Exsperimentation chapt. 1

The man that he was supposed to capture apparently wasn’t anywhere to be found. The assassin in red that killed His Holiness just vanished. Nero had run around the city, he’d gone even to Fortuna Castle. But all he found were demons and more demons. He was sure that, somehow, there was an open Gate to Hell in the surroundings of Fortuna. He would have been a little anxious about Kyrie’s wellness if Credo wasn’t with her. Credo could be quite a pain in the ass and an uptight snob sometimes, but he would protect Kyrie, his sister, with his life; and that was all that mattered to Nero. After crossing an undefined amount of rooms and corridors, he finally came to another strange room: it was completely circular and had a weird design. The wall in front of him was made of glass, like a containing or observation area. Behind the glass there was a… laboratory? Some kind of warehouse? He couldn’t decide cause it looked like none of them but a strange mix of both. Nero’s devil arm glowed brightly when he spotted a column of blue energy on the other room. A slightly hunched man wearing the uniform of the Order approached to the glass. “So, you’ve come,” he spoke loudly enough for Nero to hear “just as I’d expected” “Who the hell are you?” Nero asked, the situation was beginning to piss him off. “I am Agnus” the old man answered with an ostentatious bow. “Walking in secrecy, very few are p-p-p-privy to my existence” “Funny, to figure an Order official out for a stroll in a hellhole kinda place like this…” “Hellhole!?! Watch your words!” the Order official snapped angrily, pointing at him with his index finger “Just as loud mouthed as I had heard… the rumors prove true. As will the new ones concerning your d-d-d-demise!” “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?” Nero asked; he had stopped pacing around the room at this. He was used to the bad looks and nasty rumors, but he’d had enough of that geezer. “Killing me because the way I t-t-t-t-talk?” he made fun of his speaker. Unfortunately for him, Agnus wasn’t known because of his great sense of humor. He unleashed some Gladius creatures upon him, probably hoping that they would be Nero’s death. Also, Nero had the opportunity to check out why the strange design of the room: the floor was electrified. “Ha, great,” Nero sighed tiredly “more demons” “This, this is all Credo’s doing” the other man continued ranting, while he watched through the glass the fight taking place between his creations and the cocky kid “It was Credo who ordered you to follow Dante; it was Credo who brought you here!” “Dante...?” Nero panted between hitting the creatures with the Red Queen “You mean the man who killed His Holiness? What the hell is going on here?” he demanded, menacingly pointing at Agnus with his sword. “I don’t have to answer to you, for you are already as good as d-d-d-dead” the Order official answered nonchalantly as he wrote something in his notebook. “I beg to differ” Nero mumbled almost to himself.

The Gladii were no rivals to him and his sword, and he was smarter than any Order member will give him credit: he killed the Gladii smashing them against the containing glass, this way he got rid of his enemies and ‘cleared’ the path to the other room. He jumped onto the platform, breaking some more glass shards and hitting Agnus in the process. It was a very welcomed change to see him crawl on the floor and squeaking like a little girl as he just walked towards him. “Th-th-th-that’s demonic power!” he whined, looking at Nero like he was a piece of museum. “How can it be?” “Look who’s talking, jackass” Nero growled, his blue eyes turning icy with the irritation he felt. He placed the Red Queen’s blade at the older man’s neck “Answer my questions. What the hell is going on here?” Right now, Nero was more than a bit pissed off. He wanted hell no, he needed some answers, and otherwise he won’t be able to hold himself any longer. “How magnificent!” Agnus praised his devil arm, completely ignoring him. “Ok, did you even hear me?!” Nero asked while blocking him with the sword. That guy was completely lost in admiring his arm. “If you want answers, then I shall give them to you” he began to talk, his eyes never leaving Nero’s most devil anatomy “It has only been a few years since I began this research…” The following was the most devious story Nero had ever heard. The goal of Agnus research was to find a way to bind demonic power that the humans could use, so this way the Order could conquer the world. All of this was, supposedly, the wish of His Holiness, who wasn’t death because he was reborn as an angel, as Agnus himself will be in the future. For a moment, Nero thought that the Order official was pulling a prank on him, but the fervor of his words pointed to a twisted reality: everything that this jackass was saying could be horrifyingly true. Nero was so lost in this train of thoughts that when he noticed Agnus sly smirk, it was too late. He felt something pushing him backwards and then an acute pain spreading through his chest as a spear pierced him. Then, before he was able to react within the agony of having the offensive weapon out of his body, one of the empty amours pinned him to the wall with two spears, perforating his devil arm in the process. Nero cried, blood gushing out from his mouth due to his tore innards. “See, what a small fraction of my research has yielded?” Agnus droned on, like he was exposing the wonders of his work to an auditorium. “Look! How beautiful this white amours stands! You have no idea the hardship to make just one amour come to life…” Nero felt his mind growing more clouded by the second, losing track of the other man’s little speech, until something captured his attention again. “Summoning…?” he managed to rasp out between the rivulets of blood “so it was you… who made the gate?” his features grimacing with hate and pain. “Yes, yes, the Hell gate” the investigator said, like explaining the most obvious thing in the world “I created it merely as a reference in substitution for the real Gate, but after utilizing an extremely powerful Devil’s Arm, it proved sufficient” “What the hell are you talking bout?” Nero wanted to go straight to the point, he felt like fainting anytime soon. His captor said something he couldn’t quite register and then he had a massive sword up his chest again, re-opening the previous wound. Nero was a fast healer, he’d always been, probably thanks to his devil arm, but surely it would take him a good amount of time to recover from this. His clothing was soaking wet with his own slippery blood and he had no strength left to even moan out his suffering. “Soon, you shall be the new subject of my experimentation…” Agnus nearly drooled at the perspective. “What… what’s happening…?” Nero weakly asked, he felt something running on his body, upon his now not-so-profusely leaking blood that made him feel weaker than he should be, his body turning heavier and his surroundings slowly darkening. “You mean the sedative p-p-p-potion the blade was soaked on?” the evil man laughed “It’s poison for mere humans, but proved to be a very useful sedative with demons. It worked so well with Dante…” It was the last thing Nero heard before he blacked out. “Take him out to my laboratory” he ordered the amours.



Nero lay on the cold metal table tied down by the wrists and a leather strap running across his stomach pinning him down. Nero was having an unpleasant dream, he could hear Kyrie’s screams of fear, crying for him to save her, but he couldn’t see anything in the dark glow that surrounded him. He was awoken by the sound of a loud slam of a door. “Kyrie?” he groaned, not opening his eyes yet but when he did he saw Agnus standing above him. Agnus had an indescribable expression that made Nero nervous under his scrutiny. Then he lowered his face to Nero’s and stared at him, the young devil hunter tried to move away and then he discovered that he was tied up and he tried to squirm loose but wasn’t making much progress. Agnus laughed at Nero’s discomfort. “Let me go!” Nero growled dangerously. Agnus pulled out a needle and pricked it into Nero’s neck and Nero’s eyelids soon started to feel heavy as he started to get dizzy as well as tired. Nero was soon asleep and Agnus decided to continue what with what he planned to do. Agnus picked up a scalpel and cut open Nero’s Devil Bringer Arm and continued to work on it for a few hours.

Dante watched from the shadows as Agnus worked on the kid. He would have gone out to kick his ass for as doing this since he felt somewhat sorry for the kid, but he didn’t want to attract attention to a lot of demons so he decided to wait till he was done or he left for something. Dante just hoped that Agnus didn’t do something too serious to the kid before he was done. About two hours later he saw the kid was trying to get loose again upon him suddenly awaking and feeling a horrible pain in his arm. He watched as the kid squirmed and writhed to get free until finely he saw Agnus lift Nero’s head up by pulling him up by the neck and then slammed it back down on the hard table knocking him out again. Dante winced upon knowing how bad that hurts. Finely after fifth teen more minutes Agnus left after cleaning off the tools. Dante looked to make sure the coast was clear then walked over to the table and stood for a second looking down at the motionless body of the young devil hunter. Then he worked off the straps that were holding the kid down and lifted him up. “Jeez he’s heavy!” Dante muttered and started walking out the door.