Primal

“So that’s the story,” Joseph beamed, eyes alight with the finishing of his tale. “All of it that I’m aware of anyways.”

“Cute.” Dante huffed, hating that the story had been intolerably adorable; perhaps even partly true, if he’d allow his thoughts that luxury. “But you left out the part where me and my brother were conceived. Or did my mother lay us like the Easter Bunny and we magically popped out of eggs?”

“My God you are some sort of dismal,” Joseph laughed. “While I’d hate to use the words ‘test tube babies’ essentially, that’s what came about.

“Your father and mother knew that in order for her to carry a child, there had to be a alternate means of doing so. A human woman could not possibly endure the process and even if Eva could, the thought of a distressful, debilitating birthing process was out of the question for Sparda.

“So simply put, your mother and father devised a machine that could combine their-”

“Yeahhhh… yeahhh…. yeahhh…..” Dante immediately cut Joseph off, waving his gun with disgust to pass off the matter. “I get the drift.”

“Stuff,” Joseph rolled his eyes, “They combined their ‘stuff’ to create a child that could potentially save the world when your father could not.”

Dante’s tongue went into his cheek, instantly reminding Joseph of Sparda though he politely declined to comment on the fact.

The idea was simple enough, the intelligence of both his parents not exactly an idea foreign to Dante. True, he despised his father but he wouldn’t deny that if presented with a goal and a means of obtaining it, the man could execute it well enough.

“As entirely Super Man as this all sounds,” Dante rubbed his head with the grip of his gun. “Why are there two of us?”

“Well,” Joseph drawled out slowly, the wrinkles in his face more apparent when his features tensed. “that seems to be where the story goes awry. The obvious reason is that the gene split, creating two entities. Though this hadn’t been the original plan, Sparda insisted that perhaps the end result of two sons was in direct connection with their demonic capabilities or perhaps their instinct to learn towards either good or evil.”

“So basically he thought that one would be good,” Dante mused with a touch of sarcasm. “and one would be evil. Genius. Way to look outside the box old man.”

“Precisely,” Joseph shrugged. “though your mother’s reaction was much akin to your own. She thought it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard and promptly told your father as much.

“Call it humanity but Eva simply could not wrap her mind around the thought that one of her sons could simply be evil and the other entirely good. In their efforts to create the perfect hero, how could they have created the perfect antagonist at the same time?

“ ‘All children are born innocent,’ She would unapologetically scream at your father. ‘that’s why we choose! That’s why we have choice! That’s why we grow up and DECIDE what we do with our lives and what we don’t do! It has NOTHING to do with how we are born you ignorant ass!’

“ ‘Oh how I am the Gods’ great hacky-sack!” Sparda had thrown up his arms, white hair flying wildly. ‘Bless me with the all power, logical thoughts of a human woman! Yes, because 2,000 years in the universe has afforded me no abilities to think for myself!’ He’d groan sarcastically.

“It went on for years after that well up until you boys were toddlers, two white haired reflections of each other.

“Once I babysat you, reading a book well into the night before hearing the loud steps of your father crack the silence.

“Speechless, your father and mother entered the living room, the eyes of both speaking volumes of a fight they’d obviously just endured. Eva wordlessly left for the kitchen with slow movements, shoulders slumped as though the world rested upon them---which it quite possibly did.

“Sparda fell more than sat into his great velvet chair, eyes searching my face from across the room. It was unnerving, as I could feel his silent fury like static electricity in the room, for once getting the oddest sensation that he didn’t trust me or something. Almost as though he were sizing me up.

“ ‘Have you noticed anything,’ he whispered, demonically masking his voice so that I knew only he and myself could hear. ‘anything at all I need to know?’

“Of course I was completely aware of what he was asking, only caught off guard at the roughness in his voice, the furious beam in his eyes that seemed to catch me like a predator. I don’t think I need to tell you that if, at the moment, he had suspected any sort of untruth in my words, he would have killed me. It was the first time I’d ever experienced that from him and probably the first time I could describe to you how doomed every demon faced with that look must have felt.

“I lowered my head as I walked out the front door, motioning for him to accompany me. I knew Eva would hate it, hate even more the words that undoubtedly would spill from me. I HAD noticed differences, HAD seen them not just in this night, but in the many nights I’d watched you boys.

“I spoke low when I told him of the unapologetic glares Vergil would give after delivering a man-sized wallop to the side of your head. I told him through gritted teeth of Vergil’s cold smirk that seemed only to cover his mouth when you would cry from his cruelness. I told him even of the meanness and madness that Vergil would enact on neighborhood cats and dogs, tell-tale signs of a sociopath with homicidal tendencies.

“I also insisted that I didn’t know the psychological differences between human children and demon children. I insisted a thousand times that we shouldn’t even GUESS what to expect from you boys, that perhaps this experiment was fool-hearty but that there simply was no going back about it.

“The look in your father’s eyes though,” Joseph lowered his head in defeat. “there was no second guessing about it. We simply returned home after my bout of babbling and he kissed your mother on the forehead, whispering ‘let’s not fight’ before saying his farewells to me for the evening.”

Joseph let out a forlorn sigh, racking his fingers through his hair.

“As you may have guessed,” he looked into Dante’s eyes. “your mother and I never saw him again.”

He said it as though he were reading the end of the bible, speaking as though Christ’s head had fallen for the last time as he dangled from the cross. The end of all ends.

“So he left,” Dante spoke as though to himself. “as I always figured. Times got tough and he bailed.”

A short huff of indication left Joseph and he boldly slapped Dante’s shoulder.

“Seriously?” He laughed with no humor. “Seriously? After all that? After all I just told you?”

He threw his hands into the air.

“Boy you have some major daddy issues!”

Dante scowled but didn’t exactly deny the fact, waiting for Joseph to speak once more.

“If you’re thinking it’s that simple,” Joseph spoke. “Than I might as well tell it all over again because you are missing something! If your father couldn’t handle ‘tough times’ he didn’t exactly have a lot of business being with your mother, did he? Or being a rouge Demon for that matter, huh?”

“So I’m missing one thing,” Dante shrugged off the logic. “WAS Vergil born completely evil?”

“Ha!” Joseph raised an eyebrow. “Were YOU born completely GOOD? I’m kinda thinking’ that’d be a resounding ‘no’, wouldn’t you?”

Dante allowed himself to smile at that, for one brief moment letting himself hope that this man was right; that Vergil wasn’t just some soulless Demon that just so happened to have a human form.

“Do you remember Nero?” Joseph suddenly asked, an odd question to Dante. “Your brother’s ‘imaginary’ friend?”

Dante simply nodded, hiding his animosity towards the invisible entity that his brother had always preferred to him.

“I don’t think he was imaginary at all.” The man shook his head. “I think he was as real as you and I and we simply could not see him. I believe he was possibly even the dark force that encouraged your brother to be so cruel to you, even towards your mother. Perhaps Nero even encourages him to this day for all we know. And he most certainly encouraged Vergil the day……”

Joseph trailed off, making a face that instantly translated into one a person would use when they’d opened their big mouth and regretted it.

“The day……” Dante trailed on encouragingly. “what day?”

“The day he betrayed your mother and you,” The older man spoke seriously. “The day he invited the demons into your house. The day Eva was killed.”

Now the guns fixed their steely gaze once more at the old man, trigger fingers itchy to unleash hell.

“My mother was killed because my bastard father abandoned us,” The twin seethed through gritted teeth. “he left us to the helplessness and debauchery he introduced my mother to. He left us a Goddamn target with bullseyes on our asses!”

“Yes, yes!” The man suddenly insisted, backing away and wailing his hands defensively in front of him. “I don’t disagree but don’t you see? It was the ultimate test!”

“I’m getting very tired of your riddles,” The clack of a bullet being loaded into the chamber echoing through the silence. “What test?”

“Good and Evil,” Was the simple answer. “Nero wanted to know the same questions your father had been asking. Was Vergil good or evil?”

Dante regrettably lowered his weapon for what felt like the thousandth time, holstering it so as to avoid succumbing to his quick temper and simply blasting the old man away.

“So…..” He more breathed than spoke, lopping his head tiredly to one side. “What was the answer?”

“Well….” Joseph very, very slowly put his hand on Dante’s shoulder. “you’re still alive aren’t you?”