idolpro | Vergil's heart game r5

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Vergil's heart game r5

You feel weak, your body won't move no matter how you try, and you are falling, away from everything you know and love. Away from everything you need to accomplish. If you could just reach out, maybe you could hold on to it, claw your way back. But it's a useless endeavour, you fall unconscious, and your mind goes blank except for poetry and a familiar voice.

O mother Enitharmon, wilt thou bring forth other sons?
To cause my name to vanish, that my place may not be found,
For I am faint with travail,
Like the dark cloud disburden'd in the day of dismal thunder.

My roots are brandish'd in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath
Surge, foam and labour into life, first born and first consum'd!
Consumed and consuming!
Then why shouldst thou, accursed mother, bring me into life?

You wake on the ground in a cave, cold, wet, and sticky. It smells of rotting flesh. Your objective is clear, but you can't recall a name or face. Nothing else about your memory of him is changed, but for some reason the name "Vergil" just won't come to you, and you couldn't describe how he looks if your life depended on it. But at least your body starts to respond to your will, slowly regaining enough strength to carry on.

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[Sorry Vergil the baby is here in your heart. Wandering around. Getting murdered by grass. A Good Time.]

Is Machiavelli a friend of yours?

[He's gonna crouch down next to the kid. Too tall otherwise, but also he's kind of tired and needs to rest his old man legs.]

A friend.

The boy shivers, and as if the same tremor moves through the shelf, a pair of books just...fall right off the shelf.

"...No. He's a famous demon scientist. You don't want to meet him. You...should probably stay in here. It's the safest area, at least right now."

[...wow. Not a friend at all, then. Levity's face falls, but he still tries to make himself comfortable on the floor, sitting down cross-legged... and reaching out to place a hand on the boy's arm, if he lets him.]

But... I am not a demon. Why would he be interested in me?

He flinches like he's going to pull it away, but, he stays.

"There's all kinds of demons around. Humans would be better. ...Someone who's neither would be better yet. Anyway it's not him you have to worry about. I mean in general, it's dangerous."

[Hmmm... bad at touch... demon world... hmmm!!! Levity almost takes his hand away, but lets it rest a little while longer. The boy does seem like he would say outright if he didn't want to be touched.]

Ah... things do seem to be rather deadly, here. I got hurt earlier.

[Levity rubs at his shoulder, shivers. Wow, he'd rather not think about that, actually.]

You know, I think I've found something that belongs to you.

[How do we... reach into the Game Inventory Space to get the painting out.]

Press start to enter the item menu

It doesn't matter, you just pull it out when you want to okay. He stares at the faces there for a long moment. The look on his face is one often seen on Vergil's, though maybe not one you know too well. It looks like a mixture of anger and pain, the fabled emotional constipation.

"...Thanks. Hang on to it. It's supposed to be at home, so...maybe you can take it there."

[Pressing start to exit item menu, presumably. The emotional constipation doesn't escape Levity, and he feels a little bad for inflicting it on... who he suspects to be his друг.]

...I would try, but you said to stay here.

[His tone is gentle, only slightly teasing.]

"...Shut up. That's not the point!" Well, in some way, that seems to help. "It would be much safer there. But it's dangerous to get there, so..."

[Levity lets himself grin. Maybe it's funny to bully friends?]

Hmmm... You're right. If only there was a strong half-demon around who could guide me there!

[It's also completely obvious bait to check if the boy is, in fact, друг.]

"...I'm a demon." No need to specify half-!! Just demon!

But he does think about that. Levity alone in Hell is....bad. Then again just Levity in Hell is bad? Don't let him be in Hell?

"Maybe. But you could just stay here. I could protect you, you don't have to play the game at all. You can just...be here with me." Does it sound like he's saying forever? Because he's saying forever.

[He doesn't realize the "forever" part whatsoever! But otherwise, it doesnt seem like a bad time. Levity looks around him with a smile.]

I suppose a library is fitting for me. But what's that about the game?

[He also doesn't realize it's a game!]

"You know, the things you were told to do about helping me."

[HE SOLVED IT HE FOUND THE VERGLI(?). Levity looks pretty enthused about that! But less enthused about other things.]

But that's like telling me not to help you.

"You don't need to help me. I...want to protect my friends. That's kind of helping me too, really. I'm really tired of being alone, too, so if you stayed with me, then I wouldn't have to be."

[OH NO.... SOFT..........

Levity can't really protest against something like that, honestly, so he just gives Vergil a soft smile.]

...Alright. Thank you.

[Annnnnd he's just, remembering that Vergil got swept up in Demon Things as a child. This sure is fun.]

But I don't want you to stay stuck here, either.

He shakes his head. "I can't go anywhere, I'm just a part of the real me. Like a memory. So I'm stuck here anyway, I can't even go to the house."

And he looks at you for a moment, and goes in for a hug. Pretty bold suddenly.

[Wowee! The hug is unexpected, but Levity can easily attribute it to "this is a baby who has trauma and has been alone forever". He chuckles softly, patting Vergil on the head before hugging him back. He's rather bigger than baby Vergil, so it's very good hugs!]

...Thank you.

[Because he knows Vergil doesn't like touchy, so if he's touchy it's because he trusts Levity, right. This is cute.]

Don't worry, I'm staying.

"Good. So...don't leave me alone. Stay with me, and don't go."

Forever.

He holds you tight.

For a very long time.

Are you going to let go?

Because he is not going to let go.

[Listen, he didn't realize grass suddenly being under his clothes meant something was going on, do you think he's gonna notice something is off about baby hugs? At worst he just shifts position to be more comfortable, occasionally humming softly as he pets Vergil's back. It reminds him of something, and there's bittersweetness in it, but the memory is elusive, incomplete, a hint rather than an actual remembrance.]

It's very comforting, it feels wonderful just to let himself have that. And now how could he possibly let it go. He just sighs into your chest, so at peace.

His grip is too tight. Like he's trying to pull you right into his chest, as if you could turn into a phantom and be kept there forever...

[Levity is starting to suspect something Might Be Different from a regular hug here, but what could it be??? There's something almost familiar about this too, but once again Levity can't place it.

Speaking of familiar...]

...You know, I could not remember your name. Strange, isn't it?

"...It's not strange. Why would anyone remember." He does sound a little sad about that. But it just means he turns his attention all the more to hugging you and never letting you go.

He holds on so, so tight. He doesn't let you move at all, nothing that would take you from him for a single second.

And it just gets tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter until you can't breathe at all and your bones creak. He's far too strong for a child or even an adult, but, well he is a demon.

He squeezes the life right out of you, and it does feel for a moment, as if he's pulled you from your body and into his. Kept safe in his core. Where nothing can hurt you, he'll protect you no matter what, and you'll never leave him or forget him or stop loving him... Isn't it comforting to feel that in your last moment?

You wake up in the cave again, cradled in the spindly, steel arms of half a dozen hooded, faceless, wraith-like creatures. Or so they appear. There's no life in them, no more than a statue holding you upon its lap not unlike the Pietà.

It sloughs away into nothing the moment you stand.

[Levity wakes up with a gasp again, as though his body is trying to catch up on breath that he was denied by Vergil's hold on him. There's a brief remembrance of fear, the moment when he realized that he wouldn't be allowed to move, that he was going to die, and yet... he can't find it in himself to be angry with Vergil. At all. He just wanted company and care, a child thrown into an unfamiliar, violent world, forced to abide by its cruel rules, torn away from things and people he knew and loved. Is it really any different from how Levity himself feels?

And somehow that last moment made up even for the crushing pain, the burning in his lungs and the dull fire of cracked bones. That feeling of safety, unity, a sense of belonging that seems to have been torn from Levity when he arrived in Tokyo-F - well, it's. It's nice. It would be nice to feel it again, for more than a fleeting moment.

Levity stares at the fleshy ceiling of the cave for a while and wonders how he's supposed to feel about these thoughts.

Eventually, he forces himself to get up, shuffles towards one of the walls. He doesn't know where he wants to go now - he's not keen on seeing the field again, and the thought of going back to the library makes him feel... strange. Not to mention that he knows he wouldn't be able to say no, anyway.

For nearly the first time, Levity forces himself to actually inspect his surroundings. If there's membrane on the gaps between walls, can it be cut into? Does it lead to any potential passages or anything?]

You can tear it away or force a hand into it, but the gaps are too small to get any more than your hand in. And when you do, it releases an odour far worse than the one already permeating the cave. That might be the source of it. Just putrid, rotting cave flesh.

[BAD AND GROSS NO THANK YOU. Well shit fuck CLEARLY there are no other ways to go so! He'll try to get to the field again. Now that he knows grass tricks, he may be able to avoid them.]

Re: LIBRARY

auguryofinnocence - 2021-01-30 08:20 (UTC) - Expand

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