing a hat. And, and... a jacket? Dante blinks confusedly.

It's a nice jacket. Got fancy embroidery on it. It's brown, though. Why is it brown? And why is it a jacket? No. No, Verge can't wear a brown jacket. That's not allowed. They have a fashion theme going between them, he and his twin. Verge can't just change it and not tell Dante anything about it. That's just mean. Where is he supposed to get a brown jacket from, huh? Annoying brother.

Dante is very confused and now vaguely hurt. He looks around for a jacket of his own, tugging self consciously at his red coat. 

Wait. Is he also supposed to be wearing a brown jacket? That seems... yeah no, it's too weird. It's icky if they wear the exact same colour, right? Maybe he can go with grey? Distressingly boring but it feels fundamentally wrong not to wear two different but matching colours. But it's also weird if it's not blue and red. He looks back up at Vergil, who is frowning severely down at him. Probably because he is wearing a red coat instead of a brown jacket. Or a grey jacket. Dante grimaces. It's not his fault, he didn't get any memo about a sudden wardrobe change. Asshole.

He spins in a circle in search of any not red outer wear. The world swims sickeningly in reaction. Oh. Oh, no. Bad idea. Everything is suddenly very fuzzy and tilting dizzyingly. And feels simultaneously too big and too small. But that may be the fact that Vergil is wearing a humongous belt buckle. It's even bigger than Dante's own was. The chequered dress shirt under the brown jacket does not help either. It kind of breaks Dante's brain a little bit, actually. He looks back at his twin hopefully, ignoring the sickening lurching of his vision. Nope. Still wearing all that.

"Hey there, cowboy," Vergil says, dry as the desert. Someone will die of thirst, it's so dry.

What.

wHaT.

Yeah, no. Dante can't deal with this. Any of all of this.

He is... just going to lay down. Yeah. Yeah actually, that sounds like a great plan. Lay down, have a nice nap and hopefully Vergil will be back to normal when he wakes up. Also, if the ground could stop lurching around so much by then, that would be great.

-----

Waking up sweaty, miserable and confused is not something Dante is enjoying very much. There is an itch in his throat and his head feels like it's stuffed full of cotton. Altogether bad. No recommend. He blinks blearily into the darkness and takes a few seconds to just... readjust. 

Where is he again? They were by the hot-spring, right? And then they had truly awesome sex in the snow. Dante vaguely remembers feeling a bit cold. Was there something about finding shelter after that? A cave or something? He is pretty sure he remembers fighting a giant bear for the nicest spot to sleep in. The giant bear had icicles on his nose, which is kinda weird. So. Maybe he isn't remembering that correctly. Either way, how does cowboy Vergil fit into all this? Where would his brother even find any other clothes to change into, cowboy ones or not? There were for sure no other people around.

Wait, cowboy? What? Why is he thinking about cowboys—

Oh. Oooooooh.

Ok. Ok, so that was a dream. That's good. That's very good. Dante doesn't think he can handle cowboy Vergil. That's surely too much. Thank god it isn't real. For a few long moments he just breathes in deep relief, trying to calm his racing heart. It was just a dream.

—wait. Was it a dream?

Oh no.

He rolls over, too fast, everything swims dizzyingly again. Whatever. Dante has bigger problems. Jacket shaped problems. He so isn't going to wear a jacket. No matter if it's brown or grey or even red. No fucking way.

"Verge," he mumbles hoarsely, insistently patting around to his right where he remembers his twin sitting when Dante laid down for a nap. Nothing. "Verge!"

"What? Dante?" Vergil sounds low, and somewhat distracted, but that's not important right now seeing as Dante's wandering hand finally finds something that's definitely a leather clad arm. Oh no. Is it a coat or a jacket? Dante can't tell in the dark. Oh nooooooo.

"verge..." Dante means to sound demanding, but lands on raspy instead. He coughs and soldiers on when that doesn't help. "verge, no. no, 'm not gonna wear a jacket. fuck your cowboy aesthetic. no jacket."

There is a very pointed silence while Dante blinks rapidly, trying to see anything through the darkness. Why is it so dark, anyway. He has perfect vision day and night, this is never normally a problem.

"What are you talking about, Dante?" Vergil demands from out of the darkness, where he is still hiding away.

Dramatic ass.

Dante rolls back over onto his stomach, demonstrably away from his twin. It brings relief from the heat Vergil puts out even from all the way over there. Too hot. Why his twin insists on being such an incredible space heater, Dante will never understand. It's nice for exactly one second, and then it's suddenly way too cold. Dante immediately starts shivering. Bummer.

"We can do the chaps," Dante mumbles into the dirt and his voice holds out for about half a second before it starts giving out on him. Rude. "I'm ok with the chaps. But not the jack't. 's too boring. No flare n all. Bad style. Not thanking."

The important thing successfully communicated, he buries his head into the ground. Breathing is getting kind of hard, for some reason. And he is still very cold.

Vergil snorts and rustles around and then he is prodding insistently at Dante's shoulder like the annoying older brother that he is. Though luck for him. Dante may be freezing his chapsless ass off, and is kinda suffocating a little bit, but he is not moving any time soon. The world is spinning enough as is. It sucks. Vergil, as overbearing and demanding as ever, does not abide by Dante's wishes and forces him onto his back.

The world lurches even more sickeningly. 

Rude.

"rud'." That comes out far more inarticulate and drowsy than Dante intents it to be.

... he is officially giving up.

Vergil's frowning face materialises over him, after some rapid blinking encourages his vision to stop swimming. And hey. No more darkness. Nice. Everything is still a bit fuzzy, but whatever. Can't win everything.

A warm hand lands on his forehead. It feels frankly amazing. He would bring up his own to keep it there, but his arms feel like lead, so no dice. Dante sneezes instead and a nearby tree just outside the cave entrance gets absolutely decimated by a red energy beam.

Huh.

He blinks drowsily.

Huh.

"Di' I do 'at?"

Vergil snorts, which is not an answer. But he also keeps his nice warm hand on his forehead, so Dante will be generous and forgive him.

"Well, you are too warm, loosing control of your powers and," Vergil peers intently into his eyes, "clearly have trouble focusing."

Dante blinks vaguely up at him. Everything is too hot again. Awful.

"You are sick."

How dare. There is no need for Vergil to sound so amused about this. Dante distinctly remembers mam telling them that they were sickly children, before their demonic healing finally got going properly. Thankfully once they hit six, they got over it. Which begs the question of why Vergil thinks he is sick now.

Wait.

Did being turned into Pokémon bring it back? If so, that's so rude. Dante likes his sickness free existence. This feels awful enough he very much wants to avoid it forever. Fuck the alien goat for doing this to him.

Dante hums but sleep is beckoning and his eyelids have grown weights when he wasn't paying attention. Vergil maneuvers them around until Dante is laying on his chest, which is much more comfortable than the ground and nicely warm. And also has a complementary heartbeat to listen to. Cool. Awesome twin.

"It does not seem to be anything worrisome. Simply a fever." Vergil presses a kiss to his hot forehead and Dante grumbles muzzily, even if he enjoys the affection. 

His body feels boneless and exhausted and he really just wants to go back to sleep. Can't even muster the energy to swat at his twin. "Sto' that. Gonna g't sick to'."

"Then you can take care of me in turn."

He is very nearly asleep when his eyes fly back open in sudden panic, after he abruptly realises he forgot to check for the jacket.

-----

Thankfully the jacket, and the whole rest of the cowboy outfit, was indeed actually just a fever dream. Sadly, this means a continued absence of any and all chaps, as Vergil vehemently refuses to wear any. Very tragic. Dante can't wear them if Vergil doesn't, that would throw off the twin fashion theme they have got going since their return to the past. Dante likes the twin fashion theme and does not want to deviate even for chaps that make his ass look great. It's very sad, but matching with his twin is more important.

Vergil does end up getting sick too, mostly because neither of them ever manage to do something on their own anymore. Which means both of them end up all runny and miserable. Whatever got them seems to be mostly harmless, save for a few very hilarious power outbursts that somehow poison the nearby ice cliff and explode a few more trees. Oops and all that, but nothing too bad on the whole.

It forces them to spend a few more days than originally planned in the cave, though, trying to ride it out. The bears come back with reinforcements, clearly malcontent to be chased out of their home for so long. Coincidentally, Dante feels another power surge when they do, and somehow channels it into a weird attack that focuses on his forehead and then throws out some kind of explosion from it that knocks them all right out. Huh. Useful.

"Did you just give them all a headbutt without even touching them?" Vergil asks raspily, appreciatingly eyeing the downed mountains of white and brown fur.

Dante coughs a few times, trying to blink the weird feeling away. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Fascinating."

"Feels weird."

"Fascinating."

"I'm going back to sleep. Don't go back to being a cowboy."

"Perish the thought."