Game of Monsters - 172

Friends With the Noise in My Head

[Yasaka]

Well, Joshua had been wrong.

Why?

Because the man had convinced all three of them that his chances of succeeding this attempt were low. They’d believed him too, because… Why wouldn’t they? What he was trying to do was hard. Not the first time he’d tried to do something difficult, crazy and previously thought impossible, for sure, but still. To hear him say it, he’d need several attempts to iron out all the details about his living spell creation.

That had sounded reasonable enough, even when considering it was him.

In hindsight, the three of them should have known better. Joshua didn’t do reasonable when it came to his projects, apparently not even by his own standards. He seemed to have made it his life mission to just go above and beyond the expectations of people. Just when they thought they knew what he could do, he’d do something else to prove them wrong. No matter how much they tried not to underestimate him, he’d still make them look like fools.

“He did it,” Gabriel breathed out, probably the most affected of the three of them. Not that Yasaka blamed her. It probably hit a little more for her, seeing Joshua create life. Especially so relatively soon after he gave an angel more wings.

Truly, how did Joshua expect women not to come his way. With some luck, some of his feats would remain secret, otherwise the three of them would have their hands full trying to keep pantheons and their women away from their man. He really wasn’t doing them any favors in that regard, honestly.

Serafall, for her part, just hummed her agreement with the observation, looking with wide eyes as Joshua did whatever he wanted with no concern for what should be possible or not. Yasaka didn’t expect more from her though, considering she was fairly good at keeping her focus calm and laid back, sort of. If anything, Yasaka expected her to be the most collected of the three, at least when it came to the madness that Joshua could bring.

Yasaka guessed it was her time to be the unflappable one for once though. Not because she wasn’t surprised or shocked or whatever else, but because she was kind of getting used to Joshua’s antics. Serafall had arguably been around for longer, but her power level was, admittedly, higher than Yasaka’s. That meant that she’d been less surprised before and thus had less time to get used to what Joshua could do.

For her part, Yasaka had been plenty surprised in the past already. It was becoming the usual, even though she doubted she’d ever get completely used to it. At least she didn’t give an unsightly display while witnessing Joshua’s prowess.

Thus, she happily sat back down and took her cup of tea before-

“Does that count as his child?” Serafall asked, turning innocently towards them and almost making her choke on her drink. “What?” the devil had the gall to say when both Yasaka and Gabriel turned to stare at her. “Does it?”

That…

All three of them turned to look at Joshua, who was absorbed… interacting with the spell, Yasaka guessed. She wasn’t too sure, to be perfectly honest. Serafall made a good point though. Did it count as the spell being his child? Hadn’t God made the “first generation” Angels in a similar way – if with a completely different process and outcome, obviously –, after all?

“I guess it does?” Gabriel mused, tilting her head, more curious than anything else. That was one way to look at it indeed.

“I suddenly wonder if I should be annoyed I didn’t think to offer my energy for this,” Yasaka commented and both women beside her turned wide-eyed towards her. Apparently, they hadn’t thought about that until she mentioned it. She didn’t blame them. It was probably because she’d spent maybe a little too much time considering-

They were all distracted again when Joshua’s familiars started moving towards the man. This wasn’t all though, because Joshua had extended his hand in front of him, palm up. A second later, she saw energy coalesce over it like a floating light with some of it drifting off like wispy, colorful smoke.

“Say hi,” they heard Joshua say and even though he had his back to them, Yasaka could almost hear the smile on his voice. Idly, she wondered if he was talking to his familiars or the spell… or both. The latter option seemed more likely, considering the way the energy flared the smallest bit and the creatures around the man replied right back, all in their own way. “Well… welcome to the family,” the man said, sounding even more happy and…

“Ugh, he’s so unfair,” Serafall groaned.

“He is,” Gabriel agreed, shoulders dropping.

The only one unaffected was Yasaka, because she had good reason. She was kind of immune to Joshua’s parental side. Kunou helped with that, after all, if not completely. She imagined there’d be conversations about solving this “issue” for all of them at some point. Yasaka wasn’t too concerned.

She was ahead of them before and she was ahead of them with this too.

“Joshua can probably tinker a spell or two that’d help me, right?” Serafall asked and Yasaka paused, considered the idea and then took back her previous thought. Maybe she didn’t have as much advantage as she thought. The Davis family could grow as fast as Joshua wanted it to, when the time came.

Oh well…

“Cute, right?” they heard Joshua asked, turning towards them with a grin on his face. A second later, they felt the spell turn its attention towards them. There was no unfeeling stare like with his wards. There was no aggressive glare like with his hexes. There was no soft gaze like with his boons.

Instead… it just felt like someone else sensing her.

“I shouldn’t be surprised anymore at this point,” they heard Joshua say as he chuckled and shook his head. Whatever he’d learned at that very moment would remain a mystery, because the man didn’t seem inclined to answer the unasked questions. Instead, he moved on to something else, arguably just as weird. “Everyone, meet Friday.”

[}-o-{]

[Joshua Davis]

‘I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore,’ he thought to himself, glancing at the screen to his side wryly. Or, at least, one of them. He’d check the Quest rewards and such later. For the moment, he had something much more pressing to look at.

[Friday

Title: Familiar of Joshua Davis

Race: Living Spell

Gender: Female

Strength: -

Speed: -

Dexterity: -

Vitality: B

Perception: A

Magic: A

Life: B]

‘What’s up with my familiars being all female?’ he wondered, half resigned already. It had been weird when Margalo joined, but this was just something else. ‘Is it a me thing? She probably shouldn’t even have a gender. What the fuck? Hell, I even used my own energy, so shouldn’t it be male?’ he thought, absolutely baffled by the turn of events. Then he glanced towards his familiars and pondered their connection to him and to his soul. ‘Did that influence it more than me being male? I don’t even know…’

All in all though, his mind was more occupied keeping a metaphorical eye on the newly born Friday, if born was even the right way to use in that situation. Not only did Joshua have to make sure the amalgamation of living magic wasn’t going off the rails, but he also… Well, it was a little endearing to see her glance around with his- her sensing spells. It reminded him of Margalo when she was but a fledgling.

She was difficult to read, considering how strange her whole being was, but he could sense her child-like curiosity plain as day all the same. It showed in the way she focused on anything and everything. Him, his familiars, Serafall, Yasaka, Gabriel, the room, the circles that had given her life, their clothes, the table, the cups, the tea, the snacks, everything was inspected with the same intensity.

It was kind of adorable that every other option that she could check out, she’d come back to look at him. It would have been a little worrying, but Cheshire seemed fine with things and so did everyone else. So, he was not a biased opinion… or, at least, his biased opinion wasn’t a problem.

There was also a very simple set of facts that backed up his now very relaxed outlook on this new… addition.

[Title: Familiar of Joshua Davis]

[Bond: Friday - 20/100]

‘Somehow, the fact that she’s my familiar too isn’t even the most unbelievable thing that’s happened today. Not by a long shot,’ Joshua thought to himself wryly. ‘The reassurance is appreciated though,’ he added, nudging the curious baby spell when she came back to look at him once more. She “poked” back at him and he nudged her again.

And then it became a little game of poking each other through the familiar bond. He’d almost not realized that it was one. She felt very different from his familiars, after all, but that was because of her very different nature and not – as he’d initially suspected – because she was very different from the usual spell or spell array. Same principle but different interpretation, he supposed.

“Joshua?” a voice called him and he was snapped out of his distracted state by Serafall. Immediately, he grinned wryly when he felt Friday turn to look at the devil rather intently. “Sorry for interrupting?” the woman said, evidently noticing the shift.

Quietly, Joshua reached through the bond and tried his best to explain to Friday who Serafall was and what she meant. It was difficult, considering the newborn didn’t have the concept of… pretty much anything in her mind. However, he’d be teaching her all that she needed to know. A job that her sister familiars would probably help with. Friday was in good hands, so long as she didn’t listen to Nagini too much.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured Serafall, resolutely ignoring the scandalized reaction of his snake familiar at his thought. “Friday is getting used to… existing, and I’m kind of holding her hand in the meantime,” he explained, feeling how Morag tugged at the bond connections he shared with Friday and took over before the spell could get restless.

She was going to be even more of a hassle than Margalo, he could already tell. The bird squawked in outrage, but she didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when they’d had to do basically everything for her when she was a hatchling and a nestling. He only had to shoot some of his memories of that time at her to embarrass her and have her quiet down.

“Something the matter?” he asked Serafall, focusing on her once more. As if he didn’t have enough of a drifting mind, Friday was going to be eating at what little focus he had, it seemed.

“We just wanted to make sure everything was fine. It feels fine on our end, but…” Gabriel said, taking over for the devil. He just smiled at them, because yeah, it seemed like everything was, indeed, fine.

“Yeah. She’s fine. The Oath took hold perfectly, Cheshire seems to think everything is fine with her too,” he said, both statements reassuring the women in the room plenty. “And she’s my familiar now too, apparently, by the feel of things.”

“I did think there was something going on,” Yasaka said while the other two paused. He didn’t know why Serafall suddenly looked so intently curious, but he didn’t have much time to wonder about that. “I can feel your connection differently than with your spells. It’s not quite the same as with your familiars yet, but it’s probably getting there.”

“Nice,” he said, smiling. Then he blinked and turned to look to the side. Friday had apparently latched onto the warm feelings in him even more intently than she did everything else. No surprises there though. No reason she shouldn’t be interested in what was basically feeling happy and just… good. “There’s a world for you to see, Friday. How about I start showing you a little of it?” he asked, grinning even wider when the spell seemingly jumped on the feeling.

“Oh, oh! Can we show her our show?!” Serafall asked excitedly and Joshua really should have seen that coming.

“Maybe after she has a better idea of what the regular world is like, yeah?” he asked, taking the wind out of the devil’s sails.

[}-o-{]

Off to the side, he saw Jeanne with her kendo friends and she seemed to be having a good time. It was a common sight at the cafe, really, whenever he dropped by. There was always a fifty-fifty chance that she’d be there with them.

Then there was a smaller chance of her being with Kiba – they didn’t always go to the cafe when they spent time together, after all –, especially when Joshua wasn’t around to tease them, but at that moment the devil was there with his peerage. Somehow, his cafe had become a place frequented by devils, not only the Gremory but also the Sitri, even though those latter ones weren’t around that day. Then again, he guessed it made some sense when Jeanne had made the place somewhat popular for Kuoh students. She might suck at studying, but she was surprisingly good with people.

He was proud of her, especially for having come so far from the girl he’d picked up from the street.

“Everything alright, Joshua?” Issei asked him, arriving at his table to give him a cup of tea. “You seem more…” the boy started before trailing off, failing to find the right words for what he wanted to say.

“Off than usual,” Aika finished for her boyfriend absently. She was more focused on the book she was reading on a table close to Joshua’s. He’d offered to have her sit with him so that he could answer questions and such but…

“Yeah, that,” Issei confirmed. “Nothing wrong, right?”

“Not at all,” Joshua answered, shaking his head and taking a cup of tea. “Just distracted. One of my projects ended… giving me more work right after I finished it.”

“How does that even work?” Aika asked, looking up from the book and frowning at him.

“I don’t have normal projects,” he said as way of an answer, smiling. He felt Friday grow a little agitated, which was why he sent through their connection his best calm, content feeling. It worked, which gave him the time to explain to her that no, he wasn’t insulting her.

It wasn’t even that she understood their words, really. It was more that she was reading the emotions coming from him and from Aika. She felt that they were talking about her, Aika’s confusion and other things and then felt Joshua agreeing, so she was affected. That was… not frustrating nor worrying, but it was certainly a bit of an inconvenience. It was also why Joshua was so distracted all the time those days.

He found himself needing to take a moment every so often just to explain things to her as best he could. For the moment, it was mostly through emotions and perceptions, but he was working towards words. Friday didn’t seem to have much of a problem learning, absorbing everything like a sponge. She stumbled a little from time to time, but it was what came with the territory of knowing literally nothing. It was like Joshua had to input every little thing that made a person… Well, a person at all, and he had to do it manually, like making an artificial beach one grain of sand at a time.

“Evidently,” Aika mumbled, looking like she was debating whether she wanted to know more or not. Ultimately, she decided on the latter. “On a different note… I wanted to ask for advice.”

“Go ahead then,” he said, leaning back against his chair and waiting. Idly, he had a short exchange with Friday to help her be a little patient and also continue to feed her knowledge. Then he pulled back and allowed Cheshire to take over Friday duty for a moment, like he did everytime he needed to focus on something else. His familiars were really helping him with that.

“Meredith and the rest of your Stars have been helping me a lot while I’m in House of Water,” Aika told him, sighing before standing up and moving to sit with him. “I wanted to do something for them.”

“They are likely to be doing this to repay me, so I wouldn’t think too much about it,” Joshua reassured her, but she didn’t seem very convinced with that, expectedly. More and more, he was getting the hang of the unreasonable mentality of DxD people. Thus, he knew that she likely wouldn’t see that as sufficient. She also likely felt indebted to him too, so it was kind of whatever in that aspect anyway. Fortunately, he had a Plan B. “If that’s not enough for you, you can just get better with your magic. Divination can do a lot for practically anyone. Information is one of the most important things in life. God knows how much favor I’ve traded for knowledge.”

“Hm… There’s probably a ton of better diviners all around the world,” she mumbled, clearly dejected.

“You’d be surprised,” he told her, taking a sip from his cup of tea. The action seemed to exasperate the impatient girl, but that only amused him. “As I said, I almost always look for information, and I haven’t found all that much about them if that’s the case. Besides, just because you aren’t the best now doesn’t mean you can’t be in the future. I wasn’t always the best warder or hexer or booner in the world.”

Arguably, he might not even be the best at that moment, although he was kind of getting swayed by the opinion of people around him… And the fact that he’d maxed those skills way above the norm for a human, considering the boosts he’d gotten to the level cap, nevermind the perks and such that he possessed. It might be his self-esteem issues speaking when he thought he wasn’t the best.

“I’ve been teaching you and you’re getting the best education you possibly can. I believe you can be that good in your own area,” he told her and smiled when the girl blushed.

“Are you trying to steal my girlfriend, Joshua? Because that would not be cool,” Issei said, half joking and making him roll his eyes. “Speaking of, I owe you plenty too, don’t I?”

“Not at all. You helped protect my family. As far as I’m concerned, we are even. I might even be in your debt,” he said and the boy straightened and looked like he was about to argue for a moment. Joshua was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t happen though. Maybe, for once, the DxD debt culture wouldn’t be annoying?

That was more miraculous than anything he might have done, in his opinion.

“I guess,” Issei said and Joshua could have cheered.

“And I guess I’ll work on things on my end for now,” Aika mumbled, clearly far from pleased.

Joshua still counted the whole thing as a victory though, happily going back to explaining things to Friday. The boyfriend and girlfriend duo, for their part, returned to their respective things too. It was a fairly chill afternoon and that was great, because Friday was kind of demanding most of his brain power those days.

[}-o-{]

[Agnes Waterhouse]

“Is everything okay?” she asked, glancing at Joshua and feeling a little concerned.

She wasn’t asking just because the man seemed more distracted than usual, which was saying something. He usually could at least focus on professional settings unless something was going on, like when he was dealing with magical exhaustion. That day though, his mind seemed to be half elsewhere at all times, if not more.

There was also the fact that the defenses he’d placed around the base were acting oddly. Not malfunctioning, of course, but the presences of the wards and hexes would flare and fade at random. It worried Agnes plenty, if she were honest. One of those things would be concerning, but both of them together? She felt pretty justified in being a bit cautious.

“He’s fine, Director,” the Phenex girl reassured her in her employer’s stead, looking professional as ever even while Joshua stared off over Agnes’ shoulder with vacant eyes. “Mr. Davis is dealing with the finishing touches of one of his projects. Nothing for you or your organization to worry about. I’ll make sure his classes proceed as they were scheduled and his Stars will help me do that effectively. Besides-”

“I’m not in a coma, just distracted,” Joshua finished for her, wry smile on his face as his eyes regained their usual focus. “I do need to… address this when it comes up, I’m afraid. I hope that won’t be a problem.”

“Not at all,” Agnes replied almost instantly. She was still processing those news though, considering one of Joshua’s projects sounded like it’d be big. What could do that to the magician that could casually make up an entirely new spell on the fly, off the top of his head for a class example? “I just wanted to make sure this wasn’t something I should be concerned about.”

“Not at all,” Phenex told her, proud as if they were talking about her and not her employer. There was a certain edge there too though, as if she were daring Agnes to contradict her. Which was just stupid, honestly. She had more self-preservation than that. Who did the little devil take her for? “As I said, I’ll make sure the quality of his classes doesn’t drop and he should be back to normal before the Stars and I can’t handle the classes anymore.”

“Good to know,” Agnes said with a nod. And boy were they good news to hear, because Joshua had moved up in the world once more, not only in House of Water, but also in the magician community and the supernatural world as a whole. Hard not to, when he’d casually beaten a Cadre and two Satan descendants like they were his red-headed step children before going off to save his Youkai leader girlfriend.

And then he’d gone back to teaching classes a few days after like nothing had happened. Granted, dealing with magical exhaustion, but everyone in the magician community would say that they were envious of that. And anyone that said otherwise was a liar, and a bad one at that.

Joshua had cemented House of Water’s standing as a new, major magician association, maybe even the true top one. Before, they’d stood on even footing by virtue of favors and political power. Now, they stood there by magical power too, just with Joshua alone, nevermind the rest of the organization. Joshua could vanish into some other dimension that very day and people would be too afraid of him coming back to take House of Water lightly.

Joshua had brought them up with the carrot that were his classes.

And afterwards he’d made sure they stayed there by becoming the stick to threaten others with too.

Agnes had kind of completely resigned herself to having her entire association so indebted to the man that they were basically slaves without the actual label. He could ask for literally anything and they would just nod their heads and do whatever it was he wanted. It was that simple and the Phenex knew it. Agnes could see it in the way the devil looked at them.

They were just lucky that Joshua wasn’t likely to let her do too much, considering the kind of person he was.

“Speaking of classes, I should get going for the next one, right?” Joshua asked, blinking as he turned towards the Phenex. The devil, for her part, nodded and smiled at her employer. “I’ll see you guys later then,” the man said, standing up and leaving just like that.

“... Did he forget what he came here for?” Báthory from her spot to the side of the room, watching Joshua leaving through the door without even appearing to hear her. Apparently, that had happened.

“Probably,” the Phenex commented as she drew their attention back to her and towards the fact that she hadn’t left with Joshua. “But I did not. I happen to know what Mr. Davis wanted from you two, so I’ll negotiate in his stead.”

Agnes almost wanted to groan.

She was not going to like this, she could already tell.

“Now, there’s a matter which you both have helped Mr. Davis with, but he wants even more information. So, he’s reaching out once more. He really wants to be informed on this matter, so I’ll be using his power here liberally.”

Well that was both good and terrible at the same time. Good because even if they could never get out of the debt hole, they still needed to try or their reputation would be ruined. It was also bad, however, because the devil liberally using such a massive amount of power could only mean stress in Agnes’ future.

Joshua was going to be the cause of her having gray hairs sooner rather than later, she was sure.

And that was with magic to help her.

“He wants to know everything he can about vampires and the vampire factions.”

Well, that didn’t sound so bad.

Somehow though, Agnes wasn’t reassured by this fact.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

The familiar gender coin strikes again!

… You know how it goes, guys. I don’t even have it in me to make a comment on the matter. I’ll just do as House of Water, nod and go with it. Much easier on me.

The initial ideas to name the living spell Glados, actually. However, I decided to go with one that was less… antagonistic a reference. Maybe surprisingly, I didn’t find that many good AI characters to try and use here. There was Cortana, of course, but I didn’t like it, considering there’s also the virtual assistant thing.

Anyway, yeah, a bit of an aftermath chapter and a teaser for a future plot line.

Because Joshua just can’t make things easy for me, no. He has to juggle twenty things at once or he’s just not comfortable anymore. Workaholic piece of sh-

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

And Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for you all, of course.

Important: I’m going on a vacation at the end of this week, as I announced some time ago in the place of patrons. Thus, I won’t be updating anything for a whole month. Wish me luck, guys, because pre-vacation times have not been kind to me.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s the closest thing to you that’s not the computer/phone/tablet/smart microwave you’re reading this on? I have an empty mug at hand from the tea I drank some time ago.

See you.