(Of a) Dying Breed

Finding Dante

It had been a month give or take since Lexi had formally joined The Order and moved permanently into the compound. At first, she hadn't been sure she would want to stay, but as her eyes were opened to the truth – about the demons and herself – she found that she didn't want to leave. Originally her plan had been to spend the summer preparing for medical school, but those plans had well and thoroughly been blown to shit. Instead, she found herself helping her new friends track down Vergil's long-lost brother, Dante, who Vergil insisted was the key to defeating Mundus.

Some nights, as she stared up at the dappled ceiling of her room, Lexi found that she was still coming to terms with it – not being human. Her entire life up to that point, everything she had ever known, had been flipped on its head with the spotter's attack, but who knew how long she would have made it before a spotter finally found her. In truth, she had been incredibly lucky that Kat had heard her call for help.

Running was something that she picked up both as a part of Vergil's training and as a way to clear her head. They ran together every morning, Vergil using the time to survey, strategize, and pick up intel. The man was a machine, and he continually pushed Lexi's endurance past anything she had ever thought she would be capable of.

That particular morning, they ran in a comfortable silence. Vergil was stuck in his head as he had been for the last couple of days. It was understandable, they were collecting his brother the next day. He was so close to reuniting with his brother he could taste it. They all could. The last piece of their fucked-up puzzle almost within their grasp.

At first, Dante had been a hard man to find, but after receiving a tip that he enjoyed the company of the ladies down at Devil's Dalliance regardless of how his name never made the list, Kat had been able to track him to a trailer on the outskirts of the Bellview Pier. It wasn't long after that, however, that Dante became careless, too comfortable in his tin can of a trailer to bother covering his tracks and leaving a trail that anyone or anything could pick up on if they knew what they were looking for. Thankfully, they had found it first.

Vergil scanned them back in to the compound through the clever façade that hid the front entrance. They made their way past the employees who had begun to trickle in at the early hour and to a small but functional kitchen.

Lexi grabbed two bottles from the fridge and tossed one to Vergil, releasing a sigh once her bottle was empty. "Tomorrow's the day," caught in his own thoughts, Vergil hadn't registered the statement, looking at her quizzically while taking his own sip of water, "It's been a long time since you've seen each other."

"Since we were 7," Vergil confirmed with a small smile.

"Do you think he'll remember you?"

"No. Our father saw to that. But it will be good to have him back."

Lexi nodded. She was glad that she wasn't the one dealing with a long-lost sibling. Learning that she wasn't human had been enough.

Returning to the kitchen after a shower, Lexi found that Kat had placed a mug of coffee in front of her usual spot. Wrapping her hands around the mug, Lexi inhaled deeply – god she loved the smell of coffee in the morning. She took a sip of the scalding liquid, "Morning, Kat."

"Morning," Kat greeted, offering a smile.

"What're you working on?" Lexi nodded toward the thin plastic sheet spread across the table.

Held up to the light, it became instantly more recognizable, "My old gateway template was falling apart, so I'm making a new one. This plastic should last longer than the cardboard."

"Easier to clean too," god only knew what Kat bottled in those aerosols, but it smelled vile.

The two chatted about this and that as Lexi drank her coffee and Kat finished up work on her template until the conversation inevitably shifted to Dante. Unable to collect his brother himself, Vergil was sending Kat to collect Dante the next morning, but no one was sure of the best way to approach him. How was anyone supposed to convince Dante, who has been on the run from demons his whole life, that they were there to help? They didn't have long to think on it before Vergil hurried into the room.