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: R.
Notes: I'm afraid I'm playing Final Fantasy VIII again. Oh, and V. which means that I'm doing bugger all writing…
Dante's spiel is due to my thought that he would probably be repressing, or at the very least angry about his parents. What would happen if you loved a demon? Would you join them? Could they even do what mortals can?
Crossover: Devil May Cry / Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Continuity: DMC1, not 2 (except for a few enemies). Xander's road trip. That's pretty much it. Enjoy.
*
Xander looked down at the body of the man he had just killed. He hoped to God that Dante was right when he gave him that piece of information, because he did not want a man's death on his conscience.
He stood watching as the dead man suddenly convulsed, every muscle in his body seeming to contract at once. His eyes widened in shock and revulsion as the truth was revealed.
The man…
…wasn't a man at all.
He was a demon. Xander breathed out in relief. Killing demons didn't matter. There were more than enough to go around.
Xander watched with a sort of sick fascination as the man writhed on the ground. From the human shape he had taken, some basic changes occurred. His arms lengthened, but not to a great degree. His legs got shorter, stubbier, and the knee joints turned back on themselves with an audible snapping sound. The face became more pointed, the nose becoming more pronounced as it turned into a snout. Skin darkened and began to turn a mottled green as scales developed. With a ripping noise, a thick tail erupted from the back, and quickly grew to five or more feet long.
Xander stared at the lizard in a torn and bloody business suit. "That's…" he couldn't finish the sentence.
He heard a gasp from behind him, as he saw one of the mercenaries, the one he shot in the shoulder, staring fixedly at the body of his employer. "I was working for one of them?" he asked in a shocked voice.
Xander answered him. "Yeah. You were."
"But…" he looked up at Xander. "He said you were wanted… that we would be doing the world a favour…" he paused. "And the money wasn't bad either…"
"Well," said Xander, sitting down on the flat roof a few feet away from the man, "you would, in a way… Hell would have been one step closer."
The mercenary turned to face Xander properly, dragging his eyes away from the corpse. "You mean… you… fight those things?"
Xander shrugged. "I'm not the only one… but yeah."
"Wow."
Xander looked up and then quickly stood. "The cops are on their way." He pulled a pistol again, before shrugging apologetically. "Sorry about this…" he said, and stepped forward, clubbing the man around the back of the head. He slumped down, unconscious.
Xander stepped away, and quickly vanished into the night.
*
Dante was sitting at is desk when Xander got back, looking from the door to the phone and back again. Alastor was laid across his desk and Ebony and Ivory were resting on each other next to it.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" called Xander with mock happiness as he walked through the doorway.
Dante leapt out of his seat and walked over to him. "You OK?" he asked without preamble.
Xander nodded slowly. "Yeah. The guy who was after me wasn't a person."
"You mean, he was a devil?" asked Dante.
"I'm not sure…" said Xander as he stripped off his coat and began to field strip his pistols on Dante's desk. When he was satisfied they were alright, he put them back together just as quickly. "…he wasn't human, I know that much. And he didn't Cry."
"So you killed him… it?"
"Yeah. It wouldn't have stopped. And whoever he works for wont stop anyway."
"What was it?"
"It looked like a lizard. But until I killed it, it looked human." Xander frowned on Dante's suddenly nervous look. "What?"
Dante sighed, and walked back over to his desk, before yanking open a drawer and pulling a strange object out. It was covered in cloth, and quite large.
Carefully lifting the cloth off of the item, he revealed what was inside. Before he touched it, however, he reached back inside the drawer and slipped a pair of fine gloves onto his hands.
"What are you doing?" asked Xander as he walked over.
Dante looked up. "I'm about to do some reading." He said as if it was obvious.
The item was a book.
"Now leave me alone… we have eighteen hours before we have to leave for Maine, and I don't want to leave this book here if this is happening."
"Can't we take it with us?" asked Xander, "and why are you wearing gloves?"
Dante looked up. "No, we can't take it with us. In eighteen hours, it goes in a fire, and believe me, the flames wont be red… they'll be black." He looked at his hands. "As for the gloves… I don't feel like touching human skin. Is that OK with you?"
Xander winced, but didn't reply.
*
"Dante?"
"Hmm?" answered Dante without looking up from his book.
"Its time to go."
"Oh. Right." Dante shut the book with a snap, and then wrapped it up again in the cloth.
"I thought you were going to burn that?" asked Xander.
"I am." Answered Dante simply. "But it wont burn easily."
Xander watched as his partner and friend soaked the cloth with lighter fluid, and then looked at it thought fully for a few seconds. "Wouldn't it be easier to soak the pages?"
Dante shrugged. "Yeah, but I don't what the writing to run. If the ink gets anywhere other than on the book, God only knows what will happen, and even he might not…"
Xander looked at Dante with a 'huh?' expression. "Pardon me?"
Dante grimaced. "If the ink gets on the stones of the hearth, the stones themselves will become infected with the evil contained in this book. Do you know how hard it is to burn stone? Can't be done. It'll liquefy at best, and contaminate everything it touches."
"Oh." Xander was silent for a few seconds. "What is the book, then?"
"Its exact name is lost in the mists… like so much other stuff these days. I swear scholars deliberately loose stuff to be able to say 'it is lost in the mist of time, but…'" he grinned sheepishly. It was an eternal sore point with the half-devil. He sighed on Xander's look. "OK, alright… OK." He looked Xander in the eyes. "It's called the Codex Mortis. A more evil book you will not find, even the Necronomicon. 'Cause I have a copy of that over there." He pointed to the bookshelf. "This is the only copy of the Mortis ever written. Ever."
He threw the book in the fire.
Standing back, Dante and Xander stood impassively as the book began to incinerate slowly.
"You know everything in that book now?" asked Xander with a degree of awe.
Dante shrugged. "Most of it. The bits I can't remember are either unimportant or will come back to me eventually. It's always the way."
"Yeah," Xander nodded in understanding. "The few things I did remember in exams at school I always knew more about after I walked out of the exam hall.
"It's the fourth law of the universe, Xander," said Dante looking at the book dully. "Stress either makes you remember or forget. For most people, its forget."
Xander raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't the fourth law 'it ain't paranoia if it's justified'?"
Dante didn't reply. He was watching the book with wary eyes.
*
~Flashback~
Dante turned quickly to look at Xander as he landed heavily on the floor. "Trigger. Now."
Xander felt the surge within him, and closed his eyes against the sudden height shift, as he became his darker form.
When he had opened them again, he saw Dante likewise Triggered and facing a large contingent of devils and demons. They were watching the two of them with a sort of detached interest. The sort a large group uses when they have two people they don't know suddenly appear when unexpected and they knew that a load more reinforcements were near if the two did anything funny.
Dante shrugged apologetically at them, and spoke. "Hi, guys."
"Where did you two come from?" questioned the tallest of the demons there.
"And him," the demon gestured at Xander. "Why does he look like that? Xepto has never taken a lover as long as she has been alive."
"Well that's where you're wrong." Said Dante sarcastically. He turned to Xander, and drew his sword as he did so. Xander stepped back, beginning to draw his own blade. "Sorry, kid." Dante sounded genuinely remorseful.
With that, Dante spun and decapitated five of the group with one swing. Xander quickly moved forward and thrust, taking one demon through the throat, before tearing out the blade and ramming it home in the ribcage of the last remaining one, instantly silencing the start of its scream for help.
Dante looked appreciative. "And that, boys and girls, is how to do that!"
Xander merely raised an eyebrow at him. Before he could de-Trigger, Dante turned to him and warned him not to. "Don't, Xander. There is a reason why only demon and devils survive in hell. We are not here on a vacation; we need to get out of here. If any demon sees us in human form, the game's up. Stay like that. It's the only way."
Xander's voice came to Dante, sounding surprisingly nasal for someone who didn't have one. It was still low, and made the ground feel as if it were shaking, however. "Fine. But remember one thing: I can't cope with this for long. I can already feel the power pulling at what little control I have. If we're here for more than a few hours, I will have to return for a short while to regain my willpower."
"Xander," said Dante with absolute conviction, "we will be lucky if we get out of here inside the next decade. At least, back on earth… but when in Devil form, physical time has no meaning. If… when… we get back, you'll look the same as you did when we left."
He turned away with one final command.
"Sheath your sword. No reason to make anyone think we're looking for a fight."
~End Flashback~
*
Dante and Xander watched as the book began to singe. Black sparks leapt from the cover as it caught alight, and the flames themselves seemed to twist and writhe as if alive.
Dante stepped back, and gripped Xander's wrist drawing him back also. Xander threw a questioning glance to Dante at the move, but remained silent.
The book was burning properly now, flames licking over its surface and slowly eating their way through. Xander stood with awe plainly written on his features as the fire lost its colour, the tongues of flame becoming black.
Just black.
OK, he admitted to himself, so the black does actually have different shades within it, like the edges are more sort of charcoal while the centre, which should technically be blue is um… not there, its so black.
The cover had been burned completely away now, and the pages began to curl as the fine beaten skin was engulfed.
"Now the fun begins…" whispered Dante.
"Huh?" asked Xander.
"Watch…" breathed Dante almost reverently, "and learn…"
The flames twisted around again, and faces began to appear in the fire. Xander watched at the tortured faces screaming in pain and agony, as if actual people were in the fire instead of an evil book. Faces displayed in a monochrome picture, which constantly flickered and wavered as the air currents played and the flames took on a will of their own.
"Oh, God…" murmured Xander in horror. Nothing he had seen or much less done in hell were this painful. But he did have a biased view. Dante had deliberately steered clear of the most gruesome parts of hell, knowing full well that a devil wouldn't loose his lunch, but Xander, and even Dante himself, just might.
A last few pages were remaining in the fire now, and the book seemed to make one last desperate attempt to reach 'freedom'. The flames engulfed the whole fireplace, licking up the brickwork and whole images forming in the tongues of fire. People, with outstretched arms, calling in supplication for aid to save them from what happened centuries before.
Xander took a faltering step forward, and Dante roughly gripped his shoulder.
"It's OK, man," said Xander, "I just want a closer look."
Dante shook his head and pulled Xander back, despite the struggle from the younger man. "No. It's too dangerous. We're too close as it is."
Xander's eyes flashed at Dante. "Let me GO!" he screamed suddenly and wrenched his shoulder free.
The books last attempt was in vain, however, for as soon as Xander was free, the last of the flames began to die slowly, shrinking and becoming less and less as Xander stepped forward.
Dante let him. He was in almost no danger now, as the book had burned completely. Xander looked up to see Dante looking at him with wary eyes. "All better now?" Dante asked with caution.
Xander breathed, and nodded his head slightly. "Yeah. I guess. It… was controlling me…"
Dante patted Xander on the shoulder. "It was the souls of each and every person that died to make that book. The people who had the flesh flayed off their bones when they were still alive and conscious of every little tear, the people who had their still beating hearts ripped from their bodies as ink-wells. Each word was written with a different persons blood, Xander. The combined souls, trapped for millennia in eternal torment at the hands of the monster who wrote the book are very powerful when they all try to get one person to do one thing."
"So… why did they pick me? Why not you?"
"I do not know. I would imagine that it is because I am older than you, or stronger… or maybe even that you have simply too much compassion for others. You always leap in if someone is in trouble. You never look first to see if your actions will end up killing you…"
"Compassion." Said Xander flatly. "Right. Show less compassion: check."
Dante laughed quietly. "It is not something you can simply turn off, Xander. It is part of who you are. And a part that I do not think you should stop using."
"So… you want me to end up doing something foolish? Jump in without thinking?"
Dante rolled his eyes and turned away. "Did I say that? No." he sighed. "I merely think that you could think your actions over better occasionally."
"So, I sit and think things out every time I go into a fight?"
Dante shot Xander a hard look. "This isn't getting anywhere." He spun, and leaned against his desk as he faced Xander once more. "Did I ever tell you about a theory a man I once met had? It was this: if a man believes in Heaven, but not in Hell, it doesn't matter how much evil that man does, how much of a bastard he is…" Dante paused for effect, "…he will not go to Hell."
"That's not fair…" said Xander.
"Ah! But there's more!" said Dante. "If another man believes only in Hell, and not in Heaven, he can be the nicest guy on the planet, do good deeds every day of his life, hell, he could even get a Beatification while still alive, and that's damn near impossible, but no matter how much good he does…" Dante leaned into Xander's face, causing eye contact even if Xander didn't want it, "…he will only go to Hell."
"That sucks," said Xander, "but what has it got to do with anything?"
"Just this, Xander. There is one thing that you can do to really make a difference in this world, especially now that you know what you are… but you must always remember one thing, and one thing above all others: you cannot save everyone in the world from their own personal demons. Someone, somewhere, will slip, and that is that. Its called free will."
Xander snarled at Dante, still maintaining eye contact. "I can try." He spat, with emotion surging through his voice and his posture.
The words echoed in Dante's mind as Xander stalked out of the room.
I can try…"That boy is going to kill us both…" he whispered to the now dark room.
I can try…*
Dante walked in the door of the warehouse office. Xander followed, a bit more subdued since his encounter with the book's souls. It had taken them only a few hours to get to Cutler, Maine, but both were feeling the drive in their bones. The car was too damn small, and Xander had told Dante so repeatedly during the drive. How the hell were they meant to get one, maybe another two people into that tiny thing?
"We have a package to pick up. For Mr. Smythe."
"Have you got any ID on you, sir? And if you are not Mr. Smythe, I am afraid that we cannot let you retrieve the package."
Dante nodded, and pulled out a wallet. He flipped it open, and dropped it on the desk in front of the clerk. "It enough ID for you?"
The clerk looked the wallet over, and nodded, before putting a clipboard down on the desk in front of Dante. "Would you sign this, please sir? For our records?"
"Certainly." Dante scribbled a random signature down on the form, and took the offered package. "Thank you."
As the two, Dante and Xander exited the office, Xander looked across at Dante with a frown. "Aren't you going to open it?"
"Nah…" Dante shrugged. "Told not to. By Travers and everything…"
"Don't remind me." Muttered Xander. "You'll make me regret coming on this little trip. I'd have preferred devil hunting with Trish."
Dante slipped the package into the boot of the car when they reached it, and turned to Xander with a slight smile on his face. "No you wouldn't, and you know it. She teases you mercilessly."
Xander merely rolled his eyes and got into the passenger side. "Yeah. I know. You think that she'd have got tired of it by now."
"Xander, as long as you're you, Trish will continue to tease. It's her nature."
Xander's witty retort was lost as Dante suddenly slammed the car into gear and shot out of the warehouse car parking facilities, fishtailing the car as he turned the corner. "Next stop: Nathan."
*
~Flashback~
"My… God…" breathed Xander.
Dante shot him a hard look. "Don't even think of mentioning him down here, Xander. That is a one-way ticket to seeing the big boss. And that, you really don't want to do."
Dante looked at where Xander was transfixed. "But I must admit, you are right."
"How can that even be possible?" murmured Xander with a combination of awe and revulsion.
"Lots of things are possible when you're dead, kid, and even when you're alive, down in hell, the physical rules are suspended. They can even be bent, if not necessarily broken, for a devil in the material plane."
"I…" Xander choked. "I can't allow that to happen, Dante. I just can't." he was slowly being drawn forward, eyes locked with the man that was being tortured. Dante saw the begging in his eyes, but hardened himself to it.
Dante had to grip Xander as hard as he could. "Xander," he hissed into the taller devil's ear, "you do that, and we are never getting out of here…"
"But… I can't leave him…" whispered Xander almost to himself.
Dante lost all patience suddenly. He cuffed Xander hard round the face, and then quickly gripped his hand, trying not to show how much it had hurt. Xander turned to look at Dante with surprise and betrayal burning in his eyes.
"Xander." Dante's voice left no room for argument. "You can do nothing for him. It was his choices in life that brought him here. We are not here to free every soul from torment. We are here only, only because there was no other way to escape from that damned Island. Our job, our job, is to save the people we can who aren't dead yet. We could spend eternity here, and not free even a fraction of the souls in torment. I should know." He took an angry breath, preparing himself for what he was about to reveal. "Neither of my parents would be anywhere other than here. My father because Devils cannot go to heaven, and my mother simply because she loved, and was loved by a devil. Think about it. She spent her life, and now she spends eternity here, because she loved. And you think some petty murderer deserves reprieve." He snarled, and Xander suddenly felt like Dante was the nine-foot tall devil and he was but a few inches tall. "You free him, and if we survive, I'll hunt you both down and kill you."
Xander swallowed hard, and turned away from the man with the pleading eyes. "Lets get out of here…" he whispered hoarsely.
~End Flashback~
*