Evan dashed forward without hesitation, closing the distance in a blur and throwing a swift right hook aimed directly at Orfevre's face. The red-coated twin had already read the motion before it fully formed, she smoothly sidestepped the punch with ease, twisting her body at the same time to drive a sharp uppercut upward toward his jaw.
Evan reacted instantly, raising his arm to intercept the strike before it could land cleanly. The impact still rattled through him, but he did not give her time to press the advantage.
With barely a pause between movements, the blue-coated twin retaliated with a rapid combination of a punch and a kick, trying to break her guard before she could reset. Orfevre shifted her weight, slipping past the first strike and gliding out of range of the second, leaving Evan momentarily exposed.
Seizing the opening, she drove a devastating gut punch straight into his midsection and knocked the wind out of him. Before he could recover, she followed immediately with a spinning kick, but Evan raised his gauntlets and blocked the attack head-on. The force of the collision sent a shiver racing through her leg and up through her body.
Taking advantage of that brief opening, Evan surged forward with a relentless flurry of kicks. Each strike came with the faint, flickering silhouette of his Devil Trigger flaring in and out behind him, and the added force from the Devil Arm Beowulf turned every hit into something heavier, harsher, and far more difficult to withstand.
Orfevre's defense began to crack under the pressure, the rhythm of her counterattacks becoming more strained with every impact. Then Evan planted his foot, built up momentum in a single explosive motion, and drove a high rising kick upward that launched Orfevre backward through the air.
The red-coated twin tumbled across the battlefield, but she recovered with admirable control and landed nimbly on her feet, one hand moving to wipe the blood from the corner of her lip while her eyes stayed locked on her brother.
She did not waste time; she drew Agni & Rudra and charged straight at him, spinning the twin blades in her hands as flames and wind followed in her wake. She swung them hard toward her brother, but Evan parried the first strike and dashed back just in time to avoid the second slash, the heat of the blades passing close enough to ruffle his coat.
He immediately rushed forward again, launching into a relentless barrage of punches and kicks meant to overwhelm her before she could establish her own rhythm. Orfevre clenched her teeth and fought to keep up, parrying what she could, sidestepping what she could not, and deflecting each blow with all the force she had left while refusing to let him push her back any farther than necessary.
When Evan leapt into the air and came down with a swift spinning kick, Orfevre mirrored the motion almost instinctively. Their legs collided midair with a resonant impact that canceled both strikes, sending a sharp shock through the space between them before they dropped back apart.
Enduring through the numbness in her leg, Orfevre followed up with a direct slash, trying to break his momentum and force him into a mistake. Evan dashed behind her just as the blade cut through the air where he had been standing, and without missing a beat he leapt upward and drove a powerful dropkick straight toward her.
The attack crashed into her guts and sent her skidding backward, but even as she staggered, Orfevre twisted her body into a flawless flare, spinning low to the ground before springing back up with twin blades in hand. In one fluid motion, she carved through the air and unleashed a burst of flame and wind toward Evan, the elemental force surging toward him in a violent wave.
Evan dashed past the attack before it could catch him fully, then answered with a dropkick, striking Orfevre directly and forcing her back again. As she staggered, he used Doppelganger, and a shadowy clone of swords formed behind him instead of a full copy of himself. Evan drove his fist into her guts, and at the same instant the shadowy swords shot forward, stabbing into her body and leaving her stunned long enough for him to keep pressing the attack.
Capitalizing on the opening, Evan dashed behind her and hammered two solid punches into Orfevre's back before sending another volley of shadowy swords stabbing into her from behind. Then he spun gracefully and unleashed a flurry of rapid kicks, each one landing with brutal precision and forcing his sister to reel under the pressure.
"This," Evan said as he turned through the motion, ending with his back against her.
"Is," he continued, demonic energy surging around him in a violent burst.
"POWER!"
He activated his Devil Trigger in the same instant, and with one final backhand strike, he smashed into Orfevre's face before the transformation burned itself away in a flash of azure flame.
Suddenly, a blazing fireball crashed directly into Evan's back with enough force to jolt him forward and send a hot burst of flame scattering across the altar, the explosion rolling over the stone in a wave of heat that made the arena feel even more brutal than it already was. His coat snapped violently in the wind as he turned, the fabric whipping behind him while smoke curled up from the impact.
Standing beside Gwen and Lady was Heatblast.
The living magma alien lowered his arm, smoke rising in thin trails from his rocky body while flames continued to burn across his shoulders and along the cracks in his skin.
"Focus on Evan first! He is more out of control than Oru!" Lady shouted to the others, her voice sharp and urgent as Heatblast lunged forward again.
Without wasting another second, Heatblast surged ahead, jets of fire blasting from his palms as he thrust both hands forward and unleashed a massive wave of flame toward Evan. The heat rolled across the arena in a scorching rush.
Evan narrowed his gaze on the group, his mind and instincts now deeply merged with the older son of Sparda's mindset. The line separating Evan from Vergil had become increasingly blurred, not just in the way he fought, but in the coldness of his expression, the measured calm in his breathing, and the almost detached precision in the way he moved. His thoughts, his instincts, his mannerisms, all of them had begun blending together until it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.
He stepped back just enough to avoid Heatblast's attack, then lifted one hand toward him.
A ring of swords made of light appeared around Evan in perfect formation, each blade materializing with a sharp flash before their tips immediately locked on the fiery alien.
Heatblast's eyes widened. "What?"
The answer came a second later when the light blades shot forward all at once, slicing through the space between them and stabbing into him from every direction. The force pinned his magma-like body in place, and the impact sent a violent jolt through the altar as the tower seemed to shake in sympathy with the strike.
"Aughh!"
Heatblast was blasted backward by the force of the attack, the swords of light still stuck across his rock-like body as Lady followed up immediately, raising her pistols and opening fire toward him in rapid succession.
Evan did not even turn fully toward the bullets. He merely lifted the still-sheathed Yamato and parried every shot with the flat of the blade, each impact ringing out with sharp metallic precision as the bullets were swatted away in a blur of motion.
Standing back up, Heatblast launched another powerful fireball toward Evan, forcing him to dash backward just in time to avoid the blast. At the exact same moment, Orfevre charged in from the side, thrusting the Rebellion directly toward her brother with enough force to crack the air around the blade.
Evan raised the Yamato and parried the strike.
The clash heated the blade in his hand as he was driven back across the altar's edge, his boots skidding over the stone while sparks and steam exploded around the point of contact. He steadied himself only after forcing his feet into the slick surface, then looked up at the group now standing against him.
Orfevre, Lady, Heatblast, and Gwen all stood before him with their weapons ready and their eyes locked on him.
"Have you decided..." Evan asked calmly, holding the sheathed Yamato up in front of him as he stared directly at them, "Which one of you will die first?"
Gwen frowned immediately, gripping her spear more tightly as she stood behind her cousin.
"You know," she said, her voice carrying a mixture of frustration and disbelief, "I like you more when you don't sound like you want to kill us."
Heatblast immediately chimed in, his voice still carrying the edge of someone trying to keep the situation from becoming even worse than it already was.
"See? Even Gwen thinks you're being weird. Snap out of it, dude!"
Without waiting for anyone else to answer, Heatblast thrust both hands forward and launched himself directly toward Evan, jets of flame roaring from his palms as he closed the distance in a streak of fire. Orfevre followed close behind him, dragging the Rebellion against the stone with a harsh metallic scrape as she rushed in after him.
"Ah Puch," Evan murmured.
His shadow expanded beneath him.
The darkness on the ground stretched outward, deepening and widening until a massive shape rose from it like something dragging itself out of a grave. The guardian spirit emerged from the shadow in heavy, deliberate motion and stepped directly into the path of the charging pair, its presence instantly changing the mood of the battlefield.
"He can summon that thing here!?" Heatblast complained, immediately shifting his flight path to avoid slamming into Ah Puch head-on.
Lady reacted at once, raising her rocket launcher and firing straight at the spirit.
"Be careful! Ah Puch can't be killed!"
Evan raised his hand again, and this time a swarm of black bats burst outward toward the others. Thousands of dark wings filled the air in a sudden cloud of motion, forcing them back while he stepped away from another slash from Orfevre and met her blade with the Yamato in a clean parry that sent sparks into the air once more.
"Do you really think you stand a chance?" Evan asked, his tone calm enough to be insulting as he waved his right hand to the side and summoned his Doppelganger.
When Orfevre saw the almost perfect clone of her brother emerge beside him, she did not even look surprised anymore. By this point she had already accepted that nothing about him was normal, and the game world itself had long since gone beyond the point of making sense, so she only answered by drawing Ebony and Ivory again, spinning the twin guns in her hands once before leveling them at both Evan and his clone.
"Let's go, partners."
Orfevre opened fire on both of them, and the bullets forced Evan to parry while his Doppelganger stood behind him, holding its blade and dash forward, moving past him and heading directly toward her.
She quickly rolled to the side, avoiding the slash, before she quickly opened fire at Evan and Doppelganger. This forces the two to dart around the battlefield in different directions to avoid being hit.
Even so, Orfevre adapted quickly to their movement, tracking both of them by predicting where they would appear and firing ahead of time, keeping them boxed in and far enough apart that neither could close in easily.
When Evan realized he was getting nowhere with that approach, he suddenly reappeared in front of his sister and parried her bullets with Yamato, knocking the shots aside in a burst of sparks. Orfevre answered by keeping Ebony trained on him and continuing to fire, while her other hand shifted behind her back and turned Ivory toward his Doppelganger, forcing the clone to back off when it tried to flank her from the side.
Then, suddenly, a wave of flame came crashing toward them and forced Evan and his Doppelganger to step back together.
Orfevre turned quickly, both Ebony and Ivory raised, just as Evan reappeared in front of her once more, the tails of their coats whipping dramatically through the heat and smoke swirling around the altar.
Orfevre suddenly shifted her right arm around her neck, pointing Ivory behind her back and open fire, causing Doppelganger to disappear before reappearing behind Evan.
"Is that all?" Evan asked, his voice carrying a mocking edge as he steadied himself.
"You aren't scared, are you?" Orfevre shot back with a smirk, lowering her weapons, her own confidence burning just as hot as his.
Then both of them switched back to their blades and crashed together once more, the demonic metal of Yamato and Rebellion ringing out across the altar in another explosive impact that shook the tower around them.
"Up you go!" Orfevre yelled, spinning her blade and launching her brother skyward before following him upward herself with multiple spinning slashes.
"Down you go!" Evan countered from midair, twisting through a rapid succession of strikes that drove his sister back down into the stone.
The two landed and were on their feet again almost immediately, both of them swinging their blades with renewed force as blood splattered across the altar around them. At this point, they had both abandoned any real attempt at defense and had thrown themselves fully into the fight, relying on their inhuman healing factors to keep them standing no matter how many times they cut into each other.
Evan drove Yamato forward and stabbed Orfevre cleanly in the guts.
"Oh no you don't!" she shouted right back, thrusting the Rebellion into her brother's stomach as the two of them dropped to one knee in the same instant.
They both lifted their heads and met each other's eyes.
Then, with blades still buried in each other's bodies, they stood back up anyway, each one summoning their weapons as Evan called forth Beowulf and Orfevre answered with Agni & Rudra.
The two rushed forward again before they could create too much distance, but just as the next exchange was about to begin, the ground beneath them suddenly shook violently.
The massive altar they were standing on began rising, its stone foundation groaning as the entire structure rose upward toward the top of the tower.
Ah Puch halted its attack on Heatblast.
Lady was on one knee at the altar, blood running down its surface as the final requirement for unsealing Sparda's power was completed.
The shaking ground sent Gwen, who had been standing near the edge, stumbling and falling. She screamed as she lost her balance, but before she could go over, Evan suddenly appeared before her, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her back to safety.
"Thank-" she began, still catching her breath, before her expression shifted into confusion. "Huh, wait? Evan, whose side are you on?"
"What kind of stupid question is that?" Evan asked, already turning away from her. "Aren't we family?"
He walked straight toward Orfevre, reached for the hilt of the Yamato still buried in her stomach, and she did the same with the Rebellion, gripping the handle as both of them pulled their blades free from each other's bodies at the exact same time.
As the two of them fought and let themselves fight without restraint, the core feeling they shared between their identities began to sync more and more clearly.
Dante and Vergil enjoyed fighting each other.
Orfevre and Ever enjoyed fighting each other.
And as those emotions fell into alignment, their thoughts and instincts stopped colliding quite so violently and instead began settling into something clearer, more balanced, as though the two halves of their identities were finally learning how to coexist without one overshadowing the other.
As the altar continued rising toward the top of the tower, the demonic power pouring through the altar made the twins flicker between their human forms and their Devil Trigger forms, their bodies surging between states from the sudden increase of demonic energy.
Then, looking upward, they saw the dark sky above them tear open.
An ominous crimson gateway split the heavens apart, and through it came swarms of demonic bats and demons, all of them spilling through the rupture in reality and diving straight toward the summit.
The group moved instantly.
Lady raised her rocket launcher and opened fire, blasting apart the demons trying to circle overhead, while Gwen raised her spear and moved in to help against the weaker ones slipping through the barrage. Heatblast's time ran out in the middle of the chaos, returning him back to human form, but thanks to the other Omnitrix icons he had collected along the way, Ben immediately transformed into Rath and tore into the demons with ferocious strength. The twins joined in as well, moving with far more rhythm now that their identities had begun to settle, slashing through the creatures approaching them and cutting a path through the storm of demons flooding down from the sky.