Devil in My Mind

Troubled Warriors

Jump City's still evacuated. Too many demons, even with the massacre the Titans performed on several hundreds of them. Heroes, antiheroes, and crooks have been coming out of the woodworks.

Some fight for the greater good. Some find the creatures obnoxious, exterminating them out of frustration. Some wish to capture them, experiment on them, use them for their own malicious purposes.

All the while, Vergil's really been having a hard time. Apart from punishing Slade, nothing brings him ease. Hanging around and just kinda killing demons, like he did in the Underworld with his brother.

Still winged and with contemplation, he crouches between the pillars of an empty cathedral. The voice of his human side, the voice of reason inside his head, so pronounced it feels as though V is floating outside-of and beside him, in spirit form.

"It was a mistake to say the things I said to her. After all, we both want the same thing, we both long for the same person. I should have taken it as a compliment, what she did for me. Even if she doesn't remember it."

A black cat dashes across the street. Imaginary, floating V gasps and points, his voice audible and childlike, "Look, it's Shadow!" Vergil quickly stands and proclaims...

"My jaguar familiar! Perhaps, perhaps I require Shadow again. I shall take this kitten for myself."

He makes his way down the block. Having appeared like a gargoyle come to life, he's been spotted by someone. Red X, whose decided he's gonna try and take on a few devils himself.

"Might as well up my game. The damn things are everywhere and I ain't leaving the city over a silly ol' demon invasion. Psh!"

"What's the matter, Satan, they throw you out of the church?"

He flings a sticky, red x at Vergil. Vergil dodges it, ignores him and slips behind an alleyway, pretty sure Little Shadow went in this direction.

"Did I scare you?" Red X taunts. "Heh, and I thought this was gonna be hard." He chases after him and, "BLRRG!" he's met with a nebulous punch in the chest. Crashing into the outer wall of a dumpster, his arm hits the sliding lid so hard, it leaves a dent in the metal.

"Yah, ugh, arg, stupid!" he grips his sprang arm then spots the cat. "Pretty pathetic, going after a defenseless street cat. Am I not tasty enough for you?! YAH!"

He roundhouses his opponent, boldly, foolishly, achieving nothing. Vergil's way to fast and way too skilled. He sighs.

"I'm not interested in harming you. What do you care anyway, young warrior? Can't a guy pick up a therapy cat from the slums?"

Out of pettiness, Red X decides he's interested in the cat too.

"Here pussy pussy pussy, heh, no but for real, come here. I'm not gonna hurt you. I like pussy cats."

The kitty cat approaches knelt Red X, able to tell he's not such a bad guy, once you get to know him.

Vergil steps deeper into the alleyway, competitively enticing the cat to come towards him instead. It's so ridiculous, all of this for a random, black cat? What's Vergil even doing?

"Small but significant void, turn away from this troubled young man, my familiar friend. If you choose me, small feline, I will carry you in my pocket, like a good luck charm, Little Shadow."

"What? No, you don't wanna go with, hey wait a minute. Are you Dante?"

"What? N-no. Why, why do you call me Dante? Were you acquainted with him?"

"So you're not him? You got the hair and the sword," Red X notes, now holding and petting the black cat, rubbing it in the devil's face that she picked him instead. "You look like how my lady-friend described him up close. You a demon then?"