#then when he got older especially after he met lady he became mentally stronger and even sharp (parallel to his rws and model versions)

[bruhstation]

younger henry cringe compilation

[rodentsunite]

Devil May Cry OC Week: Mercenaries (4/4) Trickster and Gunslinger

The week’s not over until I say so

Agent ???? [Trickster]

If you guys have thoughts on any names I’d love to hear them. I’ve got nada. 

Created a contract with the disgraced demon of the Malebranche: Draghignazzo 

He was responsible for punishing religious figures in the 8th Circle of Hell until he became greedy 

Draghignazzo feels cheated, now wants to become stronger to rise above his original rank 

Trickster agreed to form a contract so she would never have to fear vulnerability for the rest of her life, promising to help her familiar get stronger through the consumption of red orbs

His current form really is that tiny compared to Trickster (at least until he shapeshifts but that ability is temporary since he is weak)

He chose to appear as an umbrella to blend in and fit Trickster’s aesthetic 

Unlike the other three, Trickster has not had traumatic experiences with demonic attacks, is instead plagued by the manipulation of the church

Think of the brainwashing mentality those intense bible-thumping churches/religions have.  

She is incredibly paranoid of deities/religious beings watching her every move, reading her mind

Hides her anxiety by behaving apathetically (plus Draghignazzo grows to become rather soft on her and cracks jokes to try and make her feel better)

She is bitter with her childhood classmate now teammate/begrudging friend (Gunslinger) as he continues to participate in the church’s worship

She is not aware that he is also a victim of said church, just handles it differently 

Is an orphan. Doesn’t remember her parents. Her maternal aunt and uncle took her in

Forced her to participate in the church since she was young

Being rebellious since she could walk, Trickster often acted out, and her aunt placed her in a private school under the same church where she met Gunslinger

Trickster is human(?)

Has to have some magical ability since she was able to summon a demon as chaotic and shifty as Draghignazzo

Or so he thinks

Trickster says it’s because he was desperate for attention

She is able to summon other demons without forming any contracts, but cannot form a bond with them if she doesn’t, so her only current familiar is Draghignazzo. 

She is short. Like 5′2″.

If you joke about it prepare to get swatted on the butt

She is quiet but always watching. Always judging. Past classmates believed she was mute.

Trickster is an adult. 19 at the youngest. 

Insists on calling Draghignazzo by his full name

Agent ???? [Gunslinger]

Exactly 5′11″ 

Says he doesn’t care but every now and then he wears shoes with a heel to feel 6ft+ (Never reaches Royalguard’s height though)

100% Human

“What’s a Sparda? Like...from the movie?”

Once he starts hanging out with Royalguard, the smell of strong demon gets stuck on him for a bit. Demons with the ability to speak sometimes confuse him as another descendant of Sparda especially because of the white hair and blue eyes. 

Will become targeted when this happens. He hates it and doesn’t know why it happens. 

Is one of four children from a very wealthy and very conservative southern family.

His dad would take him hunting, introducing Gunslinger to all types of firearms. 

Responsible for starting his collection.

His family also has plenty of military veterans including his two older brothers who are active. Gunslinger’s grandparents expect him to join too, but he has other plans.

Looks up to demon hunters like Lady the way children do to Wonder Woman or Superman 

Grew up in the same church as Trickster but has only positive memories, though the more he thinks about his past there the scarier it seems...

Is currently stuck in that awkward phase of not completely believing the church anymore but saving face for the sake of his family who are die-hard worshippers. 

His family was not cruel, but not affectionate either. It’s why he’s drawn to extroverts and friendly people.

Is VERY. VERY. TOUCH-STARVED. 

Thought Trickster was weird growing up but after participating in several group projects (they were in the same classes) he was fascinated with her points of view. 

Saw the demon hunting mercenary work as a win-win. His parents are more or less content with him working alongside the military, he gets to use his firearms, and lives out the very naïve of being a hero. 

Grows his hair out since he couldn’t when he lived with his parents. Loves messing with it and braiding it. It is naturally white. 

He’s also figuring out his own style, hence the polo shirt and Hot-Topic pants and wallet chain.

Was a little insecure about his freckles but once Trickster made the off-handed comment that they’re cute, he started to like them. 

She does not remember this (it did happen)

Sees Draghignazzo as a satanic chihuahua. 

Because of his wealthy background, he doesn’t blink when he has to pay a lot to have things custom made. Nico likes to exploit this. 

Was exceptional in his archery club back in high-school. Is a fantastic marksman even now. 

Is interested in cosplay.

[marrisawrites]

Mumble

Phillip's carriage reached the city at 8:00 AM and he was already looking forward to returning to the carriage that evening and turning it around. He hated New York and the ever growing capitalism of it - of America itself. He hated the busy streets teeming with do-gooders, street urchins, independent women, needy children and negroes. The ever changing nature of America sickened him. It was all about progress. Let the women work, let the blacks live, save the children.

Phillip was perfectly content to live alone in his little ranch house in the small towns surrounding the city. It turned out, he was good with numbers which made him a valuable addition to the ever growing Wall Street. Stock brokers and investment bankers were like superheroes to the new corporations. Some people thought these advancements were great - more jobs, more inclusive society, convenience. It made Phillip think about the difference time makes. 1800 and 1900 looked very different. He couldn't even begin to imagine was 2000 would look like.

Eight years as a banker in New York weren't worth the soul crushingly mundane way he lived, but there was consistency, which he liked. Every day he took a carriage into Manhattan. Then he walked to his office and sat there all day long. Then he and his coworkers went to the pubs and got drunk. The carriage left the city with him on it by 9:00 PM. Saturdays and Sundays were for doing as little as possible in his clean, quiet little home. It sounds mundane, but that's perfect for Phillip, a normal, boring business man.

There were a thousand people in New York who lived the same life he did and they were just fine. People think of New York as a place of enlightenment and excitement, but it's the lesser so that make that possible. New York was full of the same kinds of people. Everyone was just a face in the crowd.

One face always stuck out to Phillip, though. The face of a grungy, lame newsboy whom he saw every single day. The boy was young - maybe seven years old - with straight brown hair that came down past his ears. He was also, as the intellectuals would say, developmentally challenged. He didn't learn words well and he wasn't very bright. Still, Phillip was, in a way, drawn to the boy. He seemed familiar, like someone he knew.

Phillip wasn't a fan of the newsboys. If he was going to buy a paper, he preferred to buy them from the wagons which were normally manned by an adult. The children were grimy and loud and pathetic looking, especially the girls. Granted most of them were either dirt poor or orphans, they grew up with no manners and no etiquette. On more than one occasion had Phillip witnessed several of the young news boys fighting in large groups and saying the most profane things. They had no supervision and no rules. It was pathetic.

One day, Phillip decided to approach the scrawny, lame news boy he felt drawn to. He thought that the kid looked a bit like him from a distance, but the resemblance was even more undeniable up close. They both had a similar face structure and the same nose. It was the boy's eyes that really sold Phillip on having some kind of relationship to the boy - not because they're like his, but because they're like hers.

The realization hit Phillip so suddenly. It was eight or nine years prior that they had been together. There was a young girl named Katherine. Her father owned a factory that Phillip ran numbers on for a few years. During this time, the two had struck up a relationship, but not by any conventional means. Katherine was a sheltered girl who wanted to do all the things her parents told her not to. Phillip was hesitant, but not about to turn down what he was offered; an intimate relationship with a beautiful girl and no obligation to her when the night was through.

Her father found out and was furious. He fired Phillip immediately and Katherine was shipped away to a reformatory upstate. Her father had called her mental and sick, and Phillip a disgusting disgrace to respectable, hard working young men everywhere. Phillip never saw Katherine again. He wondered about her from time to time, but not enough to try and find her or anything.

Now, looking into the face of this young child, he knows exactly what happened to her.

“Wanna buy a pape, mister?” The kid asked in a naturally slurred voice.

“Sure, I'll take a newspaper,” Phillip said and exchanged his coin for a paper.

That was the end of their transaction and he should have gone on his way, but he wasn't ready to lose the child again.

“What's your name, son?” He asked, though he could tell the child was antsy to move on to his next customer.

The kid shrugged. “My folks didn't name me. The fellas call me Mumble. ‘ts ‘cuz I mumble when I talks, see?”

Phillip only nodded. Katherine didn't name him. He wondered if her father even gave her the chance to before disposing of him like any other ordinary inconvenience.

“Well,” Phillip said, “Good day.”

The boy shouted, “Good day, mister!” as Phillip walked away.

Phillip's curiosity about the child didn't waver over the next few days. It became stronger, in fact, so much so that he sought some answers. He knew a guy who had a lot of information about the kids that lived on the street. He worked for some kind of project to help get orphans off the streets and into the classrooms. Phillip thought it was a waste of time. If the kids didn't want to be in the classrooms, they wouldn't be and forcing them wouldn't change their minds.

Mumble was dropped off at the St Peter Roman Catholic Church seven years ago in the middle of the night. He was almost three years old and wasn't physically harmed. The parents didn't leave a note with him or anything. They kept him around a group of other abandoned kids and they eventually nicknamed him Mumble, though the ladies had started calling him Thomas. Mumble stuck better. When Mumble was five, he and some of the other boys traded the church for the Newsboy Lodging House and started selling papers.

One thing Phillip never knew is how demanding it actually was to sell papers. He knew they started young, but to be only five years old spending all day on the street corner in the rain, heat, or snow to make a living seemed a little wrong. Phillip tried to remember what he was doing at age five - it certainly wasn't working the streets to sell newspapers for a penny a piece no matter what the weather.

Every day after that, Phillip looked for Mumble and always found him in the exact same spot only a few blocks from the church that took him in. He bought a paper every day, too, even though he didn't care about most of the nonsense The World published.

He felt a new sense of sorrow for all the boys now that he had a connection. He felt bad when he saw them standing in the rain still waving the newspapers and asking every passer if they would buy. More often than not, they declined, not wanting to be out in the rain any longer than necessary. When it got really hot, he would see the kids fanning themselves and each other with their papers and bargaining over who would go into the nearest shop to beg for a glass of water. On the cold days, the kids would huddle close together for warmth whenever they were taking a break from selling. They didn't seem to have many more layers than they did the rest of the year, if they had any at all.

Before he knew it, Phillip had been keeping an eye out for Mumble for a year. He eventually started lingering on the corner across from Mumble’s selling spot for hours at a time. Mumble didn't seem to grow at all in that time. Sometimes Phillip felt an urge to tell the kid the truth and get him off the streets, but in the end he always let that thought run its course. He seemed happy. Phillip once stayed there so late he saw Mumble finish selling all of his papers. Then he helped his friend sell his last few papers and they met up with this big group of kids and walked on down the street together.

Phillip noticed that Mumble never seemed to stop smiling. Sometimes people would tease him for mumbling and he would just shrug it off and offer them a paper. His friends would check on him after that he would brush the concern away. He was tough.

One day, Phillip got to the corner a few minutes later than usual and when he got there, he witnessed a pretty brutal fight in Mumble's spot. There was a big group kids pushing, shoving, and shouting. Some bystanders were trying to break it up, but others just watched in fascination. Phillip didn't intervene, either. He didn't have any kind of excuse, he just didn't help. Though he knew Mumble was in the pile somewhere and probably needed his help.

The police eventually broke up the fight. Most of the kids involved weren't news boys, but just random kids. Mumble and his usual group of friends were there, too. Mumble walked away with some blood on his face and a limp on his right side, but his friends supported him as they walked away, abandoning the day's work.

The next day, Phillip didn't see Mumble on the usual corner. In fact, he didn't see him for a week after that.

One of the other boys seemed to gave noticed Phillip among the faces in the crowd the same way he noticed Mumble. He was a black kid, just a little older than Mumble and he crossed the street to approach Phillip without giving a second thought to doing his job.

“Listen here, fella!” The kid snapped. “You wanna buy a paper? I got some. But me and the other boys don't like the way you hang around here. Makes some of the little ones feel off. What's your deal, man?”

Phillip didn't know how to respond. He had never been spoken to like that before, especially not by a street kid. He didn't want to tell the boy that he was there to watch over his son, Mumble, because he didn't want Mumble to find out that way - he didn't want Mumble to find out at all.

The kid seemed to realize Phillip didn't have an answer. He continued, “I see you buying from Mumble every day. You know him or something?”

Phillip finally found a way to turn the conversation around. “Where is Mumble?” He asked. “I haven't seen him for a few days.”

“He got roughed up in a fight and he's been working a new spot. He don't feel safe around here no more,” The boy explained.

“Where did he go?”

The kid looked at him skeptically and then shook his head. “I ain't gotta tell you that. Look, Mumble's family - only family I got. I gotta protect him. Do yourself a favor, mister, and back off. Me and some of the other boys ain't afraid to talk with our fists. Got that?”

The boy ran off across the street and was back to shouting the headline before Phillip could even respond. He stayed rooted in his spot a moment longer, but he met the kid's threatening gaze and went on his way. He briefly considered looking for Mumble, but the city was too big to chase after one little boy that didn't understand his own significance.

He didn't need to either, Phillip decided. He would go home and stop watching Mumble because he had enough people checking in on him; the violent black kid was proof of that. If their paths crossed again, that would be fine, but Phillip couldn't go on watching him like a hawk.

He worried about the newsboys a lot after that. Not just Mumble, either. He worried about all of them now that he realized what they went through. He also supported his friend's attempts at getting kids off the street. They needed an education and somewhere to be safe.

Phillip wondered about Mumble a lot. He hoped Mumble adjusted well to a new selling spot and that his friends would meet him there after selling like they did before. After a few years, Phillip stopped seeing the same boys and they were now replaced by younger ones. He discovered that it was because the kids “aged out” and had to move on from selling papers. He didn't know what became of Mumble when he aged out. He didn't see him again for a long time.

But then, he did. Phillip got more involved in trying to improve the lives of all the street kids in New York and he was working in a community center of sorts for the orphans. There was food, a place to clean up and to rest, and opportunities to learn in small amounts. Almost ten years after the fight that caused Phillip to lose track of Mumble, the place was in full swing.

One day, a young adult with short brown hair and his mother's unmistakable eyes waltzed into the room. He introduced himself to the center's director as Mumble and his friend as Jack. When Phillip heard the name, he turned so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. Jack noticed and he gave Phillip a knowing smile.

Mumble recognized Phillip, too, and rushed over to get caught up. He was working in a market those days and going to school to teach. He still mumbled like when he was a kid, but there was some improvement in his clarity. He was confident, charismatic, and tough. He wasn't at all the way Phillip had previously percepted street kids. He wasn't disrespectful, grimy, or loud. He was a nice guy and someone Phillip enjoyed talking to.

Phillip never told Mumble that he was his father or about how he was conceived. He figured that some things were better left unsaid and he was just as content to be a supportive adult figure in Mumble's life instead.

Phillip continued to work with the street kids until he was too old to work anymore. By the end of his life, he was very proud of what he accomplished. He was surprised at how a face in the crowd changed his entire life.