Disclaimer: I neither own Devil May Cry, nor do I make profit from my fanfiction of it. If I did, I would be rich. Or, at least slightly less poor. The original characters that appear in this story are mine, however, and I would appreciate them not being reused by anyone. (I say as though anyone gives a shit about my OCs XD)

Warnings: This story contains violence, potential gore, and future manry gayness. You have been warned. Please leave if this offends your delicate sensibilities and refrain from making them known, because I can assure you, I have better things to care about.

Full Synopsis: Beneath Fortuna Castle lies Agnus' lab, full of dangerous secrets and buried treasures. When the Knights of the broken Order accidentally release something best left to die in the darkness, Nero is rocketed backward in time to a place he doesn't recognize, to meet a Dante he doesn't know. Eventually DantexNero slash.

Story beta read by my good friend, Cerulean Twin, who also writes marvelous fanfiction!

Mission 01: Descent

Boredom.

It was a feeling Nero had grown all too intimate with lately. It crawled dully up his spine and into his brain, making him yawn and fidget and sigh. There was nothing to do; nothing of interest, anyway. Nothing since the Savior had been put down and Fortuna had been made safe once again. At first there had been demons to round up and civilians to rescue, but now…there wasn't even a chance encounter with a Scarecrow, wiggling in morbid glee and scythes grinning at the ready, to look forward to.

This was a good thing; Nero did his best to remind himself of this whenever the boredom tried to overtake him. The people of Fortuna were good and honest, and they deserved a safe place free of the dangers meant only for a demon hunter. At first the betrayal of the Order had been a deep wound to the people of the city; they had trusted and believed in the Sword, but slowly those knights innocent of devilish transgressions had been given an unspoken forgiveness.

The Order was castrated and would never rise to power again, but its Knights kept peace in the beautiful city, and were among the foremost to organize reparations of the damage Sanctus and his pawns had caused. Chunks of the crumbling Savior were one of the higher priorities in this endeavor, as they littered the city streets far and wide. Homes and other buildings had been damaged, destroyed, and at worst crushed with their occupants still inside and all of this needed to be cleaned and rebuilt. The remnants of the Order made good on their debts, and Nero was among them at first.

But, toiling away with the workforce clearing rubble and starting the framework of new houses was not something Nero was taking to with much relish. He couldn't use his Devil Bringer to quicken the work because most people who saw it feared it, and would by proxy come to fear him in all likelihood. He'd seen the looks on their faces, and heard their whispering. It was something he wanted to avoid.

He missed Dante, though he would never admit it within earshot of the older man. Their introduction may have been rocky, but there was no denying that Dante understood him. Nero couldn't help but think that Dante knew him better than he had known himself for a little while. How else had he known that beating some sense into Nero was the best way to calm him down? Nero sighed. He thought of Yamato, resting dormant inside his right arm, and missed the man in red all the more.

And then, there was Kyrie. Her beauty and tender kindness never faded, but…it was different now. Before when there had always been demons to fight, he could find her and feel satisfied in protecting her from any danger. But, now there was nothing to protect her from, and he felt a little lost when he was with her. He'd seen in her eyes that she knew it, and that his feelings hurt her, but he didn't know what to do. Settling down with Kyrie had been his dream when he had nothing to do but fight and protect, but at last they finally could settle and he balked at the idea. If he was bored now, mere weeks after the last encounter with a Scarecrow in the streets, how would he feel in months? Years? He thought it might drive him crazy.

The Order had taken much from the city of Fortuna, but it had given Nero a purpose, however violent. Without it, what good was he if he couldn't find happiness in settling down? Sure, rubble still needed clearing and buildings still needed repairing but he felt too alienated to try to help any more.

He could see Kyrie from his perch, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the rooftop. The sun was setting over the city and its light made the color of her hair blaze. She was with him again. Nero scowled, clenching and un-clenching his fists as he watched the couple from far away. They couldn't see him from where they were, but he could see them perfectly well. He assumed off-hand that it was a benefit of his so-called demonic heritage.

Whatever. It wasn't as though that mattered now. His blue eyes fell to gaze on his Devil Bringer. He was angry about Kyrie spending so much time with him. Nero would have been less angry if he understood why he felt the way he did. He wasn't jealous, or enraged that she would step out on him. Nero simply…didn't care. It was almost a relief that she was finding someone else to settle down into a boring life with. No, it wasn't Kyrie who made him angry, or being jealous. Feelings were stupid, the young Knight thought, especially when you didn't understand them.

He clenched the fingers of his glowing right hand into a fist, glaring at the clawed appendage as though it knew the answers to all of his questions and was refusing to divulge them. It simply glimmered silently at him, and he sort of thought it might be gloating.

His gaze returned to the couple far below. It wasn't even like the guy was a bad person, or even a bad match for Kyrie. Nero sort of liked him, which also made him angry. The guy was a Knight, and like most of them still wore his white uniform. He was a little older than Kyrie, but she was older than Nero, so it didn't rankle as much as he would have thought. The guy was…nice, and who the hell thinks the guy that's stealing your girlfriend is nice? Nero didn't know but it made him feel like an idiot. Maybe some sort of silent agreement was supposed to have gone down with him and Kyrie about her dating other men, and Nero just hadn't noticed?

He wondered if he had noticed, or if there had even been a discussion, would he care then?

Nero sighed in frustration, turning his gaze elsewhere. Someone was on their way out to his spot on the edge of the roof. Another Knight, he guessed, and turned around to glare up at Cassius, who stopped walking a few steps away from Nero, looking a little pale.

Ah, right, Cassius was the one who hated heights. Nero had to resist a snort of derision. A fine thing the leftovers of the Order were. Lovesick pricks, cowards, and misfits. It was a generalization to be sure, but it seemed to sum up the majority of what remained of the Holy Knights, Nero included.

"What?" he demanded, glaring at the dark-haired Knight.

"Regulus needs you," Cassius muttered, well-away from the edge of the roof, "I'm supposed to find Leone as well."

Nero pointed wordlessly over the edge of the roof toward the couple that had been dominating his thoughts, and smirked slightly. It forced Cassius closer to edge of the roof to look down and spot the other Knight he was seeking. It was a small mean thing, but Nero couldn't help teasing the other Knight, who was a year or two his junior. He didn't dislike Cassius, if it came down to it. The man was good in a fight if his feet were planted on solid ground, and he never did or said anything to personally piss Nero off, but he just lacked personality in Nero's opinion, so fucking with him was…fun.

"Ah," Cassius said, making an involuntary sound in the back of his throat and swiftly retreated from the edge once he had spotted the other target of his search, "Well then…Regulus. He wants to see you in the meeting hall at New Headquarters."

"Why?" Nero asked, interested piqued, though he would never admit it. He and authority had never seen eye-to-eye, and now Regulus was authority, being the highest Knight in rank to survive after the destruction of the Savior.

"He didn't tell me why. Only said it was important," Cassius answered coolly.

Nero swung his legs around from the edge and stood up, "Alright, it's cool. I guess I'll go see him now, if I gotta."

He parted ways with Cassius after they had both descended the stairs from the roof, and made his way back to the Headquarters of the Order. His imagination was running wild now, and he didn't bother to stop it. This might mean that something interesting was finally going to happen, if Regulus was calling up Knights for a meeting. Nero hoped it meant a mission—one preferably with killing involved.

Nero tried to think what would possibly need doing now, and he could only think of Agnus' lab. They had already swept through the outskirt areas of the city, the Mitis Forest, Lamina Peak, and the rest, the only thing that hadn't been fully investigated was the lab in Fortuna Castle.

The outer areas of the city posed a more hopeful interest to him now. The places where the Hell Gates had stood before their destruction at Dante's hands were still there, as was Agnus' lab. The lab had not been the priority when half the city was suffocating beneath a disintegrating Savior, and demons were running amok, but now...

Had the time to plunder the depths of Agnus' mad research facility finally come? Nero's eagerness was tempered with caution, if that were the case. There would surely be some action down there, but his past experience made him wary also. No one knew what horrible things might be found down there.

But he hoped that was the reason behind this sudden summons, regardless of the danger.

As he entered the meeting hall, he saw two other Knights were already there waiting with their impromptu commander; the dark twins, Daniele and Davide. Regulus waved for Nero to hurry up and then said, "Once Cassius returns with Leone we can begin this."

Nero did not like Regulus. Regulus did not like Nero. But Regulus was practical and seasoned, and he knew that not liking someone was no reason to not make use of their talents. For that reason Nero respected the senior Knight, but he did not like him. The man was sour and humorless, and less forgiving than Credo had been, in all things. Nero doubted if anyone truly enjoyed his company, probably not even his wife if he had one.

Cassius returned with Leone in tow after a brief wait, and they strode up to meet the rest of the gathered Knights. At the sight of Leone, blonde and green-eyed and handsome, Nero thought of Kyrie and scowled at the other man. Leone gave him a slightly startled look and edged around him carefully. Nero was willing to bet that Kyrie had led the older Knight to believe she and he had had a clear break up.

Leone was a little too honorable to willfully take another man's girl, Nero thought. But it still made him a little sour that he hadn't been let in on any of this decision-making on Kyrie's side.

"Now that we are all here," Regulus said pointedly, and glared around at each of them until they all took their seats, "Some of you may have noticed others who were not invited to this meeting. There's a reason, I assure you. The six of us will be venturing out to Fortuna Castle tomorrow, in order to investigate the remains of the lab that Agnus had there."

Nero resisted the urge to jump up and shout 'Called it!' and instead settled for a discreet fist pump.

Regulus noticed and glared at him for a moment before continuing, "The five of you are the only ones that I have cleared to know about this mission and whatever we may discover down there. Nothing may leave this room about it. Do you all understand me?"

No one said anything, so Regulus seemed to take that as assent, "Good. We will all meet here again tomorrow at 0600. Be ready for combat."

Nero wasn't entirely sure the situation required the gravity that Regulus' tone gave it, but he kept his mouth shut and simply rolled his eyes. He doubted he was here for any reason other than the fact that he had been to the lab before, and none of these other men had. They needed his memory of the layout, in all likelihood.

Well, he was happy to oblige if it meant finally seeing some action. Or, if not action he hoped it would at least break the monotony.

And so, there they were the following morning, picking through the untouched laboratory. If it weren't for the dust beginning to collect over the surfaces below, one might have thought that Agnus had never left. Nothing had been disturbed since the researcher's death until today.

Not much could be said for the quality of Agnus' character, but the man kept impeccable records. Nero was grateful for that much at least, even if he had despised the mad scientist when the man had been alive. Having an organized space in which to keep record of his debaucheries made going through them much simpler for Nero and the other men who joined him in the nether levels of the Order's headquarters.

The excursion had already proven to be interesting so far. The group had been forced to fend off several Cutlasses that tried to bar their path into the laboratory, because of which Leone was now nursing the slashed elbow of his sword-arm, and his bruised pride. It could have been worse had one of the twins—Nero wasn't sure if it had been Daniele or Davide, he could hardly ever tell them apart—not yanked Leone backwards out of the way of further damage.

Nero wished they could have left Leone behind; his swordsmanship was stiff ever since he had shattered his collarbone and sword arm on duty last year. But, Nero wasn't in charge of this little expedition underground. That responsibility still belonged to Regulus, and he didn't let Nero forget it. Nor did he let the young man forget that the only reason he had been brought along was because he was familiar with the area. It wasn't as though they might need Nero's fighting skills, the youth mused sarcastically. Where there were a few Cutlasses, there could always be more.

He looked up when a sudden cry erupted from one of the twins. All eyes in the room flew to the man as he stared at the contents of the manila folder clutched in his gloved fingers, shock plain on his face.

"What is it?" Regulus demanded, looking slightly displeased that a man under his command would show such blatant shock. Nero was willing to bet the sour man saw it as weakness.

Wordlessly, Davide held the folder out to their commander. It was Davide, Nero was reasonably sure. He didn't think Daniele would have vocalized his surprise so loudly. Regulus took the file from the other knight's trembling hand and looked down at its content, brows furrowing as his eyes took in whatever lay within.

"Well?" Nero asked impatiently after several minutes of silence had passed, "What is it?"

To his surprise, Regulus actually deigned to give him a reply, gruffly answering, "Agnus had been using…live test subjects for his research into the demonic powers. Humans, people from our city, kidnapped from their homes and families."

The idea did not shock Nero quite as much as it seemed to the other Knights around him, but he wondered if they had ever met the man when he was in the throes of a blind tirade. Or if they had ever been close enough to see that cruel gleam in his eyes. The look on his face when he had first seen Nero's Devil Bringer had told the youth all he had needed to know about Agnus.

All the same, it didn't make his actions any less despicable. Taking willing test subjects from among the Order was revolting enough, but kidnapping innocent people from the city…

Nero wished he could have killed Agnus himself.

"Did any of them survive?" Leone asked, coming up behind Regulus and peering over his shoulder at the file.

"Maybe," Regulus said, turning over a page, "He has some marked as deceased and others aren't, but—"

"Well we have to find them!" Cassius surprised everyone by interrupting, his voice ringing in the room, grey eyes slightly wild. Once all of their stunned expressions were focused on him, the youngest Knight wilted, and muttered in his more usual tone, "They could still be down here…"

"I doubt any person has survived this long without food or water," Regulus said to them, lips tight. He was angrier than Nero had ever seen him before, though the man hid it well. The rage wasn't directed at any of the other Knights in the room, but it was all the more fierce because it couldn't be directed at its object—Agnus was dead. Nero could sympathize with the older Knight.

"It's still our duty to look," Daniele pointed out quietly from his twin's shadow, "Regardless. If we're investigating the entire facility…"

"We may as well look for these test subjects first," Nero piped up, feeling like his opinion wasn't really wanted, but he couldn't stop himself. If there were people like him…like Dante or people who had demon blood in them, Nero wasn't so sure that they wouldn't still be alive, however barely.

Regulus glared around at each of them in turn, but he didn't seem entirely opposed to the idea. After a moment, he shrugged a shoulder and put the file down onto the desk they had all clustered around, "Take a look at these, then. We'll want to know what we're dealing with before we try to find these people."

There were photos. Nero picked one up before he read any of the other papers. What he saw made his gut clench, and he put the photo back down into the folder. He thought it had been a child before…whatever had happened to it. Nero made an involuntary face, not wanting to think about it too hard.

"It looks like it's in a lower basement," Leone pointed out to one of the room numbers.

Where all decent dungeons are, Nero mused. But he kept it to himself, doubting whether any of the others would find it humorous. It wasn't surprising to him that there were even deeper layers to this nightmare house. His exploration of it hadn't exactly been cursory, but it hadn't been extensive during his first travel through the castle. There were still depths to Agnus' labs that Nero hadn't plundered.

Nero wondered if there would be more demons down there to fight. He couldn't help but hope so, despite himself. Demons would mean it would be eventful, if nothing else. If there were demons down there, at least the human test subjects would have died quickly instead of starving to death.

It was an empty justification but no one needed to know Nero's thoughts but himself.

He thought he had an idea where these prison cells would be, too. Nero had quite a vivid memory of the chamber in which Yamato had found him, and the notes in this file folder sounded as though it were near there. The background in some of the photos was also similar in architecture, but Nero wasn't an expert on that front.

Turning around, he started to head in that direction, but was halted after only a few steps by Regulus' voice as the man demanded, "Where do you think you're going, Nero?"

Nero suppressed a long-suffering sigh, and replied flatly, "To find the 'test subjects'." He finger quoted the words 'test subjects'. "Isn't that what's we're all about doing all of a sudden?"

"Not by yourself," Regulus said.

"Well nothing's gonna get done if I wait around for you guys to get done lolly-gagging," Nero retorted, standing with arms akimbo. Damn, he thought, I sound like Dante.

Regulus gave him a look, but the white-haired teen was not phased. He'd faced-down against Sanctus; this old guy right here was no match for that one. Nero smirked at him, and added, "What are you gonna do, stop me?"

"We are ready to go," Leone cut in, ever the peace maker, "Nero, lead the way."

Nero rolled his eyes and turned back around, continuing his original trajectory. Before long they passed the shattered glass chamber that had once housed the broken Yamato, and Nero unconsciously clenched his right fist slightly. There was still debris from his fight with Agnus scattered around the floor here, and shards of glass crunched under the soles of Knights' boots as they passed through.

They descended.

It was dark. The rest of the castle had been dark, as had been the rest of the lab without electric power, but it wasn't a true blackness. The farther they went, the fainter the light from the door became, until it was just a pinprick and they had to stop to light the torches they had carried with them.

The beams of light reflected off of the walls on either side of them, and off of the low ceiling. They were descending down a shaft-like tunnel, it looked like, gradually sloping downwards in a curving spiral.

Had Nero been in more amiable company he would have expected a quip about using his arm to light their path, but no one said a word about it. He was willing to bet Dante would have pointed it out just listen to Nero grumble.

There were rats down here too. A few scurried underfoot as they went, and Nero heard one of the men behind him—probably Cassius judging by the pitch—gasp as one of the tiny bodies crunched under a boot with a final dying squeak.

Farther in, there was a smell. At first it was subtle, and Nero doubted anyone without his sensitive nose had picked it up. But the strength of it grew, and made the young devil hunter's stomach turn slightly. It was a smell of carrion, fetid and putrefying, and of waste. Nero didn't count himself an expert on the odors of shit or piss, but the tang of excrement was hard to miss down here in the closed space.

To their credit, none of the Knights following behind him complained about the smell either, though Nero was sure their noses were wrinkling just as much as his was doing. He tried not to think about the smell, though it did likely mean that they were closing in on their destination, which was sort of a relief.

But, they hadn't run into anything that wanted to kill them yet, which was a disappointing sign in Nero's opinion. It was looking like the trip down here was going to be depressing, boring, and putrid. Joy.

Soon enough the passage opened out into a true dungeon, cells rose up in the opposite wall and continued along the hall, some of ancient barred steel, others modern additions of newer plexiglass. The entire dungeon was dark and water dripped from cracks in the ceiling. Not too long ago, the place was probably a pristine prison, combination of modern and medieval, but Agnus probably kept a tight ship when he had still been alive.

They passed one such plexiglass cell door smeared black with what was undoubtedly dried blood, so caked on that the contents of the cell were obscured. Nero didn't want to know what was in there, but it reeked of decaying flesh.

The torch beams reflected off of the glass, and Nero looked away before he could get a better look. His right boot splashed into a dark puddle as he strode on, and he hoped it was water.

"Spread out," Regulus' voice cut into the dank space suddenly, making Nero jump, "Clustering like this isn't going to help anyone."

With silent agreement, the others Knights fanned out across the dungeons. Nero kept onward, deeper into its rank bowels, taking the opportunity to finally get out of the group and back comfortably on his own. His path took him around a corner and down a short set of stairs, and he nearly ran into the thick steel door cloaked in darkness abruptly half a foot from the bottom step.

"The hell…?" he muttered, examining the door. It was solid steel, he was betting several feet thick. It was the type of door that belonged over a bank vault, not in some dungeon with dead test subjects.

There were several symbols inscribed over what might have been a nameplate, but they were unfamiliar to Nero. He reached up and slid the metal panel that sat at eye level aside, revealing a strip of window through which he could look to inside. It seemed sort of pointless however. Without the lights there wouldn't be anything but darkness to see, and he was the only Knight who hadn't brought a torch.

Nero hated the idea of asking one of the other Knights for help. He doubted anyone would let him do his own thing if Regulus heard him asking for a torch. Cassius was probably his best bet.

Turning around, Nero crept back up the short stairwell and went to look for Cassius. At first glance the dungeons were small, but the darkness had cloaked all of the turns and passageways leading off to different areas, so it took him a good few minutes to find the younger Knight. He nearly collided with him in fact as they were both turning the same corner at the same time, but Nero had the reflex to sidestep just in time.

"Hey, I need your torch," he said once Cassius had gotten a good look at him to see who he was.

"My torch comes with me attached to it," the brunette replied.

Nero shrugged, "Cool with me. Just don't get in my way."

It was hard to tell, but Cassius might have rolled his eyes.

Together, the two teens picked their way back through the cell block and down to Nero's hard-to-spot passageway. When they got to the door, the metal cast the beam of his light back at them and the corner brightened slightly.

"Bleeding hell," he breathed, taking in the massive door, "What in the world is this?"

Interesting, Nero thought smugly, but he said aloud, "Do you recognize those symbols?"

He pointed to the inscription and Cassius focused the beam on it, squinting at them, then raising an eyebrow, "I don't know. They look Enochian, but nobody uses that language for anything but rubbish occult spells….right?"

Nero shrugged in answer. Cassius looked back at the symbols, his expression slightly uneasy, "I mean…Agnus was no fool. Why would these be here?"

Without Nero having to ask, Cassius shone the beam of light from his torch into the little window, and both young men peered inside. The light's narrow path didn't illuminate much, but it was enough.

"Someone's in there," Cassius said finally after the light had glanced off of a hand.

"Or pieces of someone," Nero argued, "Or something pretending to be pieces of someone so we'll open the big magical door and let it out."

"They could be dying," the younger Knight pointed out.

"They could be hostile," the white-haired devil hunter disputed, but he was grinning. And if it was hostile? He'd beaten bigger things he was sure—some in this very castle. It would be fun, he'd get a workout. At the very worst they'd collapse the tunnel and have to climb back out.

How bad could it be?

To Be Continued

Dante will make his appearance in the next chapter! Please sit tight until then; I am a firm believer in build up. XD Please stay tuned, and review if you liked it or have any constructive criticism!