Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN et al. own Buffy. Capcom et al own Devil May Cry. I do not. I'm just borrowing them.
Title: Elysium
Author: Paradigm Shifter
Rating: R
Cross: Devil May Cry
Continuity: Better the Devil You Know. Read or be confused.
Feedback: It's kind of like a fifth element: Earth, Air, Fire and Water… and Feedback. It's important, and yes, I would love some. ;-)
Thanks: The list of people I need to thank for various things continues to grow. Teri; as always. Trevelyan, even though you're busy a lot right now. Bobby Cox for his help and friendship too.
Notes:
"Speech"
Emphasis
'Thoughts'
Mental Communication
Recommended Listening: Taking a step back in time here… 'The Sky's Gone Out' by Bauhaus.
----
To say that Trish was surprised when Dante walked through the door of Devil Never Cry would have been a massive understatement. For a moment, she doubted her eyes. Then she dismissed that. She knew what her eyes were telling her.
Dante walked through the door, battered, bruised, and limping. His normally immaculate white hair hung limply, and had become a dirty grey from dust. And he looked worried.
Not defeated, which is how Trish - to a degree at least, expected him to look - but worried. Deeply, bone achingly troubled.
"Dante?"
He looked up wearily, and it took a few seconds before recognition registered in his eyes. "Trish? What are you doing still here?" he paused a second, then asked, "everything alright?"
Trish shrugged. "I was watching over Devil Never Cry, since you were headed to Sunnydale. I got a phone call from a man calling himself 'Giles' that you had vanished." She looked down, and Dante saw for a moment some deep scars hidden below the surface. "And that Xander has disappeared."
Dante collapsed onto a couch, and Trish sat down opposite. "Is it true?" she asked.
"Is what true?"
"Xander?"
Dante nodded slowly. "Yeah. He's gone. Not… gone, gone, but he's trapped. I know where he is, though. It's just a question of how long he can hold out. I think he's already vulnerable. I felt something not long ago. The Key is missing."
"The KEY?! Missing?" Trish bolted to her feet she was so shocked. "How can the Key go missing?"
"Someone hid it on earth. More precisely, on the Hellmouth." Trish gasped at that revelation. Dante cricked his neck as he spoke, and it seemed to wake him up slightly as he sat more upright. He looked less defeated. "What if Mundus realises that he has captured the Key?"
Trish started pacing. "Then we're in big trouble. The Key is all he needs to penetrate the Locked Zones. What happens if he opens them?" Her voice was quavering, terror close to breaking through the surface. The Locked Zones were a nightmare realm: even more than normal Hell itself – if it could be called normal. If Mundus opened the Locked Zones, he would unleash a tide of anti-life that would wash through Hell, annihilating it totally and causing imbalances in what had been so delicately wrought. Then it would flood across the mental boundaries of Devil worshipping humans, mages and the like, and slowly spread through the rest of creation. The creatures that were trapped in the Locked Zones were hideous things: twisted with an abiding hatred for anything that wasn't one of their own. There had been a period of history when Hell had been notoriously quiet – the sole reason for that was that somehow, someone had fractured the seal which had existed since time began its crawl, and some of the beasts had escaped. Rather than be destroyed, Hell had called back all of its greatest generals in an attempt to close the Zone once more. It had succeeded, but the ranks of Devils and Demons alike; masters and slaves, soldiers and cannon-fodder; had been severely reduced. It had taken time to rebuild, and even now, some parts of Hell were desolate wastelands not through the choice of those that existed there. Dante stood too and gathered the nervous Trish into his arms to still her.
"I don't think he knows how to use the Key. My father was the only one to ever learn the path. A full Devil can only go part of the route… it has to be a half-Breed that completes the fracturing."
"Half-Breed? But… Xander's capture." Trish seemed to sag in defeat. Defeat similar to what Dante was feeling, but refused to show. "That is why."
Dante cradled Trish in his arms. "We can only be glad that fortune has shone on one aspect of this: Xander is trapped within his own mind. Mundus, I believe, may use his body, but only the free-will of the claimant can be used to open the Zones."
Trish turned away, walking across the room to the desk. "There have been whispers coming from the communities in the Far East. The Order is no more. It has been destroyed."
"The Order of Teraka, destroyed?" Dante couldn't believe his ears. "By whom? When? How?"
Trish flicked a picture at him. "This is the Devil that did it. About a week ago. He hasn't been seen since, so it can only be guessed at what has happened since then. As for how… he went in… tore the place apart."
Dante looked at the picture of the Devil descending. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, his worst fears confirmed. "Xander."
"What we have to confirm now," Trish said heavily, "is whether it was coercion, control, or free will."
"Whatever it was doesn't matter!" Dante stated. "That is my partner out there." His eyes flashed dangerously. "Mundus will pay for this. I swear now. Mundus will pay for this."
"What are you going to do?"
"I came here to tell you that I was going away for a while. I may have a way to stop this. But for that, I need my father."
"You… you're insane!" Trish shouted. "You intend to go into the depths… the deepest darkest part of Hell itself?! And for what? Some rumour that you father has made it his refuge?"
"He is there." Dante stated. "Xepto agrees with me."
"Xepto?" Trish's voice dropped dangerously low. "You trust that manipulative bitch?"
"When it comes to this… I do, yes." Dante shucked his red coat, laying his two pistols, Ebony and Ivory, down on top of it. "Her experiences make her more human than she thinks she is. Xepto may have tried to fight that humanity, but she can never fully tear herself away from the one thing that made her what she is now…"
"And what is that?" Trish asked with scorn in her voice.
Dante looked at her sadly, the spitting image of his mother. Made by Mundus to entrap him. "What she has been since her ill fated mission for Hell's Advance. Above all else, no matter how heard she denies it, she is a parent. And all the denial in the world won't change that."
"I still think it's foolish to trust her…" Trish muttered sullenly.
Dante smiled at her. "More foolish than me trusting you? Remember what you were, Trish, and give Xepto the chance I gave you."
Trish sighed. "Alright. Fine." She caught Dante's arm, fear making her eyes glow. "Where you're going… I won't be able to follow. Mundus will find me if I do."
Dante looked at her sadly. "I know."
"What are you going to do?"
"Xepto says she has a way to get me in unnoticed. I don't know if that's true, but I have to try. She won't be going with me, just getting me in. from there, I'm on my own."
"What are you going to do about Xander?"
"There is nothing I can do," Dante admitted heavily. "I have to leave it up to Xepto and Angelo. Since the Key has been taken, I have to assume that it was Xander that took her. They'll get both of them out, but whether or not they'll be the same again is another matter…"
"If the Key is trapped in the same way as Xander, they will meet, you know. The mental landscapes have a habit of interacting. Especially if those involved are familiar with one another."
"I know that, too," Dante acknowledged. "I've got to hope that nothing will happen. What would happen to the Key if the energies of a Devil were focussed on it?"
Dante and Trish stared at one another, neither willing to answer that question.
Trish broke the silence. "What if Xander is serving for Mundus voluntarily? Even coercion is…"
"He's not serving of his own free will. He doesn't have it in him to serve the darkness." Dante stated this firmly, refusing to believe otherwise.
"But if he…" Trish began.
"NO!" Dante roared then quickly looked apologetic. "Sorry. Until we have conclusive proof one way or another, I refuse to speculate. If I face Xander… then we'll know."
"How?" Trish demanded.
"If nothing else, Xander is certainly stubborn. Mundus will be exerting all his will to control a body without the mind supporting. If he wins, he's changed sides."
"You're betting the world on whether or not you can beat him?" Trish was incredulous. "He's had years in Hell, Dante! If it hasn't escaped your attention, the longer a Devil exists in Hell, the stronger they get!"
"We haven't got a lot of choice, Trish. Unless you want to go in there after him?"
The two stood at an impasse, neither willing to back down from what they viewed as right.
Finally, after long moments, Trish narrowed her eyes. "I will."
Dante was momentarily taken aback. "You… you said yourself that if you go back to Hell Mundus will find you! Are you insane?!"
Trish shook her head, walking over to a wall and picking a wicked looking blade off it with one hand. "No, I'm not insane. And besides, if I want Xander to show, I'm going to have to get Mundus' attention anyway. Might as well be there as here."
Dante nodded slowly. "Well, I learned long ago that once you've made your mind up I can't change it. But don't take more risks than you have to, Trish. Come back alive."
Trish turned at the door. "I will. I'll get someone to cover for us here. Don't worry, he's trustworthy." She blew him a teasing kiss, and vanished out the door.
Dante collapsed into the chair behind his desk as the roar of her motorbike drowned out every other noise from the night.
He didn't so much as breathe until the sound had faded into the distance.
----
Xander had been left alone now for a long time. Well, as far as he was concerned, it was a long time. But total darkness alone has this tendency to warp time beyond all recognition.
He was walking – if that was the right term – toward an area of blackness that had, for the past few hours (or hours it seemed) been lighter than the rest. He was almost certain it was an optical illusion, but he had to be sure.
Maybe he was going crazy.
He shook his head, denying that thought. No. he wasn't crazy.
The memory of his four lives played out in front of him. Then his fifth.
'Accept what you are…'
The words haunted him. He didn't want to be that. When with Dante, he had some grounding against the dark. The man's sense of humour and stable control over every situation – even a bad one – made it easier to forget.
He didn't want to be the Devil… and in refusing to acknowledge what he was, he trapped himself here.