Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN et al. own Buffy. Capcom owns Devil May Cry, and DMC 2. I don't.

Title: Better the Devil You Know…


Author: Paradigm Shifter

Feedback: I guess I'm reduced to begging again, hmm? Please?

Rating: OK, this is slowly going up. Each chapter gets more 'R'ish than the last. You have been warned…

Notes: Dante Must Die, 'The Despair Embodied' = constant dying. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to reset just to try again. It's starting to get on my nerves… but on the bright side, I've just managed to finish 'Dante Must Die' for the first Devil May Cry… Mundus is a really nasty bugger…

Crossover: Devil May Cry / Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Continuity: DMC1, not 2 (except for Blood Goats). Xander's road trip. That's pretty much it. Enjoy.

~

Dante, panting hard and shivering at the cold still clinging to him, raised his head slowly to look at his saviour. His sword dropped from numb fingers as he kept looking up…

And up…

And up.

Standing nine feet tall easily, Dante's saviour was clearly an incredibly powerful devil. Either the blade in its hand had betrayed its previous bearer, and Xander was dead, or the monstrous form in front of him was Xander.

"Oh… my…"

Those were the only words Dante could form from the shock he felt. Then, as the devil looked down at him, with an expression that showed bloodlust clearly, and even a degree of madness, it began to change.

Seconds later, Xander knelt by him, with a worried look on his face, watching Dante's struggling attempts to warm up.

"Dante, are you gonna be alright? Those things got you good."

Dante reached for his sword once more, and using it like a cane, levered himself to his feet, and shook himself. "Yeah… I'll be fine, I've just got to warm up a bit…"

"You sure?" asked Xander.

"Yeah," replied Dante. "Look… um… how did you do that?"

Xander shrugged. "Do you mean the trigger bit?"

Dante shook his head. "No. That I know how you did, although I wasn't sure if I had read you correctly. With the past few missions, and your distinct refusal to DT, I was wondering if you would ever…"

Xander turned away. "Whoa… Dante… cut down on the babble, man, you're worse than Willow!" He turned back, his face serious. "So what did you mean then?"

"You were badly hurt, weren't you? You had I don't know how many broken ribs…"

"…Nine…" interjected Xander.

Dante scowled, but continued, "and had major burns on your hands and face from that elemental burning up, not to mention the claw marks…"

"…Third degree burns…" muttered Xander.

"And then you come along as a form I thought I would never see…" Dante trailed off, and Xander frowned, remembering previous conversations and random comments that Dante had made over the time they had known each other.

"You knew, didn't you, Dante? That I could do this?" tears appeared at the corners of his eyes. "What have I become?" he asked weakly.

Dante, finally warming up, sheathed Alastor and walked over to the pool of blood remaining on the ground. "You have 'become' nothing, Xander. You are the same person that you were when you were born, and the same person you were when I met you. You are even the same person now that you were when you were 'Triggered'."

Xander wheeled on him angrily. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dante turned, anger rising to meet Xander's. "What?! And have you knowing that you were going to be hunted for what you are? Not only by humans, but by your own kind as well? I offered you a job because I want to keep an eye on you! You met Trish. Well, when I first met her, she was being controlled by one of the devil Lords! The knowledge of what she was, drilled into her since she was born, made her susceptible to his influence. The world can't afford things like that happening too often!" He swallowed, and looked down at his feet ashamed at is outburst. "Sorry."

Xander shrugged. "No, it's alright, I needed that. I've just been replaying memories of your little hints in my head… Trish knew what I was as well, didn't she?"

Dante nodded.

"And your comment in the Museum, 'you would be interested anyway…' it all makes sense. Your mother was human, but you didn't mention mine… you mentioned my father… my real… father…" Xander trailed off.

Dante nodded again.

"So… and I'm probably gonna regret this… who was my 'mother'?"

Dante pulled a face. "Ah… well… if you remember the grimoire, you should have a good idea…"

Xander frowned, but cast his mind back. "It was Xepto, wasn't it? 'The only female Devil-Knight…'"

Dante nodded sadly. "Yeah."

"At least I know, now. Thanks…"

"Don't mention it…" sighed Dante, "I should have told you sooner."

Xander shook his head. "No… you were only trying to keep me safe. That's honourable, even if the exact method isn't. But why were you so shocked to see me like that?"

Dante shrugged, and started to walk off, with Xander following a few feet behind. "I don't know. I… knew… in my instincts who your mother was, so I shouldn't have been surprised at the family resemblance… but I was. Xepto was a strange one. I met her once, when I was very young. She was coming after my father… another of those 'death or honour' things that Devils and demons are so fond of… according to some sources…and these are millennia old, mind you, the Oriental religions twisted it somewhat into 'honour in death' when they had a Hellmouth stationed there…"

Xander choked on his tongue. "…Did you… did you say, 'Hellmouth?'"

Dante looked back, "Yeah, why?"

Xander shook his head, "uh… no reason. Tell me more…"

"Well… Xepto was… rather distinctive. She stood about… yeah, nine feet tall, maybe a little under… and, well basically, didn't have a nose. She was third in their number, although none of the others except Sparda ever admitted it, right behind him and the 'nameless'… guess there's chauvinism even in Hell, eh?" He laughed quietly. "I still don't quite know why she went after him, but who knows, he's dead now… but she isn't…"

"Dante, we'd better get out of here. I… can feel them coming…"

Dante nodded. "So can I. They're a bit far away yet, but it's probably advisable. The villagers are coming this time… and I don't like killing people. Devils; fine, demons; fine… there are practically an infinite number of them. People… even possessed ones… only six billion or so. We'll talk about this when we get back, maybe Trish can help a bit."

Xander raised an eyebrow.

Dante grimaced, "OK, maybe she'll only make it worse. Xander…"

Xander stopped to look at him.

"…Don't DT too often. You'll… get to like the power it gives you." Dante's serious look drilled the importance of the statement into Xander. "You won't want to return."

Xander nodded once, and the two ran out the door, towards their goal, and away from their nightmares…

~

Xander cried out in agony as something hit him in the face. He flew backwards; to impact on the wall of the small room they were in. Dante ducked an attack by one of his opponents, and ran to his side.

"Dante! What the hell was that?" said Xander through clenched teeth.

Dante looked about the room, and took stock quickly of the devils present. He looked back, and blinked. "I don't know. Nothing here should have been able to do that."

A cold wind swept through the room, chilling the two fighters to their cores. As Dante helped Xander up, he fixed his eyes on one spot on the wall. A painting was hanging where he looked, but he could feel something… else there also.

"Xander!" Dante called as he leapt clumsily over a scythe blade and brought his own blade in turn crashing down on the Death Scythe.

"Yeah?" called back Xander as he vaulted off a wall and landed behind an Auromancer who was occupied firing at Dante, and took its head off with one deft swing.

"Knock the picture down!"

Xander looked round the room, and saw at least half a dozen large paintings, and numerous smaller ones. "Which one?" he shouted back as he stepped round an attack from a Fetish before shooting it in what could broadly be called a face with Ivory.

Dante pulled a small knife from his pocket, and threw it at the picture. It embedded in the frame and vibrated slowly. "That one!" he dodged a bolt of plasma from one enemy, and shouted again.

"Xander! Toss me Ivory!"

Xander looked to the gun in his hand, and threw it at Dante in a high arc that curved above the battle on the ground. Dante followed its path with his eyes, and bounced off of a Marionettes head before running several steps up the wall and launching himself off in a twisting somersault that left him in the air inches above Ivory's flight path.

As Dante's fist closed round the grip of the pistol, he let Alastor drop and whipped out Ebony. Still in mid air, feet above his head and coat flapping as his fall slowed, Dante began to pick off the nearer enemies. Demons fell as the magical bullets ripped through, only to continue on and embed themselves in the next. Dante, realising his fall had taken him too close to the ground to end the right way up, merely let Ebony and Ivory slide out of his hands just before he landed in a handstand just to the side of where his sword had fallen. Balancing on one hand, he gripped Alastor, and pushed himself off of his hands, and flipped through the air before bringing Alastor down on the single remaining devil. The creatures frozen body shattered as the sword cleaved through, showering the room with small fragments of mystical ice.

Xander breathed a sigh of relief as he realised that battle had ended for a while.

Dante walked over to where Ebony and Ivory had fallen and holstered them. "Are you gonna look at the picture then?" he asked with a hint of amusement.

Xander looked to the picture, still with the small knife in the frame, and grinned sheepishly. "Oh… yeah, right…" he walked over and lifted the large painting down from its position on the wall. A dark recess stared back at him.

Xander looked to Dante in question. "Shall we?"

Dante nodded. "Lets." He drew his pistols. "Do you want to go first or shall I?"

Xander shrugged. "I don't mind. I can feel… something… from here, but it doesn't feel evil. More just… pissed off."

"I'll go first then." Said Dante, and matched actions to words, leaping nimbly up to the ledge behind the painting and hunching over to fit in the hole. "Pretty dark…" he muttered as he entered. That was the last comment he made for a short while…

Xander pulled the knife from the picture frame and climbed up behind Dante.

~

Dante and Xander spent an hour or so crawling through the narrow hole, which had quickly narrowed after the entrance to the point where neither could walk, and both had to go along on hands and knees.

Dante was the first out into a large cave. It had glyphs and pictograms all over the walls, depicting the horrors of devils and demons. The drawings seemed to writhe, as if they were alive.

In the middle of the cave, stood a pedestal that had a blue field surrounding it. The field was so bright, neither Dante nor Xander could see what was on the pedestal.

"What do we do now, O omnipotent one?" asked Xander.

Dante shrugged. "I don't know! What do you want to do?"

Xander looked round at the walls of the cave, and shuddered. "Get the hell out of here."

Dante smirked. "Get the hell out of dodge: check."

As the two turned away, the field fell and an unearthly roar was heard in the cavern. Both Dante and Xander froze, backs to what they were sure was about to kill them.

"Great." Said Dante. "Him. Again."

Xander turned slightly. He saw what they were about to fight, and brought his eyes back to Dante. "You do realise that we are about to fight someone standing…"

Dante finished for him, cutting off what Xander was going to say, and replacing it with his own. "…There like he owns the joint. I know." He sighed, and called over his shoulder. "What do you want now, Angelo?"

Angelo just growled, and leapt from the pedestal. While Dante faced off with Angelo, or whatever the hell his name was, Xander's eyes were fixed on the pedestal. Two pistols rested on the platform, both in harnesses.

"Nice…" he whispered to himself. Dreamily, he began to step towards them.

Not even Dante's shout for assistance brought him out of his stupor as he picked up the pistols, and racking back the slides, brought them up either side of his head.

Fingers gently squeezing on the triggers, Xander stood and watched Dante being batted round the room as if he were an annoying insect. Dante finally rolled to a stop after one particularly vicious kick from Angelo and looked up to see Xander watching him. A peaceful look was on his face.

But there was something wrong with the picture. Because Xander had two new guns. And both were pointed at his own head…

Angelo landed a heavy kick between Dante's legs, and the half devil curled up in pain as he flew through the air. With one hand clutching his groin, Dante rolled to a stop by Xander's side. His pain was gone as he saw Xander begin to gently squeeze the triggers of the pistols.

"NO! Xander!" Dante gripped his arms, trying to drag his arms down from his head. Xander did not so much as budge an inch.

Dante cursed, and ducked behind Xander as he realised that Angelo was probably closing in. He was right. Angelo landed a punch just as Dante ducked round Xander. It missed Dante, but caught Xander full in the face, flinging him off of his feet and sending the two guns skittering away across the rough floor of the cavern.

Dante turned back to Angelo. "Y'know… I never thought I would ever thank you for anything… but I was wrong." His eyes widened as Angelo pulled back again and caught him in the chest, a blow that made something go snap as it connected.

As his collarbone snapped, Dante felt the devil in him surging for dominance. Through the pain, he let it have its way…

~

Xander lay on the floor, dazed and hurt. Memories flashed through his mind, and his eyes widened as he remembered just how close he was to seeing how much damage two bullets could do to his cranium.

Turning his head, he saw the two pistols lying on the floor, metres away. Crawling over to them, he felt something edge into his mind. It was trying to say something… no… it was trying to… apologise?

~

Dante, in his devil form, and Angelo were fighting each other to a standstill. Somewhere in the course of the fight, both had decided that fists just weren't cutting it, and swords had appeared in their hands.

As fast as one struck, his opponent blocked. Dante was fighting with a slight handicap, his collarbone was still broken, and he could not afford the time he would need to heal.

But still, he held his own against Angelo, two enemies perfectly balanced in their abilities and methods.

Dante finally blocked one attack that left Angelo painfully open, and took the opportunity. As his sword whipped toward the Dark Knights head, he simply teleported out of the way, across to the other side of the cavern.

Dante came out of Devil Trigger for a short time, and cursed loudly. "You're not starting to do that again, are you?!" he spun his sword. "You know that's cheating!"

Across the chamber, Angelo merely smiled disconcertingly at him.

~

Xander picked the two pistols up once more, and was surprised by the surge of emotion coming from an inanimate object. Memories burned their way into his mind, visual, tactile, aural and emotional. Thousands of years in a few seconds.

None of them stayed. It was just a way of apologising.

The guns had been forged by a devil hunter aeons ago on a world destroyed by them before the earth was even cooling down from it initial formation. Their master had died at the hands of what he was fighting, and as such, they had an irrational hatred of demons and devils. When they first felt Xander, and even Dante, the only part they could feel was the Devil-Knight blood. After being held 'captive' for the past few millennia by the devils, and particularly Nelo Angelo, they wanted revenge… and Xander was the nearest target.

Xander shook his head as his vision swum back into the cavern, instead of fields covered with the blood of innocents, stone monuments bathed in the blood of those that worshipped there. Adults killed as useless pests, children mutilated and tortured for perverse rituals.

Xander's eyes widened, and his breathing rate increased. "That…" he said, "I didn't want to know."

A mental shrug was his only response.

Xander looked for Dante, and found him the other side of the cavern in his devil state, fighting Angelo to a standstill. Neither looked to be winning. Both looked to be loosing slowly, and neither knew it.

Xander ran over to them, and stopped as he saw Angelo begin a strike that would finish the fight as soon as it landed…

"NO!" Xander screamed, "Dante! Look out!"

Dante caught the blade on its way down, but the sheer strength of the blow forced his block down. As he felt his arms falling, Dante rolled backwards out of the path of the blow. Xander saw his opening.

Raising the two pistols, he aimed at Angelo and opened fire.

The bullets burned down their paths. Erupting out of the muzzles of the barrels, they cut their way through the air toward Angelo.

The first bullet blew a chunk of Angelo's armour off, and the rest followed suit. As more poured toward the seven foot tall Demon-Knight, he collapsed onto his knees.

Seconds later, he simply vanished.

Xander stopped firing in shock, and looked around suspiciously. "Where'd he go?" he asked no one in particular.

Dante answered. "He has this annoying habit of teleporting out when he gets too badly hurt. Whatever those pistols fire, its damn heavy stuff. My pistols don't touch him."

"But he's just a demon… how can he do that?"

Dante shrugged painfully, and growled, "Devil-Lords must like the son-of-a-bitch."

"You're shoulder alright?"

Dante rolled his shoulder in display. "Should be… maybe a few hours more and it'll be back in working order again."

Xander felt he needed to bring up the topic that had been bugging him for most of the last day. "I think we were set up, Dante."

Dante nodded slowly. "Yeah… I'm beginning to come to that conclusion too…"

"Who asked us to do this job anyway?" asked Xander.

Pulling a face, Dante pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Let's see…" he handed the paper to Xander. "It's anonymous, as you can see. I usually follow these up as most of the time they are the worst ones… and its right, but I think this place has been corrupted a lot longer than a few weeks… the level of corruption here indicates years of influence…"

"So… what are we going to do?"

Dante took back the piece of paper, and folded it up as it went back in his pocket. "We're going to have to total the island. Its not as bad as it sounds… but the only way out of here if we do will be going though whatever level of Hell the portal originated at." He sighed heavily. "And that ain't easy… even for me. You think the stuff we saw going on here is bad… just wait until you get into Hell… it's a million times worse."

"Can't we swim?"

Dante raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah, great. We swim… what, three hundred miles… with all our clothes and weapons? Don't make me laugh."

Xander looked sheepish. "Um… sorry… guess that was a bit dumb."

"Who knows, we might even meet your mother…" Dante's expression showed Xander that this was the last thing that they wanted to do.

"Thanks for that, Dante. Now I have something on my 'To Do' list."

"What, you mean like 'To Do: Meet Mother, Die-when-she-sees-I'm-helping-Dante'?" Dante quipped.

Xander sighed. "Whatever." As he holstered his two new pistols, Dante spoke.

"What the hell were you doing there, Xander? Trying to commit suicide?"

Xander shook his head. "They're… sentient, Dante. And after being trapped by demons for a few hundred centuries, they were out for revenge. And I was the nearest target."

"Do you think they're safe?"

Xander shook his head again. "No." On Dante's look, he continued, "they're guns for Christ' sake! Of course they're not safe! But I don't think they will try anything weird again…"

"How can you be sure?" Dante pressed the issue, like a wound you couldn't leave alone.

"We…" Xander hunted for a semi-appropriate phrase, "…came to an understanding…"

Dante frowned, but decided that Xander could look after himself for the most part, and nimbly jumped up a rocky incline. "Coming?" He asked over his shoulder.

Xander touched the pommel of Ragnarok for good luck, and followed Dante down a narrow staircase that lead deeper into the island.

Rubbing his face with one hand, Xander thought of all the boasting that he could do when he got back to Sunnydale… if he ever went back. He could see it now:

"Hey, Buffy, I visited Angel's little side trip after his 'wild side' episode. It's all he said it was!"

"Oh, and by the way, I'm half Devil! Ain't that nice?"

"I also have a sentient sword named after the Doom of the Gods, and two pistols that nearly killed me when I found them! Aren't I lucky?"

Xander snorted, causing Dante to look round in question, until he saw the expression on Xander's face.

~

"Xander." Dante spoken in a low whisper, barely audible over the whistling sound that filled the chamber. The sound emanated from an organic looking mound in the centre of the room.

Dante fixed Xander with a look. "That, my friend, is the mouth of Hell."

Xander looked at it critically. "It's… different…"

"From what?" asked Dante.

"From the Hellmouth under my old school." Xander said it with such calm that Dante nearly missed the import of the sentence.

"You had a Hellmouth under your school?!"

"Yeah." Said Xander. "It was just a great big hole in the ground."

Dante didn't say anything. He just stepped casually toward the slowly pulsating mouth. When he reached the middle, he simply sunk into the ground.

Xander looked at where Dante had been seconds before. "OK… guess that was the introduction… now it's my turn…"

As he stepped forward, Xander heard the sound of hundreds of footsteps coming from the stairway. "Great. Now I don't have a choice… it's jump into Hell voluntarily, or get turned into bloody pulp by the villagers…"

Nervously stepping on the pulsing flesh, Xander cried out as he vanished from the room…

~

End Flashback.

*

Xander shook his head as he sat on the bus, trying to stop his memories at that point. What both he and Dante had done in Hell, he did not want to remember. Neither of them had good memories of that escape, nor the things he had seen were sooner forgotten…

Realising that the person opposite him on the bus was staring fixedly at his right arm, Xander looked down to see that his green coat had flapped slightly, uncovering one of his pistols. He drew his coat over the weapon, and gave the woman a hard stare, saying quite clearly, 'You Did Not See That, Did You?'

She shook her head and looked away as Xander shut his eyes again. It was another three miles to where he wanted to be…

Not for the first time, he wondered to himself. Why didn't I just get a motorbike? It would so much easier to get around… I'm sick and tired of going on the buses…

*

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