#captarv-verse

Around 3000 years ago, Mundus has arisen to power, proclaiming himself as the sole ruler of the Demon World, after usurping the throne of the previous Demon King, Lucifer. Mundus wasn't alone, as he was assisted by his own lieutenant and blood-brother, Sparda. Sparda would eventually become the general of the Demon World for sometimes during the next 1000 years of Mundus' rule.

As the Demon World general, Sparda was given a privilege by Mundus to infiltrate the Human World, where he would eventually interacting with many humans there. In the same time, Sparda had already taught the demon twins, Baul and Modeus and the two eventually become Sparda's apprentice. Sparda, too, was accompanied with a demon scholar named Phineas, being appointed as Sparda's master strategist as well. Sparda was also assisted by a demon blacksmith named Machiavelli as well.

However, as time flies, around 2000 years ago from now, Sparda, who had seen the humanity inside, saw the real tyranny and injustice from his own brother, Mundus. Sparda would eventually rebelled against Mundus, but before it happened, Sparda had made a pact to both Baul and Modeus to live true to their aspirations and to carry them out.

After a long struggle, Sparda was able to defeat Mundus, weakened him for awhile and sealing him into Limbo, which was one of the Nine Circles of Hell, and for this reason, Mundus' army eventually retreated to the Demon World. To ensure that none of the Mundus' army wouldn't escaped to the Demon World ever, Sparda used his own blood, alongside the blood of the human priestess (Lady's ancestor), in conjunction with his sword and his magical amulets. He poured this demonic energy into his beloved sword (Devil Arm Sparda), and to close the door between realms, the Temen-ni-gru, though this also robbed him of the lion's share of his abilities. As an added measure, he also imprisoned within the tower its gatekeepers - Cerberus, Agni & Rudra, Nevan, Beowulf and Leviathan - and took the names of the Seven Sins in order to imprison them and set them as seals keeping the Temen-ni-gru underground.

Following his victory against Mundus, Sparda, with the help of a trickster demon named Kongzu (who was the father of Eclisfula) would eventually sealed the Hell Gateway in Fortuna using Yamato, and the souls of the fallen Fortuna warriors were kept sealed inside the sword Fuhuo, which was later given to Kongzu many years later, when Kongzu tried to blend with humans as the member of the Order of the Sword. It was said that for the next centuries, Sparda became a benevolent ruler of Fortuna, as well as the protector of Vie de Marli prior to his disappearance. The Legendary Dark Knight, that was the name that sticked into Sparda.

During his time in the Human World, Sparda realized that his power started to weaken as time passed. Machiavelli would eventually built a coffin-like machine in order to temporary restore Sparda's power for awhile.

Sometimes between the late 20th century and the beginning of 21st century, Sparda decided to make a deal with Kongzu (who now took an alias Canto Hung) for one more time Their mission was to investigate the presence of the revival of Alastor, once the executioner for both Lucifer and Mundus, and also Sparda's mentor. Their mission was indeed quite successful, as they sealed Alastor inside his own Devil Sword, Alastor. After that, they went separate ways (Kongzu would eventually sold Alastor and Ifrit to his associate, Enzo Ferino). Some times later, Sparda, who appeared in his human form, eventually fell in love with Eva, a human woman. Their happy marriage were gifted with twin sons, Dante and Vergil, and this new family would eventually resided in a mansion named Paradise, located not far between Limbo City and Red Grave City. Sparda remained there for a few years, until his so-called death for unknown circumstances. Sparda's absence would definitely meant Mundus would be able to breach into Paradise, and Mundus eventually sent his demon hordes there. Eva, who wasn't able to locate Vergil, hid Dante inside of a closet and told him to run if she never returned. She ultimately gave up her life in order to protect her sons, as she was murdered by Mundus himself.

Despite Vergil and Dante believed that Sparda was already dead even before Mundus killed Eva, the truth wasn't exactly what it seemed to be. In reality, before Mundus' attack on Paradise, Mundus already tricked Sparda before (and before this, Mundus already killed Machiavelli, and Sparda's coffin machine was destroyed by Mundus as well) for his crime against his own race millennia ago. Sparda, the Legendary Dark Knight, was eventually captured by the Demons, banished into the Demon World, and was condemned to endure eternal agony as a prisoner of Mundus. Yet, Sparda never came back.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Sparda's demon form is highly inspired by this design by CocoaLegend on Reddit! This guy has actually deleted the original post, but in case you missed it, here you go!

Lady’s story was somehow complicated. She was born under the marriage of Arkham, the scholar and the student of Kongzu, who is also the descendant of the priestess whom Sparda had slain to seal the Temen-ni-gru, with Kalina Ann. When Lady was little, she was named as Mary by her father, but as she started growing up, Arkham became obsessed with the legend of Sparda, and in order to gain the possibility of obtaining Sparda’s power, Kalina became a subject to sacrifice by Arkham. The ritual was a near success, but Arkham’s face was burned, and he eventually became a demon named Jester.

Arkham’s insanity to kill his own wife somehow traumatized Mary, that she decided to run away from her house and started wandering. Her current stop was Limbo City, where she heard a rumour that Arkham actually worked there. Her fate was sealed when she met Dante for the very first time, and at the moment, Dante was busy fighting against Cerberus. She fired her Kalina Ann to Cerberus, and shortly, Dante praised her for being strong enough to defeat such knucklehead. She asked Dante if he was the Masked Man, the so-called leader of the Dark Knights (who was actually Vergil in disguise). Dante answered that he wasn’t the guy who tried to sneak around and fight with a silly mask. During the fight, Dante asks what her name is, to which Mary responds that she doesn't have one and that he can call her whatever he likes. Dante, in a rather dismissive way, replies "Whatever, Lady" before leaping away and leaving the rest of the demons for her to deal with.

Her first meeting was indeed annoying, but it does inferred one hope for Lady: to pay her revenge against Arkham.

Just like any of the human cities in the world, Limbo City, too, has an urban legend. It was said that Limbo City was once ruled by demon, and at that time, in order to keep the city in shape, hired several henchmen to be his personal guard. Named as the Circles of Mundus, their actions were said to be the actual reason why Limbo City rarely safe from crimes, as it was a demonic job to do so.

However, the pressures by the Limbo City police, and also many ‘statements’ that were made by Kyle Ryder (in reality, Mundus) alongside several ‘proofs’ by Bob Barbas seemed to answer the entire existence of the Circles itself was, in fact, not true at all. This has somehow stopped the entire rumors of this so-called cult, and in the end, the legend will be just the legend…

…or not. What the humans of Limbo City didn’t know is that Mundus has controlled their mind into believing that the demonic presence of Limbo City is not real, let alone the Circles of Mundus itself. In reality, the Circles of Mundus was actually a real thing, having controlled the underworld of the already hellish Limbo City, from casino, discotic, and many more.

Trish was one of the Circles of Mundus. Unlike her other demon brethren, she was artificially created by Mundus using the likeness of Eva, the mother of Dante and Vergil, and combined it with Alastor’s battle data. Mundus’s actual goal for creating Trish is to accomplish his goal to silent the humans, and to help him achieve his ultimate plan: to merge the Demon World with the Human World.

Of course, given the fact that Trish was able to blend in the environment and the crowds of Limbo City, Mundus saw her as his best asset. However, Trish has a heart too, and it all started when Trish accidentally killed the innocent parents who were mistaken as a ‘criminal’ by Mundus. In reality, they were actually part of the Dark Knights, a resistance organization aimed to crush on the totalitarian government of Limbo City. Since then, she began to questioning her own loyalty to Mundus. Her actual heart really came into surface when she confronted Dante for the very first time, and upon learning that Dante was actually son of Sparda, she once had in mind that she would end Mundus rule in Limbo City.

However, the entire situation in Limbo City forced Trish to keep her plan for herself. However, she believed that there will be always be the time when Mundus’ reign came into end.

With the release of Resident Evil: Requiem (or RE9) alongside its ridiculous mods on PC (I haven't even play the game yet LMAO), I guess we can all conclude that Leon has slowly turned into Dante for many reasons. Like, dude, bro can parry a freakin' CAR like it's ROYALGUARD!

While I adore Leon's RE9 look, at the same time, I still miss his RE6 China attire, hence why I mixed that look with Dante's DMC2 coat for his RE Code Lacrima look. Not gonna lie, both of those costumes are kinda similar for some elements I see, and when I combined them, it worked!

For his Devil Trigger design, I decided to pay homage to Dante's DMC3 DT instead (especially for the Rebellion and Beowulf DT form, ever since Dante's DT look in DMC3 actually differs depending on the Devil Arms or weapons he's using), while combining with Dante's unused Perfect Devil Trigger concept from DMC4. Not to mention I used a little element from RE4 Verdugo, but decided to not making it too similar to them. Inspired by 2 different takes on Verdugo Leon from @polarspaz LMAO

Funny, you should said, that polarspaz also did Leon's DT design, but here, my design predated those!

That being said, my view on RE9 Leon also affected my take on Leon's sword, Esperanza (literally means "hope" in Spanish, to match with the entire Los Illuminados motif, in which, in Earth-ARV98, is another demonic cult here), which is highly inspired by Venat's sword from Final Fantasy XIV. Until now, I just can't get rid of Leon's hatchet from RE9, so I decided to integrate it into Esperanza's design, so it would work as some sort of Keyblade from Kingdom Hearts game. You know, as both SWORD and HATCHET or AXE in the same time.

As usual, I adore both of the OG and Remake look of RE2 Claire, but sometimes, I realized that I need to see an even older version of Claire. No, not that RE Death Island one, but something closer to her RE Revelations 2 look, hence the primary inspiration for her Earth-ARV98 look... considering the fact that this is the Earth where the RE characters are DMC characters here.

But really, I kinda thought that I need to spiced up her jacket, so I decided to mix the RE: Code Veronica look and also the OG RE2 look (especially for the boots). Her motorcycle jacket is, well, inspired by the Makai Knights aesthetics from 2005 Garo series (in this case, the OG Garo, Kouga Saejima) because I thought that would be awesome LOL The Sode part from the Samurai Yoroi armour is partially inspired by Ginchiyo Tachibana from Samurai Warrior 2. The Scarlet Hilda sword is, ironically, inspired by Raiden Shogun's katana from Genshin Impact, with several elements from Nero's Red Queen and the Order of the Sword's regulated sword from DMC4.

Her DT design borrows inspiration from, ahem, this one.

But I've also decided to take inspiration from Dan Makai Armour (2005 Garo) (link here) and Yaiba from the Garo Pachislot (link here). Ironically, despite Yaiba's feminine look, not even a single woman has worn this suit, really.

While Claire's angel wings are based on Dante's Angel Trigger design from Alysson Arts/All-Draws via Artstation. (link here)

Pose based on Hero Forge:

There was a story that came from land of Wallachia (or what modern people now called Romania) about a ruler who was actually blood thirsty and loved to execute everyone who against his stand. Most said it was just an exaggerated legend, but its echo is still heard until now. The story tells about a man named Vlad Tepes, indeed a real person, struggled to protect his lands from the hand of Ottoman, who already foresaw Vlad’s previous crime before. In order to do this, he had to sell his soul to a demon, of course the most infamous of all, in order to gain him power. The ritual worked, but as his body started deteriorating many decades later, he had to drink human bloods to keep his body alive. For this reason, he impaled many of his enemies, eventually taking their blood of himself. As more and more enemies were all slain, Vlad couldn’t do that anymore, eventually died by his own action.

This story was centuries old, and Vlad’s infamy was what he would be scared as Dracula, Son of the Dragon. His story was a long-time fear, having been manifested into many arts and literatures about it. But some demonologists began to ask a simple yet complicated question: if Dracula indeed sold his soul to a demon, then which demon is it? Who was actually responsible for Vlad’s action, then?

The answer to this question actually lies to the most surprising reality that this demon actually still lived at least during the transition from 20th century to 21st century, and most humans actually knew him as Apostol Turen. His name was Alastor.

Up until 3000 years ago, Alastor was the Grand Executioner of Hell, serving under the previous Demon King, Lucifer. His stoic personality worked for him on his duty, and his intelligence was what made Lucifer appointed him as Sparda’s mentor.

But, when Mundus decided to steal the Qliphoth fruit for himself, Alastor persuaded Mundus to eat the fruit, and Alastor would supply Mundus with his own army. Mundus agreed, and together with Sparda, they successfully took over Lucifer’s throne, and Mundus became the new Demon Emperor. As Mundus found Alastor to be very useful for his army, Mundus let Alastor retained his title as the Grand Executioner.

2000 years ago from now, Sparda had his taste of rebellion sparked from the first time. Mundus saw that coming, but Alastor thought it’s all because of Sparda’s liability to control his emotion. But it wasn’t Sparda successfully sealed Mundus into Limbo, that Alastor was left to die as well during his battle with Sparda. Yet, Alastor survived, and he blamed Sparda for what happened to Mundus.

One thing that Sparda forgot is that as Alastor wasn’t in bound with Limbo, he was able to travel to many realms without Sparda’s knowledge. Alastor spend many years to find a way to free Mundus from Sparda’s grapple, and Alastor told Mundus to create his own 'world' inside Limbo.

Decades later, sometimes during late 20th century, Alastor resurfaced in the Human World under the alias Apostol Turen. He was said to be the most feared mafia across Europe, who started his own drug business as well. He became part of the Circles of Mundus, an organization consisted of Demons and humans who were loyal to Mundus, and Kongzu was part of them (which was actually his foil to defeat Mundus). He was given a private residence in Romania and very few humans ever touched his castle because he was known to be very cruel; he was regularly taking in new staff to replace those who had been taken into his dungeon and therefore tortured and executed for their disobedience to Alastor.

At first, his allegations on mass murder was left unnoticed by the majority of the world. However, this news eventually came out to be true when Sparda and Kongzu decided to sneak in Alastor's castle. Long story short, Alastor's crime was debunked, and his soul was entrapped into his own Devil Sword. Alastor's sword would be later sold by Kongzu (who, under the alias of Canto Hung, was not guilty of Apostol's death) to Enzo Ferino. It was left untouched for many years....

...until it was bought by Trish. She wouldn't expect that shortly after this, she would heard a demonic voice claiming himself to be her 'father', and the voice itself was none other than Alastor's damned soul.

Vergil was born as the eldest twin son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda and the human Eva, alongside his younger twin brother, Dante. Despite the fact that Dante and Vergil are indeed twins, both of them have a starkly different personality. If Dante was more care-free and always searched for something new, Vergil was more like a stoic boy who always keep on tradition. Growing up, Vergil would often fight with Dante over various things, and trained alongside his brother with his father.

At some point before Mundus' attack, Vergil would often visit a man due to his keen interest in literature, namely poems. There, he avidly read many works, though developed a particular liking towards William Blake's poems most of all. One day, the man gave Vergil a collection of Blake's poems as a gift, in which Vergil responded by writing his name on the back of the cover. When asked by the man, Vergil told him about his relationship with his brother, and the man understood. Vergil would keep this book throughout his life.

In the free time, while Vergil would definitely read the said poem book, Dante insisted Vergil to start a sword play, something that irritated Vergil a bit. Indeed, during the fight, both Dante and Vergil argued about who was more superior, but Eva eventually calmed them down. To Vergil, Eva was everything, as she loved both Dante and Vergil equally.

But everything changed, when Mundus and his hunters decided to raid Sparda’s mansion, Paradise, after Sparda's 'death'. At the time Eva was trying to hide Dante from Mundus, Vergil was still somewhere outside the Mansion, unaware of what exactly happened to them. During the attack, Vergil was playing alone at a playground a few yards from the house, where he was most likely ambushed. Eventually, he found himself in a cemetery surrounded by demons. Upon seeing his house burning in the distance, Vergil awakens his inner demon and kills all of the demons with Yamato, and Vergil eventually realized that his family’s life was at stake. After everything was safe, Vergil decided to enter Paradise, only to find out that Eva was dead, murdered by Mundus. On the other hand, Vergil tried to find Dante, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Since then, Vergil blamed Mundus and his acolytes for everything that happened to his mother. For this reason, Eva’s death had driven Vergil for the search of more power, as he thought he was still weak to protect Eva in that time. How lucky, Vergil was eventually adopted by a wealthy family in Limbo City (which was, secretly under Sparda’s request years earlier), and he would eventually spent his entire life there, where he grew up to become a self-millionaire in Limbo City. Highly intelligent, Vergil wrote a security encryption program and went on to become an independently wealthy multi-millionaire before leaving school. In the same time, he started doing his own research upon the legend of Sparda, his own father. Yet, his actual agenda was still the same as before, but as he started realizing about Mundus’ ever growing ‘empire’ in the City, Vergil realized he couldn’t find Sparda’s power by himself. Hence, using his wealth, he eventually founded the Dark Knights, an radical organization that went against a tyranny and authoritarianism hierarchy of Limbo City, named after the title of Vergil’s father.

The Dark Knights’ essence successfully irritated the entire government of Limbo City, and even Mundus knew that. Despite the fact Mundus has marked the Dark Knights as Limbo City’s public enemy, little did he found out that the leader of the Dark Knights was none other than Vergil, the unknown twin son of Sparda.

The entire situation had given Vergil one advantage: to search for his brother, Dante, who was reported to have been around in Limbo City as Tony Redgrave. Although Vergil’s goal was to ask Dante to join the Dark Knights’ crusades against Mundus, no one knew that Vergil’s actual plan was not as noble as it sounds.

And behold, the Dark Knights.

Just some sort of a mockup comic cover art for my Spidersona and Marvel OC, Moijira Maulana aka the second Patriot of Earth-ARV42. Admit it, drawing the cover seems a bit challenging, plus I tried to find a bit more dynamic pose for this kid.

In case you're extremely curious, I already had an idea for adopting Tom Muller's grand design from Krakoan era X-Men to be fully adopted to my Earth-ARV42 visual design (which is why the corner box is also adopted from the Destiny of X era). Simple, effective, plus it feels like something that I could also pull off from ARV42 Director Logan's era SHIELD files. The title on the corner box itself, "the Uncanny Frontier", refers to the timeline post-the Great Avengers Purge of 2015.

Pose based on the Hot Toys Spidey's Integrated suit from Spider-Man: No Way Home movie, picture found on Reddit: