spin_kick_snap | Some Fucked Up Tower, Limbo City, Saturday Night, Half-Past Done O'Clock

	Two amulets. They were sources of great personal power; Vergil had learned that much while he was stuck in hell. But together, they were also a key. Given to them by mother. Knowing Vergil was using them to do this would no doubt break her heart all over again. Good. He brought the two stones together. They lit up as they touched, rising up into the air. There was a slot for them in this massive round ceremonial room, a circle in the center, and now that they were reunited, they seemed to know just where to go. "Step one," Vergil murmured. He brought Yamato up to his hand, pressed the edge against his palm-- and sliced. It went deep, blood spilling everywhere. He let it pour into the circle until it filled to the brim. Only then did he put Yamato away and allowed the wound to heal. Then he waited. And waited. And-- "Why isn't this working?!"
	"You seem to be in a bad mood." Dante leaned against the side of the wall. It was an impressive room, for sure. Big and round and... roomy...
	... and clearly too full of doors. "Dante!" Vergil had not expected to be caught unawares today. The snarl in his voice was nothing like the poise he'd exhibited earlier. Neither was the way he gripped Yamato's hilt tight. "Clearly I haven't fed it enough blood," he snapped. "I'll just have to use some of yours to undo daddy's little spell."
	"Or just accept that you're a failure," Kathy snarled. No one had invited her to this little shindig, but you know what? She'd had a bad fucking day. She'd left her party manners back home. "For all your plots and plans and schemes, what have you actually accomplished? Besides racking up failure after failure after fucking failure."
	"Don't you get bored listening to humans yapping all the time?" Vergil asked, metal sliding over his fingers, molding into claws. "I do." He shifted his weight and darted for Kathy at impossible speed.
	This was a trap. Vergil couldn't care less about hurting Kathy, Dante knew that much. He also knew that Vergil couldn't care less about hurting Kathy. So he shot forward as well, catching those big claws across his shoulder. Blood poured out of the wound, but he ignored it, forcing Vergil back with his two newfound blades. "You ruined my coat," he panted. "Again."
	"I gave you that coat," Anders said, from yet another doorway. "If he ruins it, kill him." The quip couldn't mask the worry in his voice. He'd thought he was lost in the tower, or that Dante and Kathy might be lost forever. Hearing their voices at long last and catching up to them was -- He couldn't be too happy about it. Not with Vergil's claws in Dante's flesh. But it was a damn sight better than never seeing them alive again at all.
	"Anders!" Kathy said, utterly relieved. She was tempted to run to him, but was determined to stand her ground. It was stupid bravado, yes, but she wasn't going to let Vergil think she was scared of him. "Now that the gang's all here, can we please finish wrecking his half-baked bullshit plan and go?" She had some quality staring into nothingness while questioning her existence to do.
	Dante yanked his shoulder forcefully out of that claw, leaping backwards and landing a few dozen feet away from Vergil. He shrugged off the coat and tossed it Anders' way. "Look after that while I kick his ass?" he called. Sure, he was now completely shirtless, but who cared?
	Certainly not Vergil, who shot forward with a kick fueled by spike-lined demonic boots. He matched blows with Dante, both brothers moving rapidly, leaping and bounding around the room, and striking each other over and over without drawing further blood.
	A third door opened... and then closed. The girl's eyes were narrowed. She reached for the bazooka on her back. Close.
	Anders shrugged into Dante's coat, comforted by its warmth and scent. He took a few steps back toward the wall before he noticed the girl. He reached for his staff almost by reflex.
	With Dante and Vergil punching each other across the room, Kathy retreated back to Anders' side, also keeping an eye on the girl. There were too many thoughts whirling in her head about who the girl was, who her father had been...it was easier just to focus on her being a potential threat. Kept the image of her--their--dead father's face far from mind, too. She brushed her fingers over Anders' arm in a combined greeting and reassurance, then set herself watching the rest of the doors. The last thing they needed was yet another surprise guest.
	Sadly for everyone involved, the girl had no intention of staying quiet. Kalina-Ann in hand, she took aim at the fighting duo... and fired, with the speed one could only acquire if one had spent a lot of time firing bazookas at people in the past. It was just her way of saying hello.
	Really now. Vergil pulled away from Dante in the space of a breath, Yamato appearing in his hands just in time to slice straight through the incoming rocket. It fell apart, four slices of metal hitting the floor with a thunk. "Hmph."
	Dante pulled a face, too. In his hands, Rebellion morphed into twin blades - one red, one blue. "This is not your fight," he called. "Get lost already!"
	"SHUT! UP!" the girl bellowed. She ran forward, straight at them, leaped into the air... ... and brought the bayonet at the end of her bazooka down on Vergil's head.
	Oh for god's sake... Vergil caught the blade on Yamato's edge without much effort. "Really?" And whirled around five seconds later to catch another incoming blow from Dante. This was getting annoying.
	"You forced my father into this!" the girl yelled, bringing up her bazooka again.
	Just in time, as well: whatever metal it was made of, it was strong enough to withstand Yamato as Vergil brought it down on her and it glanced right off her weapon. "Is that what you think?" he said, disdain dripping from his voice.
	"I think you'll use anyone stupid enough to believe whatever bullshit you're peddling," Kathy declared, voice ringing. ...Three seconds after she sent a bolt of lightning arcing towards him. Because why announce your attack first?
	Anders hissed Kathy's name under his breath. Did she really want to draw Vergil's attention back to them? ... and then he sent out a matching arc of electricity. It wasn't as though he could make the situation worse.
	Lightning struck Vergil square in the chest, driving him back... a few inches, away from the girl, his feet skidding against the ground. He tilted his head, irritated. "Bad choice," he started-- --And found himself clocked with the side of Dante's Rebellion. He lashed out blindly with his own weapons, light gleaning off the claws.
	Pain shot through Dante's system as the claws buried themselves in his abdomen. He pulled away, bleeding even as the wound began to close into himself. His muscles were staring to ache. "Asshole!"
	Clap. Clap. Clap. Vergil's gaze snapped away from his brother and to the noise, and found... a strange, humanoid demon, his skin white and purple. "Bravo, bravo," the demon cried. "What a show!"
	"You," the girl growled, twisting around with the bazooka in her hands. But she was too late: the demon's hands had fastened themselves to Kalina-Ann. "Don't be a bad girl, Mary!" the demon crowed, pulling on the bazooka. He took the girl - Mary? - with it. Briefly. With a wave of his arm, he sent her flying into the air, crashing down onto the ground several feet away. Something cracked. "Or you can expect a spanking from daddy later!"
	"I thought I'd gotten rid of you, you buffoon," Vergil snarled, dashing at him with Yamato drawn. The demon's hands shot forward and clamped down on the blade, holding it tight. "Oh, that was close," it sneered. "But you've taken quite a trouncing today, haven't you, Vergil?" One of his hands slid up, touching Yamato's very tip. "You could've sliced me to confetti if you'd been in tip-top condition." Then he let go of Yamato, his hands landing on Vergil's shoulders - and he gave a push that sent the Nephilim sailing across the room, crashing into the wall. "You shouldn't have underestimated humans."
	Panting, the girl tried to push herself up. Everything hurt. "What's going on?" she panted. Something within the demon shifted. The purple faded to a deep blue, the white perked to a human pink - to an extent. A large scar ran up the man's face, an unmistakably Korean face caught in a perpetual sneer. "You were always such a good girl. Obedient. Pure and innocent... just like your mother." The girl's eyes widened. "You bastard!"
	Kathy clapped a hand over her mouth as tears filled her eyes. She'd just seen him! And he'd been dead. Again. She'd lost him twice and now he was...back? "Dad!" The word tore itself from her throat of its own volition and she shook herself free, away from Anders and ran for where her father and her...extradimensional twin?...were. "Dad, please stop! Just stop!" God, how many times had she wanted to yell that growing up?
	The girl panted, trying to push herself upright. "He's not... yours," she managed, "Unfortunately."
	"Kathy, just stay away from him," Dante yelled, drawing Ebony and Ivory from their holsters. He never got further than aiming them. The man with Kathy's dad's face turned into a blur of white and purple, his feet slamming down on Dante's back. "You're wounded and weak," he cackled. "Even I can do this to you!" He stepped off of Dante's back, stalking towards the girl. He cast an off glance over his shoulder at Kathy. "And I see we have a spare," he said, only mild surprise in his voice. "See, we've got two amulets... a set of Sparda's blood..." He heaved the bazooka, his features shifting back into something human. "But Sparda sacrificed more than that to seal this tower," he said. "A priestess. A powerful one. Blood of her line is the last key I need."
	Kathy knew he wasn't hers. Her father was ashes on the wind and had been dead before that, even if his body had kept going. She knew that; she'd been living with that reality for a year and a half now. But it didn't stop the hurting. "Don't touch her." In an eyeblink, Kathy was by the girl's side, standing guard while she tried to pick herself up. "I won't let you hurt anybody else."
	On the floor, the girl struggled to get onto her feet. But she couldn't. It hurt too much. "Stand aside, duplicate," said the man with Kathy's father's face, sounding bored. He punctuated his tone by slamming the back of the bazooka outward, towards Kathy's side.
	Kathy's bokken swung between them, meeting the end of the bazooka. It didn't succeed in stopping the swing, but then she'd known it wouldn't. But it bled off some of the force of the blow; she grunted at the impact but stayed on her feet. "I've always wanted to say this to your face, fake-Dad," she said, looking up at him with defiant eyes. "Go fuck yourself.
	Anders followed close behind Kathy, watching her with concern in her eyes. He could tell that seeing this facsimile of her father was stirring up all kinds of things she'd almost buried. "It's not him," he said softly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "But if you want to hit him a lot, say the word and I'll help."
	"Is this real?" Kathy asked Anders softly, not taking her eyes off her father's face. It was a question that she couldn't have asked anybody else, not even Dante. "Anders, is this real?" Because, honestly, this little psychodrama of a man with her father's face trying to hurt a girl with hers was entirely too fucking Freudian to be believed. Throw in a couple of exes and it would be straight-up out of Kathy's literal nightmares.
	Arkham sighed. He was uninterested with whatever youthful drama was playing out before his eyes. He yanked the bazooka back, swirled it around, and swept it down at her knees - hard. "You can chat with your little friends later," he hissed, in his parody of a demon voice.
	Except fuck you, Fake-Dad. Kathy wasn't there anymore. From the way he held his arms to the angle of his swing, he's telegraphed his next move pretty clearly and Kathy didn't much fancy losing a kneecap. She bounced up in the air, the bazooka swishing through the empty air where she'd been a heartbeat before, and flipped over his head, using his shoulders as a vault. Except she didn't let go, trying to drag him backwards and down along with her.
	"It's real," Anders said, but he didn't think Kathy heard him before swooshing through the air. It was a bad time to talk, anyhow. And he wasn't sure he entirely believed it was real himself, despite the evidence of his senses: It fit too perfectly into his nightmares. "Take him down," he shouted at Kathy, and aimed a fist made of stone from his staff to Arkham's head. Just to hep her along.
	But Arkham had been feeding off the demonic energy inside this tower for some time now. One limber girl wouldn't stop him, let alone a boy wielding basic magic. He bent organically with her vault, gripping her legs - and pushed, hurling her at the wall with great strength. The stone fist brushed just past him, barely scratching his chest as he bent unnaturally far back... ... and struck Vergil straight across the head as the Nephilim staggered on to his feet. Vergil cried out, flinging an incoherent curse at Anders' head as he staggered back. He was not in great shape.
	Perhaps Kathy's greatest regret as she slammed full-force into the wall was missing the sight of Anders' stone fist as it slammed into Vergil. Okay, no, it was definitely the weird crunch her side made it connected with the unyielding stone, but it was pretty close. She bounced back off the wall and landed in a puddle of pain on the floor.
	Anders took a moment of satisfaction in watching Vergil suffer before he noticed Kathy crashing on the floor. "Andraste's tits," he swore as he went to her side. "Kath, are you all right?" ... relatively, he meant.
	White-faced and shaking, clutching her side. "Yeah," she said. "Just, Dad--Arkham--don't let him--!"
	Do what? Stab the bayonet at the end of the bazooka deep into the prone girl's thigh? Because they were far too late for that. The girl let out a harsh cry, blood pouring out of her leg and into the markings on the floor. "I needed you," Arkham said patiently, "The blood of that priestess runs in your veins." As he wrenched the bayonet back out of her leg, his features shifted back to purple-and-white. "This was quite a ride, if any of you had died before getting here, I would've been in quite a pickle. Lucky for me Dante brought a spare, just in case!" He stabbed the bayonet into the floor let out a loud cackle, surveying the carnage he had wrought - all those prone bodies. "Time for bed, Mary," he said. "Say hi to your dear mother!" The reaction was nearly instant. The girl's leg hurt worse than anything had in her entire life, but she yanked it up, using the bazooka for support. Her leg had been damaged. Her arms hadn't. "Try me," she snarled, pulling the bazooka out of Arkham's hands and spun around, pointing the bayonet at his throat.
	That was all the distraction Dante needed to put himself back together. Seconds later, Rebellion joined the bazooka, covering the back of Arkham's neck. "Dude, the show's over!"
	"It's time for the clown to bow out, Arkham," Vergil panted, struggling back up to his feet.
	"Back and fighting? I didn't expect any less from a demon prince's offspring," Arkham said, unmoved. "You're too late. The spell's been broken. Time to welcome chaos!" The ground shuddered. The markings on the floor lit up a brilliant red. And as the platform in the center of the room began to rise, the thick scent of magic mingled with the air, and a gust of wind burst across the floor. Arkham stayed upright. Everyone else tipped off the edge of the rising platform, onto what remained of the floor below.