Summary: Some weird idea I got a few nights ago, spawned in the depths of my twisted little mind. A woman from the Baldur's Gate games, one of my own characters, has to enlist Dante and Vergil to help her stop her own great-granddaughter from releasing the sealed power and essences of her father, the god of murder Bhaal, with the aid of the demons of their world.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dante and Vergil. Capcom does. I know the twins, but I can't claim ownership. Nor do I own the Forgotten Realms; that belongs to Wizards of the Coast, and the Baldur's Gate games are their joint property with TSR. Natasha and Laraedina, however, are totally mine. A lot of the other characters mentioned herein are also mine. No taking, or Ebony and Ivory will do the talking. You have been warned.

One on One

Natasha awoke from the Reverie close to sunrise, as she always did. It seemed that Time ran similar on this world, and for that she was grateful. Sunrise and moonrise were her two favorite times of the day.

Dressing in a fresh tunic and combing out her hair with her fingers, the elf-woman grabbed her twin swords and went out back, hoping to watch the sunrise.

But there was something far more interesting to watch than the sun.

Vergil was practicing with his katana.

Natasha paused in the doorway and watched him, enthralled by his slow movements, his unconscious display of perfect mastery, perfect harmony with his blade. Silhouetted against the rising sun, he seemed even more of the perfect warrior, some figment left over from the dawn of time itself….

A god in mortal form.

She shook the images away as he finished his routines, and strolled out to speak with him. Natasha suddenly felt the need for a good sparring match.

He looked at her with unreadable eyes as she approached. Like the elf-woman, Vergil was wearing only lighter fabrics. Pants, boots, and a shirt were all he wore during this daily ritual, if he wore a shirt at all. "Did you need something?" he queried, sliding Yamato back into its sheath and reaching for a towel.

"Actually, I was hoping to spar with you." Natasha unsheathed Foebane and Answerer, twirled them in her hands experimentally. "I prefer to learn of my companions' fighting abilities before I depend upon them in battle. Is it not better to know if you will be fighting alongside a master rather than a novice ahead of time?" She gave him an appraising look as he toweled off the sweat on his face and arms. "I can see that you have some skill that that blade, but I would like to know the full measure of your abilities. What say you?"

Vergil cocked an eyebrow at her. "Agreed. But how do you intend to keep from harming me, or me killing you? You do not wear you armor, Natasha."

She smiled, and pulled something out of a bag hanging at her side, this one purple with a green cord. "I can cast a spell upon you and I, a spell that will encase your flesh in stone. You will still be able to move as if it were not there, but my slices will not cut your skin. The shock of the blows will be transmitted directly to your bones, but it is better than dying merely from a sparring match. At least until the spell wears off. It can only block so many hits." Silvery dust glittered in her cupped hand as she moved towards him, stopping only a short distance away. "Will you allow me to cast the spell?"

The half-demon considered her for a moment. He knew nothing of a protective spell that could do such a thing, but then again, she wielded a foreign magic, unlike any found on Earth. Perhaps she could do such a thing. "Yes. Cast your spell, and let us begin."

She nodded, and closed her eyes in concentration. Musical syllables of gibberish spilled from her lips, and she sprinkled the dust over their heads. Vergil felt a slight chill, and looked down at his skin.

Then did a double-take.

Every inch of him, including his clothes, had turned alabaster-white.

Natasha had too, he realized. Only her eyes remained their original color, perfect emeralds and golden dust shining from palest stone. He imagined that he was much the same way, a living statue with gemstones for eyes.

How fitting for me…he thought. But utter sacrilege for her.

Natasha took a few steps back, and readied her blades. "What's wrong? Are you afraid the spell won't work?" She settled into a fighter's crouch, her smile wide upon her pale face. "Come on, then! Test it out!"

Yamato hissed from its sheath, and Vergil raced for her, fully intending to slice the offensive rock off of her skinny frame before she could react.

His momentum stopped, when he realized that she had caught Yamato in a perfect cross, parrying with two blades an attack that had never failed him before. He stared into her eyes, amazed that she could stop that attack, and realized that he had underestimated her.

He evaded her kicking foot with a perfect back-kickflip, landing a short distance away from her and preparing himself for her charge.

His grin mirrored her own.

This is gonna be fun.

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Dante awoke to the sound of metal clashing against metal, a sound familiar to anyone who made use of a sword. He knew Vergil would be out back, doing his daily thing with Yamato, and he figured that Natasha had challenged him to a sparring match. He'd seen the fire in her eyes last night, when he had first met her. She would enjoy a good match against his brother, and Vergil would enjoy a new opponent to test his skills. Dante would bet his entire life-savings on it.

With that thought in mind, he strolled into the bathroom to begin his own morning ritual.

The sounds of a swordfight still echoed through Devil May Cry when he finally exited the bathroom and headed into the kitchen, wondering if there was any pizza left from yesterday. He grabbed a slice and wandered outside, settling onto the solitary lounge-chair on the pathetically tiny back porch to watch the show.

The fight raged around the yard, neither elf nor half-demon giving a single inch. Natasha was possessed of truly amazing agility, and she used this to her advantage, constantly rolling with parries and cutting at Vergil from totally unexpected angles with the speed of a striking serpent, or flipping over his head and away from Yamato, slicing at his unprotected back or charging back into combat before he had a chance to breathe. Her speed was fully the equal of his own, and Dante could see that she was, at the very least, his brother's equal.

But Vergil was possessed of more than a few tricks of his own. A cunning and supremely skilled fighter, he had already figured out how to use some of Natasha's attacks against her, setting her up for counterstrikes she only just managed to parry, if she caught them at all. Like her, he used agility to avoid most of her attacks, or he simply used his teleportive abilities to get away and drop in on her from above or behind. Neither of them had landed many hits thus far.

The three blades crashed together once more, the force of the block throwing both combatants several yards apart. Vergil sped towards her once more, Yamato slicing through the air in a deadly, unavoidable web of silvered steel. Dante held his breath; that maneuver was his own undoing more often than anything else his brother was capable of. Natasha, racing towards his attacking twin, was surely doomed to lose.

But like Vergil, he had underestimated the elf-woman.

Without warning, she dropped to her knees and spun to the side, avoiding a slash that would have sliced her neck open, and slashed hard at Vergil's vulnerable back, then threw herself into a flipping back-kick for good measure. Her blades and her foot connected hard, and Vergil went sprawling. Before he could even turn over, Natasha was straddling his back, her blades crossed before his throat in an unmistakable threat. He stopped moving.

"Give up?" she asked, quirking a brow at him playfully.

"Give up? No. Concede victory to a worthy opponent? Yes." She took the blades away and let him up, staying well out of Yamato's reach. Vergil cleaned the blade off and looked at her questioningly as he resheathed the katana. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

Natasha grinned, resheathing her blades with a flourish. "I have more than four hundred years' experience with the sword, my friend. You don't travel that long without picking up some tricks, and I have killed more than my fair share of monsters, demons, and so-called swords-masters."

Vergil nodded, and the stoneskins melted away, reverting them back to their original appearance. She's the first woman to have ever beaten me. I wonder how skilled she is in other arenas? Such as the bedroom?

She was likewise eyeing him thoughtfully, considering. Such a handsome man, and one of the most skilled fighters I have ever met. But he's so cold…Is there any way to warm him up, I wonder?

Their silent reveries were broken by a series of whistles and claps from the tiny porch. Their eyes went to Dante, who was applauding them. "A truly masterful performance! Encore, I say! Encore!"

Natasha had to grin. Dante reminded her of Imoen, her long-dead half-sister and best friend.

Vergil merely scowled at his intruding twin. He seemed to have a knack for showing up at the most inappropriate, uncomfortable times.

"Don't you have anything better to do than watch us?" he asked, trying hard to kill his twin with only his glare. It failed; Dante didn't suffer heart arrest and die on the spot.

"Nope. The only plans I had for this morning involve helping Natasha here find her little hellraiser." Dante took a bite of his pizza, and Vergil frowned. He still couldn't understand exactly why his brother was so enamored of that disgusting mixture of bread, tomato sauce, cheese, mushrooms, and pepperoni. Pizza only gave him heartburn.

"I still need to study the spell. Is there anything to eat? I am a little hungry."

Dante held up his pizza slice. Natasha wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"How about something a little more…traditional? Like actual breakfast food?"

"I can make you something. Pizza isn't exactly something I like, either," Vergil offered. He had long since come to the conclusion that, if he was going to ever partake of nutritious food, he had to cook his own meals. Dante was forbidden to ever touch the microwave or the stove ever again. One exploding appliance was more then enough for Vergil to deal with in his lifetime. Thank God they had finally replaced the toaster, or Dante would have been dead several times over by now. Vergil was a bear to deal with in the mornings if he didn't get his toasted English muffin.

"I'd like that." Natasha rewarded him with a smile as she disappeared through the door and up the stairs.

Dante noticed the slightest tinge of pink creep into his brother's face. He's blushing! Where's a camera when I need one? He sidled up to his elder twin. "So…anything new?"

"No. Nothing new." Aside from the fact that I think I may be falling for an elf-woman who is going to leave me as soon as she kills her great-granddaughter.

"Wanna come upstairs with me and try to catch her in her underwear?" Dante waggled his eyebrows. "Maybe we could have a threesome before the sun gets too high."

Vergil snarled; Dante looked down at Yamato, now impaled through his left shoulder.

"I'll take that as a 'no.'"

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Natasha was memorizing her spells when Vergil brought her breakfast. She looked up as he opened the door, and set her spellbook aside, taking the tray and setting in on the pillow beside her.

"Thank you, Vergil. You are most kind," she said, looking over the meal. Fried eggs, toast, and bacon. One of her favorite breakfast combinations.

"We do not have ale or wine, only old beer. I hope milk will suffice," Vergil replied. Nobody's ever said I was kind before.

"Milk is fine." Natasha rewarded him with another smile, and Vergil felt another blush creeping over his skin. Thankfully, the elf-woman didn't notice. She bit into a piece of bacon and picked up the leather-bound tome, studying it intently.

He tried to look at the symbols inscribed on the pages, but Natasha saw this and slammed the book shut. "Do not do that again!"

He blinked. "Why not?"

"You are not skilled with the arcane arts. Magical runes attack the eyes of the untrained." She looked at him, a pleading look in her eyes. "It could make you go insane, or cause you to lose your sight. That would be a great tragedy, for you."

Vergil felt transfixed by her gold-and-green eyes, and slowly sat in the empty space between her and the footboard. A lock of hair had fallen across her face; he reached out to smooth it back. "Why would it be a great tragedy?"

She trembled lightly at his touch. He was so handsome, and it had been so long… "To be enveloped in everlasting darkness, to never be able to collect your scattered thoughts enough to fully understand or be understood by any save the nightmares which torment your shattered mind, is always a tragedy."

"I would agree, but…" He leaned closer to her, his face only inches from her own. "Thinking is sometimes overrated."

Her breath shuddered out in a whisper. "Aye."

He was going to kiss her. At that moment, so close to her, the epitome of female perfection, his pursuit of complete weapons mastery, of becoming the perfect warrior, seemed petty indeed compared to a physical merging with the woman before him. Even his former dreams of absolute power seemed small compared to this…

He reached out to touch her hair, guiding her closer to him. Their eyes closed in anticipation of their kiss…

"Natasha! You ready to Search?"

Dante's voice was a splash of cold water, cooling their ardor and prying them apart. Natasha blushed furiously and went back to her spellbook, furiously shoveling eggs into her mouth to cover her embarrassment. Vergil snarled, and stood up to go downstairs. He wanted to kill his idiotic younger twin. "What should I tell him?" he gritted out.

"Tell him I'm almost finished. I'll be down soon." Her hair fell forward as she ducked her head, hiding her face from the half-demon.

He nodded, and bent closer to her. "Don't think I won't finish this at a later time, Natasha. I finish what I start," he hissed into her ear.

Natasha said nothing. He turned and left the room, tromping downstairs loud enough to shake the stairs.

Yamato once more found a sheath in Dante's shoulder. Vergil tore his treasured katana out of his brother's flesh with a guttural snarl, and stormed outside, leaving Dante to stare after him.

"What the fuck was that for?"

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Queen: I'm usually not good at writing fight scenes, so if this sparring match sucked, I apologize! I only had Vergil to help me with this one!

Vergil: At least she got some of my attacks straight, although I do not appreciate the idea of me sprawling shirtless in the mud.

Dante: Actually, that was pretty funny.

(Yamato hisses from sheath)

Vergil: Say it again, brother…

Queen: Guys, don't do this right now! It's Halloween! Shouldn't you be getting ready to go?

Dante: Candy…Mmmm…

Vergil: We are far too old for trick-or-treat, Dante.

Dante: But I look so good as a vampire!

Queen: He's right about that, Vergil…

Vergil (throws hands up in air, cutting apart ceiling with Yamato. Plaster rains down upon our heroes): Fine. If you two want to rot your teeth on candy and act like idiots, then that's your prerogative. I'm staying here.

Queen: Which means you get to clean up this mess.

Vergil: Now wait just a damn minute…

(Queen and Dante race out of computer room, laughing like maniacs. Vergil fumes.)

Vergil: Just wait 'till I get my hands on them…