Disclaimer: BtVS and nothin' else mine. 'Cept the plot. Sorta. Eh… General Xander costume something else Halloween episode fic. Also note that some of the characters may sound a bit off as I haven't watched Buffy in a long while and am running off memory of what they sound like as well as fanfics. Chapter titles come from all three DMC OST's.
Chapter 1 – Evil Vacuum
"Damnit!" growled Alexander LaVelle Harris under his breath as a fifteen-year-old with really bad case of acne snatched up the last toy rifle. That completely shot to hell his idea of going as a soldier. Oh well. Guess he'd have to put those fatigues he'd bought to better use elsewhere…
Sighing, he turned and went off to look for another costume to wear when he took the kiddies out. He passed Jonathon as he browsed and shuddered as the other teenager held up a Darth Vader helmet like a trophy. Just the thought of the computer nerd as Vader made him wish to be somewhere else.
"Hey, Xander!" exploded Willow's voice by his ear then and he turned, surly expression immediately fading.
"Hey, Wills," he said cheerfully to his 'bestest-bud'. Willow Rosenberg had been his neighbor since they were kids and she knew all the little details he'd managed to keep hidden from Buffy and the others. Like his father's nearly unseen soberness and the bruises… "You find anything?"
Willow nodded and held up a bag that proclaimed itself by the cardboard tab stapled to it's top to be a ghost costume. Xander sighed mentally at this. Wills was hiding again for another Halloween…
"Nice," he said, keeping a smile on his face.
"What about you?" she asked, stuffing the costume back in her bag.
He frowned and replied, "Well, my soldier idea just got drop-kicked into Nothingdom since all the toy guns are gone. Don't know what I'm going to do now." Shrugging a bit, he then asked, "Where's Buffy?"
"Oh! She found a great dress! All 18th-centurish and stuff."
Xander wrinkled his nose at that and said, "Bah. I prefer my women in spandex."
"Xand!"
"What?" exclaimed Xander as the redhead smacked him lightly on the arm. "What did I do?"
"Being a guy," explained Buffy as she appeared, before mentioned dress in a bag tossed over her shoulder. "Ready, Will?"
"Yep!" chirped Willow, holding up her costume to show the vampire slayer. Buffy's green eyes looked helplessly at Xander, who shrugged then moved off to try and find himself a costume, leaving them to their own devices.
He briefly debated a pirate then decided against that when he saw Larry at the counter buying the same outfit. Ick.
Turning about quickly, he felt something sharp dig into his stomach. Yelping slightly and jumping back, he looked down and glared at the offending thing.
The thing turned out to be a sword – and a really odd looking one at that. He pulled it out of the box it was in along with two plastic automatic pistols and a white wig and looked at it in awe. The two-handed hilt curled into spirals on its way down from the cross guard, which was either a dragon's head or some kind of demon with its wings spread out on either side of it. From the mouth of the beast protruded a nearly twelve foot long plastic blade that made some of Giles' swords look incompetent.
He hefted the plastic blade in one hand and swung it, grinning a bit as he did so.
"I think I found my costume," he muttered to himself as he reached up and plucked the red and black ensemble that came with the sword off the rack.
Outside of Buffy's, Xander paused to straighten the dark red vest he wore over the black long-sleeve shirt underneath it. He then checked the two plastic pistols holstered on each hip and then the sword, which was slung through a neat sheath on the back of the long red coat.
Then, grinning, he walked on up the walk and onto the porch, leaning forward to press the doorbell with a black gloved hand.
It only took a minute for the door to open and he blinked, jaw dropped before he stood straight up and exclaimed, "Hail Buffy, Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia! I completely renounce spandex!"
Buffy, her blonde hair covered by a dark wig, smiled and curtsied, saying, "Why, thank you, kind sir." She then straightened and frowned at him, asking, "Who are you supposed to be?"
Xander shrugged in response, causing the sword on his back to shift slightly.
"Dunno," he replied. "Shopkeeper guy said it's a character from some game they're considering making over in Japan. Looks neat though, don't it?"
"Yeah," said Buffy with a nod, eying the red and black clad young man standing on her doorstep. The only other color in the costume was the silver of one of the guns at his hip and the sword across his back. Not to mention the shaggy white wig he had covering his hair.
"So where's Wills?"
"Oh! Wait till you see her, Xand…"
Buffy trailed off as Willow came down the stairs, not in the black skirt and burgundy shirt of before, but the ghost costume she'd bought at Ethan's Costume Shop
"Damn," muttered Buffy, earning a sigh from Xander.
"Hi," said Willow meekly from under the sheet.
Xander forced a grin at her and said, "Nice 'boo' you got there, Wills," referring to the 'BOO!' in large letters on the front of her costume.
The sheet jumped as the redhead smiled then she asked, "Who're you supposed to be?"
"Video game character. Supposedly."
"Oh."
"Guess we'd better get going," said Buffy, looking disappointed that Willow had come down in the sheet instead of her original ensemble.
"Yeah," said Xander. He then grinned and pulled the sword out of its improvised sheath, waving it in the air. "To the school then, Lady of Buffdom and Ghost of Wills!"
The two girls laughed and Xander grinned, resheathing the sword (which he'd practiced doing since he'd bought the costume). Maybe the night wouldn't be a total fiasco after all…
Jesus fuckin' Christ, thought Dante as he pushed himself up off the pavement, lifting one hand to his aching head. What the hell hit me?
He then looked around and blinked, not recognizing the area. It wasn't his town, that was for sure. Too damn small.
And where the hell am I?
At a sound behind him he spun about, almost quicker than the mortal eye could see. Ebony and Ivory were in his hands so fast that they seemed to jump there and his blue eyes scanned the area for what had made the noise. Nothing jumped out at him and he frowned, lowering the two Desert Eagle's.
What the hell's going on?
"Xander!"
Dante turned slightly and arched a silvery eyebrow at the scantily clad redhead coming up behind him. His blue eyes raked her form up and down as she got closer and he smiled appreciatively. She wasn't as beautiful as his mother had been – nor some of the women he'd run into over the years – but she still was a sight to see.
"Evenin'," he said gruffly, holstering his guns.
The redhead blinked and mumbled, "Xander?" She then frowned and added, "You're not Xander…"
"Not when I last checked I wasn't," said the half devil. "Name's Dante."
"Willow."
Beautiful girl named after a tree. Thought he was some guy named Xander – and what kind of name was that, anyway? Some nutty shortening of Alexander or something?
"Right," he said. He then glanced about and asked, "You got any idea what's going on in this droopy little place?"
"I…I think everyone's turned into their costumes," replied the redhead. "Larry nearly jumped me, shouting something about a 'pretty wench'."
" 'Costumes?' " repeated Dante, arching an eyebrow again.
Willow nodded.
"It's Halloween."
"Uh-huh. And you were…?"
"A ghost," supplied Willow.
"Ghost of what?" asked Dante, eying her again. "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll? Not that that's a bad thing, mind yah."
The teenager blinked and looked down at her outfit, blushing immediately. She then stammered, "I…I…"
"Hey, don't worry about it, kid," said Dante. "Looks good on yah. You should wear it more often." He then looked around the area and asked, "So who's this 'Xander?'"
There was a long silence from Willow before she whispered, "He's you."
Dante's head snapped towards her and she jumped back as he barked, "Beggin' your pardon?"
"You were his costume," insisted the redhead. She then made to grab his arm and tug him towards a parked car – more specifically towards one of its rearview mirrors – but failed as her hands passed through him. He obligingly followed her over to the car instead and looked at her oddly for a long moment before he leaned down and looked in the mirror.
A second later he jumped backwards nearly four feet, snarling, "What the fucking hell is going on here!"
"Death," snarled a voice near his ear and he spun, Ebony and Ivory out in an instant. The Desert Eagle's buried themselves under the golden-eyed demon's chin and he spat, "Fuck you and the…"
"Xand – Dante, no!"
The leather clad half devil jerked towards the ghost girl and snapped, "What the hell do you want, Red?"
Willow took a small step away from him before mumbling, "That's a student."
Dante frowned and looked back at the demon – vampire, he saw now – and frowned.
"Great. Just fuckin' peachy."
With that he clocked the beast on the back of the head with Ebony's butt, sending the hapless student trapped in his costume to the pavement. As he holstered the guns, he frowned and looked at his empty hands. They really weren't his and this really wasn't his body…
Hell, that vamp really wasn't the only student trapped in his costume. So was this kid, this…Xander. He hadn't believed it a second ago but now he sure as hell did.
"What the hell did I do to get caught up in this crap?" muttered Dante. He then looked at Willow and sighed, saying, "C'mere, Red. You've got a better idea of what's going on here than I do."
" 'Red?' " repeated Willow as she came close.
Dante reached out to pick out a lock of the red mass that was her hair but his hand just passed through it.
"The hair," he explained.
"Oh." The redhead then squeaked and exclaimed, "OhmiGodohmiGod! We have to find Buffy!"
"Who?"
"Buffy! She's…have you ever heard of the Slayer? Girl, fights vampires, only one of them at the time, blah, blah, blah?"
Dante searched his memory and remembered the old guy he'd gotten Ebony and Ivory off of saying something about them once being the weapons of a Slayer – which was weird since most tended to stick with stakes and medieval weaponry. And he'd heard Trish mutter something about one a time or two whilst wandering around the Devil Never Cry. Beyond that, he had nothing.
"A bit," he replied honestly for some odd reason. If it had been anyone else standing beside him, he'd have told them 'no.' But something made him want to tell Red the truth. Hell, it might even be this Xander kid affecting him… "Lemme guess…this Buffy, she's…"
"The Slayer," supplied Willow. "And she…ohmiGodohmiGodohmiGod!"
"Whoa! Calm down, Red, and tell me what's going on."
"She bought this dress, kinda 18th-centurish."
"So know she probably thinks she's some chick crashing in the 1700's?"
Willow frowned at his choice of words then nodded. Dante frowned and cursed before saying, "Alright. Let's go find this Buffy and figure out what the Hell's going on. You with me, Red?"
"…yeah."
"Good," he said. "Let's go then."
Then that he strode off down the street with the ghost girl wandering along behind him, silently wondering what the hell he'd done to get dropped into this mess and how he was going to get out of it.
Rupert Giles wiped his glasses off and slipped them back onto his nose before he rose from his desk chair and moved to the kitchen to fix himself another cup of tea. As he did so, he heard grunting noises coming from somewhere outside and leaned forward to lift one section of the blinds covering the window over the sink.
Outside, a small cadre of monsters wrestled over a dog's battered carcass and the Watcher's eyes widened behind his glasses.
"Bloody hell…"
Tea forgotten, he rushed from the kitchen and grabbed his coat before racing from the house.
But not before turning back at the last minute and grabbing a sword from the weapons chest underneath his desk.
Author's NotesI swear Dante's guns are Desert Eagle's. The guns my Dante action figure came with match up with pics of Desert Eagle's that I looked up online (bless Google).