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 still getting used to a new keyboard (on a laptop), so if there are more errors than usual, I'm sorry. (I writing this the day after chapter 9, which was complete a while ago… I just separate my posting times, otherwise there's a flood for about a week, and then nothing for months…)

One of my favourite mistakes with this new k/b is to double tap 's'. I try to get the mistakes, but a few slip through…

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?"

Xander turned round. "So not what I wanted to see…" he muttered to himself.

He noticed Willow and another girl chanting quietly as he looked at the group. He raised his voice. "You can stop that right now, Willow."

Willow stumbled to a stop in the middle of her spell. She swallowed hard.

Spike and Buffy were moving to either side of Xander, in preparation for an attack. They had all seen what he had done to the last vampire. Now they knew where that terrified one had come from that kept babbling about the 'Devil'.

"Bugger me…" whispered Spike almost reverently.

Xander pulled a face. "Un… no thanks, bleached wonder."

Giles stood next to Willow and the other girl. He still had the crossbow levelled at Xander, but it did not have a bolt in it any longer.

Xander smirked at the watcher. "Don't you think you had better reload that?" he pointed to the crossbow.

Giles raised the crossbow slightly, to show Xander the underside. "That wont be necessary."

Xander whistled. "I bet that catches a few vamps by surprise, huh?"

Giles nodded, but did not smile.

Buffy took a step forward, and began to speak. "What the Hell happened here, Xander?!  You took out all those vampires by yourself?" She looked around what had been the battle arena.

Xander simply nodded.

"And what the hell do you think you're doing back in Sunnydale after the way you left?!"

Xander fixed Buffy with a hard stare. "My job." He looked at the group as a whole, before turning back to Buffy. "Unlike you, I go where my job takes me… I don't run away."

Xander saw the hurt shine in the Slayers eyes, and mentally drew up one on his scoreboard. He looked at Spike, and only Giles surprise crossbow and Buffy being far too close to the vampire stopped him from shooting him as soon as he saw him. "I see you've sided with the enemy, Buffy…" he swallowed before the next words came out, "or are you fucking him too? Or is that still to come?"

Buffy's eyes widened in surprise and anger. She stepped forward, and slapped him as hard as she could. "You bastard!"

"Maybe…" Xander replied. That wouldn't need one on the scoreboard. That would need fifty.

Spike spoke up. "Look 'ere, mate, you can't just come back after all you've done an' expect us to welcome you back with open arms…"

Xander cut him off. "I don't know why you William the Bloody, would be welcoming anyone back. And unless you want…" his arm moved so fast it was a blur, and suddenly a pistol was inches away from Spikes forehead, "to be going to dinner parties in a dustbuster, I would shut the Hell up!"

Spike spoke clearly, but he sounded uncertain. "Guns don't work on vampires."

"Oh, that's right…" Xander sounded sorry for a second, before he looked down at the dusty ground. "It seemed to work fine on them. I don't know Spike do you want to find out?"

Giles spoke quickly. "That will be quite enough, all of you!" He turned to Buffy and Spike. "I think that you should patrol further, while the rest of us explain exactly what's happened since Xander left." The first priority was to get Buffy a safe distance away, so that she didn't automatically go into 'kill first, don't bother asking questions' mode.

Willow added accusingly, "and Xander can tell us what he's been doing."

Spike nodded, but Buffy continued to cast suspicious glances back to Xander as she moved away into the deeper graveyard.

Tara looked warily at this new 'friend'. She seemed to be the only person who had seen Buffy slap him, as no one had reacted but her slight 'ulp'. When Buffy released that slap, Xander's head had not so much as twitched under the assault.

Giles turned to Xander and asked tiredly, "What was that all about?"

*

[Flashback]

"Buffy! Vampire!" Giles aimed his crossbow at the rapidly approaching vamp as he shouted a warning.

"Got it!" Buffy replied before tackling the fleeing vampire to the ground. She looked at it hard, and smacked it round the face before she asked primly, "Care to tell me where you're going in such a hurry?"

The vampire looked up at the Slayer with wide, scared eyes. "I got no beef with you, Slayer! Let me go before the Devil kills me!"

Buffy sat back on the vamps stomach. "Devil?" She looked at Giles enquiringly.

Giles shrugged. He didn't know everything.

"What devil?" asked Buffy as she raised her hand to cuff the vamp again.

The vamp raised its hands to protect its head. "I don't know! I don't know nothin'! I swear!"

Spike leaned over to Buffy's ear. "I think 'e's tellin' the truth, pet… I ain't never seen a vamp this scared by anything other than a Slayer…"

Buffy pushed herself off of the vamp. "OK, you can go… just make sure I never catch you feeding off of people, or this temporary truce will end."

The vampire nodded in terrified thanks as it scrambled to its feet and beat a hasty retreat.

"I think that we had best investigate, Buffy…" Giles said before anyone had got over the shock of seeing a vamp run for its unlife.

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. I haven't seen a vamp that spooked since…" she pondered a second before finishing lamely, "I haven't seen a vamp that spooked."

The group made their way alone the path the way the vampire had come, and turned a corner protected by trees to come into a clearing in the graveyard.

A lone man, dressed in a dark green full-length coat, with short hair. Almost as if it had been spiky at one point, but had grown out too far to do it properly. In his left hand was held a pistol, which he slowly slipped away under his coat, and in his right, a large sword, almost as large as he was tall. Around him was spread the dust and debris of what Buffy estimated to be nine vampires, and he turned slowly to survey the scene, the light caught a few of his features.

Buffy sucked in a gasp of shock. "Oh my God…" she whispered.

Giles simply pulled the trigger on his crossbow, his eyes wide as a shadow from his past played back in his mind.

Buffy looked round in shock to see who had fired before turning back to see that the man had moved, and was unharmed. She spoke louder,

"Xander?"

[End Flashback]

*

Xander shrugged. "Don't ask me. Ask Spike."

Giles sucked some air in. "Ah… yes, of course. You wouldn't know, would you?"

"Know what, Giles? That's Buffy's running with Mr. Undead and Fangy again? Why would that surprise me?"

Giles shot Xander a look of distinct distaste. "Actually, she is currently involved with a young man named Riley…"

Xander raised an eyebrow. "The one…"

"…that you met in the street, yes. Do I notice some of Dante's dress sense rubbing off of you, my boy?"

Xander smirked. "Possibly. He is my boss, after all…"

"Why? If I remember, Dante has some rather… extreme methods."

Xander looked uncomfortable. "We… have some mutual abilities that each felt the other could use…"

Giles frowned, but didn't follow that line of questioning. He had a far more important thing to ask. "Has his… carelessness about odds rubbed off too?" Giles thought for a second, and answered before Xander could, with a hint of amusement in his voice. "Oh, no… you already had that, didn't you?"

"Thank you, Giles…" said Xander dryly.

Willow spoke up. "Um… why are you back, Xander? Do you realise that Buffy's still after your skull for a Christmas decoration? Probably even more so since that crack about Spike…"

Xander shook his head. "First things first: what happened to Spike to suddenly make you trust him?"

Willow replied, "well, not so much trust him, as tolerate him. You see… some government agency took him and implanted a chip into him that means he can't hurt people…"

Xander's eyes widened. "Oh… that's bad."

Giles looked shocked for a second. "I would have thought that Spike not hurting people was a good thing, surely?"

"What about when the 'government' gets better? Or if they have another use for it? I can't see them spending money on what a lot of people would consider a black hole of cash unless they can use it as a weapon…"

Xander's eyes widened suddenly as he thought of something.

"Oh no. Giles," he turned to the watcher. "I'll explain later, but the reason I'm out solo is that Dante's gone missing. I need to find him. If the government have captured vampires, what's to stop them from capturing a…" Xander brought himself up short before he revealed what Dante was. If none of them knew, it wouldn't matter, and if they did, then they didn't need to be told.

"Stop them from capturing a what, Xander?" asked Willow.

"I'll tell you later…"

Tara stepped forward to ask a question, having been silent since that moment. "I… um… I don't k…know if any of you n… noticed, but when…X…x…x…"

"Xander." Said Xander flatly. Willow glared at him for cutting Tara off.

"Xander…" Tara managed to get out, "got hit by Buffy… she really put all her weight into it. S… shouldn't your head be about fifty feet from the r… rest of your body?"

Xander looked away. The others looked at him expectantly. "I'll explain it later. I need to find Dante!"

Giles nodded. "I agree. If Dante is missing, it cannot bode well… but you will explain. Everything."

Xander said nothing, but his eyes asked Giles silently, 'How do you know? How much do you know?'

*

Trish stepped off the plane, and growled to herself at the unfairness of the world. It seemed that whenever a job was going well recently, suddenly the fickle bastard known as 'fate' stepped in a messed it all up.

It seemed the woman she was tracking, and had a serious case of a need for vengeance against was running her around. No sooner had she arrived in Sunnydale, to discover that the woman, travelling under the alias of 'Abigail Horowitz' had left but a few moments before bound for Los Angeles International and some dead end town in the ass end of nowhere in Britain.

It wasn't so much Britain that got to Trish, as the running around. The fact that Britain was the main base of operations of the Watchers Council didn't help matters either, as they were not her favourite people.

But what really stung, however, was that she wasn't getting paid. That was correct. Her employer had been assassinated a few days before, and Trish was steaming. She couldn't up and leave… not after what that bitch had done to her in Egypt. It was personal, and Trish was always the first person to say 'personal is the same as important'.

As she got to the terminal, Trish spotted three men standing near the exit. It was obvious that they were waiting for someone.

Trish watched warily as she neared them, and was unsurprised when two peeled off to flank her. Unknown to her, the third followed at a discreet distance.

"What do you want?" asked Trish, "and before you think it, I don't give to charity…"

The man on her left smiled. "That is the last thing we would want, isn't it my dear? No, we came to give you a warning…"

"I'm not your dear. And what would this alleged warning be about?"

"The Council takes a dim view of creatures such as you following our members. Make sure that we do not see it happen again."

"Oh, now I've been told so nicely, you can be assured; you wont."

"Wont what?" asked the Councilman.

Trish smiled. There was little, if any humour in the expression. "Let you see me, of course."

The Watcher didn't gather the full import of Trish's words. "Be sure that we don't."

The three vanished into the crowds. Trish sighed, and pulled out a cell phone. What were the council up to now? Dante in Sunnydale, and a shakedown in Britain for Trish. What was next? What were they doing?

*

Dante stood back as two soldiers and a scientist entered his cell. The scientist smiled disarmingly. "You have an appointment, my friend."

"What if I don't want to go?" asked Dante suspiciously.

The scientist held a hand up as the two soldiers raised their weapons menacingly. "Then these… gentlemen… will be forced to neutralise you."

Dante nodded. He might as well play along. "OK. I'm game. Where are we going?"

The scientist held up a syringe. "Ah… you see; we need you unconscious. But you seem to be cooperative."

The scientist stepped forward, and raised the syringe. As it neared his neck, Dante reached up with the speed of a viper and twisted it away. "I don't think so. If it was going to simple… I'd go along. Since you seem to want to hurt me… well, I don't take to things hurting me very well…"

The two grunts raised their weapons, but Dante spun the scientist in front of him, creating a human shield. "I'm out of here…"

The first soldier shook his head. "Not without a fight." He stepped back and hit a button on the wall by the side of him. Immediately, the lights dimmed and became red. An alarm began, resonating down the corridors and alerting all on the facility that something was wrong.

Seconds later, steel blast doors began to close over the containment area, sealing all of the experiments and captured creatures in.

The second soldier looked round. "Uh… that wasn't part of the plan, right?" he looked back and Dante, frightened and continued, "I mean… I didn't sign up to die at some monsters hands…"

The first stood behind the second a little way. "Just do your job, Eric."

"Yeah, but what is the job?"

Dante smirked at the two. "What are you going to do now? Shoot me? I don't think you're boss will like that…"

Eric nodded. "He's right, Sam."

Sam hissed at him. "Shut up, man!"

Dante nodded, and smiled disarmingly. "You know, maybe you captured the wrong person?"

"No way. You were seen killing vamps. That means that you have the potential to be an HST."

"An HS what?" asked Dante confused, before mumbling to himself, "wouldn't killing the vamps mean I was one their side?"

"Hostile Sub… ah, no! You're not gonna get any secrets out of us!"

Dante rolled his eyes. "I don't want any secrets. I just want out. Now, are you gonna let me, or do I have to do it the hard way?" In the back of Dante's mind, a voice spoke: yeah, the hard way for you… because they're human.

"We wont let you out."

"Fine." Dante sighed. "I don't want to do this, but you leave me no choice. Where are my weapons?"

"We're not gonna tell you anything!"

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry." Dante felt a tug at his consciousness, as Alastor made its presence know to its bearer once again. "Can I guess? Let me see… maybe the armoury?"

The wary and surprised looks from the two soldiers told him he was right. But he knew that already.

"And that is… two levels up? About a hundred metres in…" Dante turned and pointed, "that… direction."

The two soldiers gripped their weapons that little but tighter as Dante turned back.

"Oh, I've had enough of this.  I am going now. But know this: I want my weapons back."

Dante vanished.

Eric looked over at Sam. "Where'd he go?"

Sam looked around quickly. "Damned if I…" He collapsed to the floor.

Eric swiftly joined him as Dante reappeared behind him, brushing imaginary dust off of the shoulder of his jacket, and fiddling with a medallion round his neck. "Now to get out of here."

*

"Will you not give me a straight answer?!" Buffy nearly exploded at Giles as he stood there mutely accepting her verbal barrage.

Xander smirked in the corner. "He knows Dante, Buffy. And trust me, after Dante, nothing any Slayer could do would scare him…"

"What!?" Buffy practically screeched, "what have you gotten yourself into this time Xander?! More trouble that we have to help you out from?"

Xander's eyes, which had been full of merriment seconds before, suddenly became cold and lifeless. "No, Buffy. I no longer hide from my problems. And well, lets just say that the day Dante cares about something as trivial as odds… Satan will be going to work on a snowplough." He smirked at the irate Slayer. Besides, he thought, one of his favourite holiday spots is the Swiss Alps…

Buffy gave both Xander and Giles a death glare, and stalked off.

Willow looked nervous for a second, before speaking. "Dawn will be glad to see you again, Xander. I can't wait to tell her you're back! Joyce will be pleased as well!"

Xander frowned at Giles. "Who's Dawn?"

Willow and Tara both stared in shock, while Giles removed his glasses and began to polish then industriously. Willow stammered a disbelieving question, "you… you don't know who, DAWN is?"

Xander turned to his 'oldest' friend. "No." He frowned. "I thought that would be obvious…"

Willow was mute with shock, while Tara answered for her. "Um… Dawn is Buffy's sister. Younger sister."

"Since when did that happen?" Xander grinned at Giles. "Did you do a 'band candy' again and get horizontal with Mrs. Summers?"

Giles gaped for a second, before polishing his glasses so vigorously Xander thought he would wear the glass out. "No! No, of course not! Like I would do any such thing…" He seemed to realise that he was digging himself two holes at once, and tried to fill one in. "Not that Joyce isn't an attractive woman, as she is, but…" He trailed off as he realised that as he filled one in, the other got deeper.

"That's it, Giles," smirked Xander; "lets see if we can't get both your feet in your mouth at once…"

Willow recovered the power of speech. "Xander… Dawn is nearly fourteen… she's not a baby. And she's had a crush on you since she met you when Buffy moved to Sunnydale."

Xander held up his hands. "Whoa! I'm really sure that when Joyce and Buffy moved to Sunnydale, it was only the two of them! No third person stuff! And I've certainly never had a fourteen year old crushing on me!" Unless we count you, when we were fourteen…

"We all thought it was cute when we found a notepad with 'Mrs. Dawn Harris' scrawled on every single page a few years ago." Willow looked at Xander as if he was going strange, "don't you remember?"

Xander squeaked. "Remember what?! That this isn't Mexico?! Last time anyone checked, jailbait in this state was still eighteen! I mean, I know good ol' California's liberal, but I don't think that they've changed that much!"

Willow sighed patiently, but Xander could tell her patience was running out. "No… that notebook."

"What notebook?" asked Xander.

Willow ground her teeth and gave him her 'resolve face'. "The notebook with 'Dawn Harris' written in it."

Xander ignored her. "When did this Dawn… show up?"

Giles looked uncomfortable. "Uh… she's always been here, Xander…"

Xander spun round on the balls of his feet. "No! No, she hasn't always been here Xander!" He jabbed a finger at Giles. "How long have I been gone?!"

Giles shook his head. "Uh… well… er… I don't know… I'd… have to check…"

"Willow?" asked Xander.

Willow shrugged. "I don't know… none of us really talked about you, because Buffy got so wound up if anyone even mentioned you… about… uh…"

Giles picked up a diary, and flicked through about a dozen pages. "You have been gone for one year, two months, one week, three days, seven hours and three minutes…"

Xander stared at Giles in shock. "Do you write everything down at the exact time it happens?" he asked incredulously.

"Not everything," said Giles, "just the important things."

"It feels like a century…" murmured Xander. "Oh, wait… it is." He spoke louder. "Thanks, Giles."

"What for?" asked the ex-Watcher confused.

"For thinking I'm important."

Giles had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Uh… it… its nothing I assure you."

Xander rolled his eyes, but he knew what Giles was trying to say.

"Sooo…" drawled Xander, "when do I get to meet this… Dawn…?"

Buffy, who had remained silent for a while, spoke. "You don't."

"What?!" asked Willow, Tara and Giles at once.

"You heard me." Said Buffy angrily. "He doesn't see her. She doesn't even know he's here, and it stays that way. As soon as your 'job' is finished, Xander, get out of Sunnydale."

"But… but…" Willow stuttered incoherently for a few seconds. "But why not?! And why does he have to leave?! He's only just got back to us!"

Buffy almost snarled at the mute statue Xander had become. "Because." She said.

Xander nodded. "Slayer." He stalked out of the room they were gathered in, and the group heard a door slam as an angry Xander went out into the night.

Willow looked at Buffy accusingly. "Now look what you've done!"

Buffy turned on the redhead and spoke in a low and dangerous tone. "If I ever see him in Sunnydale after the week is out… I will kill him."

Tara looked to the door uncertainly. "He's… out in Sunnydale at dark… shouldn't we go after him?"

Buffy shook her head in the negative. "No. He doesn't deserve our help." She stared each person in the room down, daring them to disagree with her.

Giles looked speculatively at his young blonde charge. "I think it is more likely that we will have to protect the vampires and demons from him, rather than the other way around…"

*

Nathan smiled, and the book in his hands seemed to writhe in his grasp. "Excellent…" he whispered. "Those fools in the Council have no ken of what I will release onto the world…"

Darkness hovered about him as he flicked through further pages of the Codex Mortis.

"And that foolish Half-devil and his 'partner' will merely be fuel for the fire I will create."

He picked up a small knife, and drawing a line across his wrist, let the blood fall onto the book. "Inaudax… Iudicium… Ignis…"

Blood vanished as it touched the pages of the book, and the cut on Nathan's wrist healed as if it had never been there.

Nathan looked hesitantly at his wrist. "The change takes seven hundred and seventy seven minutes…" he read out loud. "the changed must have absolutely no access to sunlight, lest the transformation be interrupted." He sucked in a pained breath as something changed. "Do not be alarmed at the pain, for once complete, nothing shall harm the bearer of the Power again…"

Nathan looked up; already the look in his eyes was changing. But the change was most pronounced from the cut on his wrist. It burned, not like fire, but like pure, untainted cold itself. He held he breath and poked the flesh around the cut experimentally. It did not even move to his probing.

His mouth moved of its own accord, no longer powered by his will alone, but by another.

"It is time."

*