Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN, et al. own Buffy. May they keep her post Season 7. Devil May Cry and DMC2 are owned by Capcom. I own neither of these things.
Title: Elysium
Author: Paradigm Shifter
Feedback: You have to ask? Of course! Please?
Crossover: Devil May Cry
Rating: R. Something different, I feel?
Continuity: Better the Devil You Know. If you haven't read that, do so, or this will make no sense whatsoever.
*
The figure descended from the sky like an Avenging Angel.
The only difference: this one came from the other direction. The nine foot tall Devil strode purposefully toward the large building in front of it, a mansion protected by all that the most prestigious Assassins Order had.
The Order of Teraka's headquarters lay on a sprawling estate in the middle of nowhere, further contained within Indonesia.
There was no warning.
Nothing any warning could have done would have made any difference.
The Devil wasted no time, tearing into the building, ripping straight through a wall and entering the first of many passages to the Inner Sanctum of the Order.
Where their Patriarch resided.
Assassin's and trainee's all flocked to their emergency stations, flinging themselves at their death at the hands of the Devil. Nothing they did so much as slow it down: the Devil continued forward like an inexorable force of nature, impossible to stop short of a miracle.
Well; truth be told, God isn't too keen about assassins. He looked the other way.
An old wizened man stood in front of the final door, his eyes closed and a sword in each hand. "You may not pass."
The Devil smiled, and no humour was to be found in the expression. "I may not pass?" it asked in a quiet monotone.
"Return from whence you came, spawn of Satan." The old man snarled, spittle and malice flying at a hundred fifty percent.
"Remind me to get you the memo..." the Devil smirked, "Satan has been deposed."
He moved without seeming speed or swiftness, but the man collapsed to the ground, both of his blades torn from his fingers and sheathed in his spine.
"I do not want you, little mortal, but you may prove some small amusement to my Master. I am here for your Lord."
*
The doors exploded inwards, and the Patriarch of the Order of Teraka cowered behind his desk for a second, before remembering who he was.
The Patriarch of the Order does not cower.
From anyone.
Mustering all the courage he had within his frame, he asked loudly, "What do you want, demon?"
The Devil stepped through the smoking hole that used to be the secure door to the Patriarch. He stepped so fastidiously over the rubble that for a second, his imposing size seemed not to be an issue.
"Two things;" the Devil said with an air of menace. "Firstly, I am a Devil, not some half-breed demon. And secondly, I am here to end you, and the Order. You have displeased your Benefactor one time too many."
The Patriarch sat heavily. "What do you mean by this?"
"Taking a Contract from the Watchers Council. Honestly, you would think no one had any brains left at all, wouldn't you?"
"I never dealt with that Contract. It was one of my Lieutenants." He looked out the wrecked doorway. "The very one who you turned into a sword sheath, as it happens."
The Devil shrugged, and he began to rapidly shrink back to a more human size. His eyes pierced the Patriarchs, sending terror into his heart. "It matters little to me, Old Man. I have been sent to do a job, and I will complete it. Although... I must say, I am disappointed. I expected Teraka to put up more of a fight."
"Killing me will not end the Order."
"No... but it will be a start..." The Devil locked gazes, and for all of a second, the two engaged in a battle of wills.
One that, had the Devil not been in the mood for toying with someone, would have ended before it began.
The dried husk of the Patriarch crumbled as it slipped backwards in the chair he had been sitting in. all the liquid in his body instantly vaporised by the Fires No Mortal Could Withstand.
"It is done." The Devil spoke with finality.
An unearthly voice echoed in the room. "Good. Now... the world will never be the same..."
"Retrieve that which you lost, Devil."
One word echoed as the Devil faded from view, and the mortal realm:
"Master."
*
Xander stood looking at the wraithlike form in front of him.
"Pain is only an illusion, boy." The wraith stepped forward. "Only your mind can trap you, and only you mind can free you."
"How? I don't even know where I am. How can my mind be the thing that traps me? I don't want to be trapped here!"
"Oh, but you do. Your subconscious hides from you, doing things that you would never dream of doing. And yet, despite the fact that it is not you, it also... is."
"What?"
"You must free yourself, boy. You are the object of your own imprisonment."
"How?"
"By doing what must be done. Your body languishes in Mundus' torture pits, while you mind is free. Release yourself from that body... from all connection to it, and nothing he can do will hurt you."
"I can't give up. I owe my friends..." Xander began forlornly.
"You owe your friends NOTHING!" the wraith snapped, plainly angered. "You owe yourself..."
Xander bristled at the rebuke, and snarled at her, "Dante... Trish? I don't owe them? They took me in, gave me purpose!"
The riposte was quick and vicious. "And look where that purpose led you! You lie dying because they cannot save you! Dante... your 'partner' has abandoned you to his enemies! He cannot save you, because you cannot save yourself!" the woman spat into the darkness. "You are a failure."
A new voice spoke in the darkness, and quickly took form. "He is not."
The speaker emerged, and Xander recoiled in horror. He was human... barely. Hideously maimed and mutated to the point where he almost didn't look like a person. If you could roll all that was ugly into one form, he would be it.
"Who... who are you?" Xander asked nervously.
"I am the opposite of her," the man said slowly. "That which is truth, rather than that which is lies."
"What is going on?" Xander asked confused.
The two looked at each other, naked hatred visible for the other in each of their eyes. "Isn't it obvious?" they both said at the same time, "you have to choose."
"Choose what?" Xander frowned.
"Truth." The woman spat with venom.
"Or lies." The man added with a soft, sad lisp.
*
Xander looked at the two, and his eyes showed his rising desperation. "No." he said slowly. "NO! I don't want to."
"You have to. You must." The man said.
"But I don't want EITHER!" Xander screamed as they began to fade. "I choose to stay here! It's quiet here! It's safe here!"
"Fool." The woman spat as she turned away in disgust. "I could have given you everything."
The man looked on sadly at Xander, who was now sobbing to himself. "You did not make the fatal choice, but you have still given her what she most wants..."
Xander stopped crying for a second and looked up. "What did I give her?"
The man spoke sadly. "A way into your soul..."
Xander closed his eyes and gasped.
"...and a way into your mind. To control you, without you being there."
Suddenly, all was quiet.
It was if time itself had stood still.
It had.
*
Xepto raged. Her realm was in tatters, the fine designs destroyed, defaced. Mundus had done this, she knew. But she could not visit vengeance on him without the aid of all Hell behind her.
The Devil-Knight may have been powerful individually, but in the archaic politics that Hell held to, the strongest ruled. That was the way it always had been: that was the way it always would be.
The most cunning, the most evil, the most powerful. Three attributes that were required to Rule.
Xepto was powerful, true. She was also ruthlessly cunning and evil to the core... no, wait, she wasn't: she had developed human feelings at one time in her existence. They were a weakness. A weakness that despite her many attempts to remove had not completely gone.
As long as her son was alive, she would not be always a Devil. In a corner of her mind lurked humanity. She shivered at the idea, but it was seductive... much like the anger, hatred and lies that her power stemmed from.
"Angelo..." she hissed, and a lackey bowed obsequiously.
"Shall I summon him, Mistress?"
Xepto shook her head, looking death at the speaker. The small demon quailed at the look, but did not flinch away. If he had, she would have killed him outright. Weak servants were not to be tolerated. While some killed their more intelligent servants, for fear of further competition, Xepto did not. Until they became a threat, she continued to use them.
"No. Let him come when he wishes. Him and his thrice damned brother will spoil all my careful planning if they do what I think they are going to... who would have thought that Sparda would still be alive? Mundus certainly kept that quiet. But still, perhaps it is for the best..."
"The Dark Knight? Alive? After all this time?" Whispers began to form around her, as her subjects and servants muttered to each other.
Xepto nodded. "Yes. The Legendary One is alive. With his wife, if the truth is to be known." A small smile broke her severe reflection. Perhaps he knew with his wife what I had a taste of...... oh, my husband, I did love you... I do love you still...
Not willing to show weakness in front of even her closest servants, Xepto vanished.
*
A cliff face in a desolate spot of the Irish coast knew boiling heat for a fraction of a second, as Xepto cooled from the temperatures that existed in Hell, to the more realistic ones in the 'real world'.
Xepto looked across the still sea, and screamed her rage. The sea boiled at her feet, waves crashing on the shore vaporised in the heat of her displeasure.
As the cliff crumbled, Xepto's wings unfurled and beat once, holding her in place in the air where one second she had stood on rock. She stopped her angry tirade as an answering scream came from across the sea, detected by her Devil ears.
"DANTE!" Xepto screamed again, before falling silent and waiting.
*
Dante felt the fabric of the world shift as something unnatural occurred.
He could feel it in his bones, that is was not far away, and something drew him to investigate. His emotional safeguards that had been torn to shreds when Xander vanished had taken time to build up.
Terrorising Ethan had been cathartic for him, allowing him to vent the rage he hadn't known he had against the man's brother. Nathan might be the watcher, and Ethan the Chaos worshipping mage, but at least Ethan had a conscience, of a sort. Nathan, now, was the willing servant of a power that would use him for its own ends, and not care one whit if he died in the process.
Something pulled at him; summoned him.
It was calling the deepest reaches of his soul. His cry of sorrow and anger was louder than he thought possible, the waves of sound cracking stone and tearing trees apart with the sheer force released.
He followed the call, his Devil form coming as he needed it, wings bursting from his body to carry him faster than the eye could comprehend.
The need was urgent; the summons could not be ignored.
Painfully, Dante knew who summoned him, and what it could mean.
*
Angelo sat in his own realm, a dark place with nothing but that which he created. It was barren, desolate almost to the point of non-existence.
It mirrored his mind.
Xepto had given him much to think about, as had his brother, in his inimitable way. Angelo and Dante: the apple of their mothers' eye.
Two brothers destined to be at each others throats from the moment they came of age, the rage and pain that was the heritage of the father becoming embodied in both, but only one truly able to command the power behind that rage.
Angelo, privately, was still not certain which of the two of them was the lucky one.
Was it Dante? He doubted it. He was forever destined to fight his own form; resist the powers that made him what he was.
Was it Angelo himself? He was almost certain that he wasn't the gifted one. He looked around. Could this be a gift? More like a curse.
But it was almost time. It had taken many bribes, many deaths, and much time to create an environment ripe for Angelo's move, but he intended to take it while he could.
The other half-Devil, the son of Xepto, was too important to leave in the hands of Mundus for any longer than necessary. It was already highly likely that his mind was shattered: it had been a long time since he arrived.
Everything must be carefully orchestrated. He had already lined up a nice disaster for Dante to deal with that would allow Angelo the freedom to release Xander into the world again.
The few aspects that Angelo could not take into consideration, though, was how the tortured half-Devil would react to the world. Would he remember his friends, or would something... disastrous... happen?
Only time would tell.
*
Title: Elysium
Author: Paradigm Shifter
Feedback: You have to ask? Of course! Please?
Crossover: Devil May Cry
Rating: R. Something different, I feel?
Continuity: Better the Devil You Know. If you haven't read that, do so, or this will make no sense whatsoever.
*
The figure descended from the sky like an Avenging Angel.
The only difference: this one came from the other direction. The nine foot tall Devil strode purposefully toward the large building in front of it, a mansion protected by all that the most prestigious Assassins Order had.
The Order of Teraka's headquarters lay on a sprawling estate in the middle of nowhere, further contained within Indonesia.
There was no warning.
Nothing any warning could have done would have made any difference.
The Devil wasted no time, tearing into the building, ripping straight through a wall and entering the first of many passages to the Inner Sanctum of the Order.
Where their Patriarch resided.
Assassin's and trainee's all flocked to their emergency stations, flinging themselves at their death at the hands of the Devil. Nothing they did so much as slow it down: the Devil continued forward like an inexorable force of nature, impossible to stop short of a miracle.
Well; truth be told, God isn't too keen about assassins. He looked the other way.
An old wizened man stood in front of the final door, his eyes closed and a sword in each hand. "You may not pass."
The Devil smiled, and no humour was to be found in the expression. "I may not pass?" it asked in a quiet monotone.
"Return from whence you came, spawn of Satan." The old man snarled, spittle and malice flying at a hundred fifty percent.
"Remind me to get you the memo..." the Devil smirked, "Satan has been deposed."
He moved without seeming speed or swiftness, but the man collapsed to the ground, both of his blades torn from his fingers and sheathed in his spine.
"I do not want you, little mortal, but you may prove some small amusement to my Master. I am here for your Lord."
*
The doors exploded inwards, and the Patriarch of the Order of Teraka cowered behind his desk for a second, before remembering who he was.
The Patriarch of the Order does not cower.
From anyone.
Mustering all the courage he had within his frame, he asked loudly, "What do you want, demon?"
The Devil stepped through the smoking hole that used to be the secure door to the Patriarch. He stepped so fastidiously over the rubble that for a second, his imposing size seemed not to be an issue.
"Two things;" the Devil said with an air of menace. "Firstly, I am a Devil, not some half-breed demon. And secondly, I am here to end you, and the Order. You have displeased your Benefactor one time too many."
The Patriarch sat heavily. "What do you mean by this?"
"Taking a Contract from the Watchers Council. Honestly, you would think no one had any brains left at all, wouldn't you?"
"I never dealt with that Contract. It was one of my Lieutenants." He looked out the wrecked doorway. "The very one who you turned into a sword sheath, as it happens."
The Devil shrugged, and he began to rapidly shrink back to a more human size. His eyes pierced the Patriarchs, sending terror into his heart. "It matters little to me, Old Man. I have been sent to do a job, and I will complete it. Although... I must say, I am disappointed. I expected Teraka to put up more of a fight."
"Killing me will not end the Order."
"No... but it will be a start..." The Devil locked gazes, and for all of a second, the two engaged in a battle of wills.
One that, had the Devil not been in the mood for toying with someone, would have ended before it began.
The dried husk of the Patriarch crumbled as it slipped backwards in the chair he had been sitting in. all the liquid in his body instantly vaporised by the Fires No Mortal Could Withstand.
"It is done." The Devil spoke with finality.
An unearthly voice echoed in the room. "Good. Now... the world will never be the same..."
"Retrieve that which you lost, Devil."
One word echoed as the Devil faded from view, and the mortal realm:
"Master."
*
Xander stood looking at the wraithlike form in front of him.
"Pain is only an illusion, boy." The wraith stepped forward. "Only your mind can trap you, and only you mind can free you."
"How? I don't even know where I am. How can my mind be the thing that traps me? I don't want to be trapped here!"
"Oh, but you do. Your subconscious hides from you, doing things that you would never dream of doing. And yet, despite the fact that it is not you, it also... is."
"What?"
"You must free yourself, boy. You are the object of your own imprisonment."
"How?"
"By doing what must be done. Your body languishes in Mundus' torture pits, while you mind is free. Release yourself from that body... from all connection to it, and nothing he can do will hurt you."
"I can't give up. I owe my friends..." Xander began forlornly.
"You owe your friends NOTHING!" the wraith snapped, plainly angered. "You owe yourself..."
Xander bristled at the rebuke, and snarled at her, "Dante... Trish? I don't owe them? They took me in, gave me purpose!"
The riposte was quick and vicious. "And look where that purpose led you! You lie dying because they cannot save you! Dante... your 'partner' has abandoned you to his enemies! He cannot save you, because you cannot save yourself!" the woman spat into the darkness. "You are a failure."
A new voice spoke in the darkness, and quickly took form. "He is not."
The speaker emerged, and Xander recoiled in horror. He was human... barely. Hideously maimed and mutated to the point where he almost didn't look like a person. If you could roll all that was ugly into one form, he would be it.
"Who... who are you?" Xander asked nervously.
"I am the opposite of her," the man said slowly. "That which is truth, rather than that which is lies."
"What is going on?" Xander asked confused.
The two looked at each other, naked hatred visible for the other in each of their eyes. "Isn't it obvious?" they both said at the same time, "you have to choose."
"Choose what?" Xander frowned.
"Truth." The woman spat with venom.
"Or lies." The man added with a soft, sad lisp.
*
Xander looked at the two, and his eyes showed his rising desperation. "No." he said slowly. "NO! I don't want to."
"You have to. You must." The man said.
"But I don't want EITHER!" Xander screamed as they began to fade. "I choose to stay here! It's quiet here! It's safe here!"
"Fool." The woman spat as she turned away in disgust. "I could have given you everything."
The man looked on sadly at Xander, who was now sobbing to himself. "You did not make the fatal choice, but you have still given her what she most wants..."
Xander stopped crying for a second and looked up. "What did I give her?"
The man spoke sadly. "A way into your soul..."
Xander closed his eyes and gasped.
"...and a way into your mind. To control you, without you being there."
Suddenly, all was quiet.
It was if time itself had stood still.
It had.
*
Xepto raged. Her realm was in tatters, the fine designs destroyed, defaced. Mundus had done this, she knew. But she could not visit vengeance on him without the aid of all Hell behind her.
The Devil-Knight may have been powerful individually, but in the archaic politics that Hell held to, the strongest ruled. That was the way it always had been: that was the way it always would be.
The most cunning, the most evil, the most powerful. Three attributes that were required to Rule.
Xepto was powerful, true. She was also ruthlessly cunning and evil to the core... no, wait, she wasn't: she had developed human feelings at one time in her existence. They were a weakness. A weakness that despite her many attempts to remove had not completely gone.
As long as her son was alive, she would not be always a Devil. In a corner of her mind lurked humanity. She shivered at the idea, but it was seductive... much like the anger, hatred and lies that her power stemmed from.
"Angelo..." she hissed, and a lackey bowed obsequiously.
"Shall I summon him, Mistress?"
Xepto shook her head, looking death at the speaker. The small demon quailed at the look, but did not flinch away. If he had, she would have killed him outright. Weak servants were not to be tolerated. While some killed their more intelligent servants, for fear of further competition, Xepto did not. Until they became a threat, she continued to use them.
"No. Let him come when he wishes. Him and his thrice damned brother will spoil all my careful planning if they do what I think they are going to... who would have thought that Sparda would still be alive? Mundus certainly kept that quiet. But still, perhaps it is for the best..."
"The Dark Knight? Alive? After all this time?" Whispers began to form around her, as her subjects and servants muttered to each other.
Xepto nodded. "Yes. The Legendary One is alive. With his wife, if the truth is to be known." A small smile broke her severe reflection. Perhaps he knew with his wife what I had a taste of...... oh, my husband, I did love you... I do love you still...
Not willing to show weakness in front of even her closest servants, Xepto vanished.
*
A cliff face in a desolate spot of the Irish coast knew boiling heat for a fraction of a second, as Xepto cooled from the temperatures that existed in Hell, to the more realistic ones in the 'real world'.
Xepto looked across the still sea, and screamed her rage. The sea boiled at her feet, waves crashing on the shore vaporised in the heat of her displeasure.
As the cliff crumbled, Xepto's wings unfurled and beat once, holding her in place in the air where one second she had stood on rock. She stopped her angry tirade as an answering scream came from across the sea, detected by her Devil ears.
"DANTE!" Xepto screamed again, before falling silent and waiting.
*
Dante felt the fabric of the world shift as something unnatural occurred.
He could feel it in his bones, that is was not far away, and something drew him to investigate. His emotional safeguards that had been torn to shreds when Xander vanished had taken time to build up.
Terrorising Ethan had been cathartic for him, allowing him to vent the rage he hadn't known he had against the man's brother. Nathan might be the watcher, and Ethan the Chaos worshipping mage, but at least Ethan had a conscience, of a sort. Nathan, now, was the willing servant of a power that would use him for its own ends, and not care one whit if he died in the process.
Something pulled at him; summoned him.
It was calling the deepest reaches of his soul. His cry of sorrow and anger was louder than he thought possible, the waves of sound cracking stone and tearing trees apart with the sheer force released.
He followed the call, his Devil form coming as he needed it, wings bursting from his body to carry him faster than the eye could comprehend.
The need was urgent; the summons could not be ignored.
Painfully, Dante knew who summoned him, and what it could mean.
*
Angelo sat in his own realm, a dark place with nothing but that which he created. It was barren, desolate almost to the point of non-existence.
It mirrored his mind.
Xepto had given him much to think about, as had his brother, in his inimitable way. Angelo and Dante: the apple of their mothers' eye.
Two brothers destined to be at each others throats from the moment they came of age, the rage and pain that was the heritage of the father becoming embodied in both, but only one truly able to command the power behind that rage.
Angelo, privately, was still not certain which of the two of them was the lucky one.
Was it Dante? He doubted it. He was forever destined to fight his own form; resist the powers that made him what he was.
Was it Angelo himself? He was almost certain that he wasn't the gifted one. He looked around. Could this be a gift? More like a curse.
But it was almost time. It had taken many bribes, many deaths, and much time to create an environment ripe for Angelo's move, but he intended to take it while he could.
The other half-Devil, the son of Xepto, was too important to leave in the hands of Mundus for any longer than necessary. It was already highly likely that his mind was shattered: it had been a long time since he arrived.
Everything must be carefully orchestrated. He had already lined up a nice disaster for Dante to deal with that would allow Angelo the freedom to release Xander into the world again.
The few aspects that Angelo could not take into consideration, though, was how the tortured half-Devil would react to the world. Would he remember his friends, or would something... disastrous... happen?
Only time would tell.
*