Game of Monsters - 204

Who’s Gonna Stop Me?

[Joshua Davis]

He never wanted to talk to Ajuka Beelzebub again if he could get away with it.

The two of them stared at each other over the table, filled with notes and books, some opened and some not. Serafall sat to both their sides, sipping on a drink that probably would give him some kind of resistance skill if he drank it or maybe raise his Poison one, considering the amount of sugar it had. He wasn’t too focused on that though. No, he was more concerned with the headache that he was dealing with at that moment, courtesy of the other Satan.

“I think I might hate you,” Ajuka commented casually, leaning back and rubbing his forehead tiredly. Joshua could relate and also agree that the feeling was mutual. “I thought I’d throw some ideas at you and help you deal with these terrorists Serafall keeps complaining about so that I could focus back on my own projects. Not going back home with… I lost track of how many new projects I came up with,” the man said, seemingly more mystified by that last notion than annoyed. Which might be a little surprising, considering his words.

“Tell me about it,” he mumbled, deflating where he sat and looking down.

Granted, getting ideas was what he’d gone there to do, but it had kind of backfired in a gloriously infuriating way. Too much of a good thing, he supposed. After all, he’d gotten a ton of ideas, most of which having nothing to do with the Dimensional Gap and Ophis’ Silence. He didn’t even want to know how much work most of them would take…

But they were all so interesting.

“Thank you for your time,” he said, wondering how much he really was thankful for it. He really didn’t want to ever have so many thoughts in his head. It was exhausting, in a way that left social settings in the dust and it wasn’t even funny. He didn’t even think such a thing was possible. It made the times when his soul was recovering feel like after-workout weariness.

God, he needed to turn off his mind for like, a week.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury to do that, but what he did have was ways to turn off his brain. First though, he needed to get rid of Ajuka, because goddamnit, he didn’t want to stay with the guy for another minute, least of all talking magic. Fortunately, it seemed that the Satan shared his mind on the matter.

“Don’t mention it,” Beelzebub told him, waving him off. “Really, don’t. I think I’ll be going back home and working on some of these… Serafall-”

“I’ll tell Sirzechs to make sure nobody bothers you, Ajuka,” the woman replied with a slight grin, seemingly amused as she regarded the two of them. At least she didn’t look like she was a kid trying to follow a university class. That had been a little adorable, but mostly it had made Joshua feel bad.

“Then we’ll be seeing each other,” Ajuka said with a nod as he stood up. “Hopefully not too soon,” he added wryly towards Joshua and he returned much the same expression back at him. With that, the Satan teleported away and Joshua waved his hand, making the notes and books disappear into a Storage Spell. Friday had taken note of everything that he might forget too, he made sure.

Contrary to how he felt, the living spell seemed to be having the time of her life. In his mind’s eye, she looked like a child in a sweet shop. She was bouncing between ideas like she couldn’t decide which toy to play with first. Joshua didn’t know how to feel about that.

What he did know is that it was a little reassuring to see her so animated and happy. She hadn’t been the same since Ophis paid them a visit. She’d been rattled and he’d even say traumatized by the entire ordeal. He would definitely be sending her away when it came time for the Dragon to visit them again. Maybe he’d send her away days in advance, just in case.

He never wanted to put her through that again if he could help it, and he could, in this case.

‘Have fun, girl,’ he thought idly, and the spell replied enthusiastically as she picked one project and ran with it. It wasn’t one related to Ophis, but he’d let her do that. He was the one that needed to work on that, really, and he would. Besides, he’d feel bad if he forced her to work on what he wanted when he wasn’t going to be doing so at the moment.

No, he needed a break and to let his brain recover a little.

So, he turned towards Serafall, who seemed to have decided to give him a moment to gather his thoughts. He appreciated that, a lot more than the woman probably realized. He needed that respite so much.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” Joshua asked and the Satan gave him one look before smiling softly. Sometimes it was nice that his partners could read him like a book. Sometimes not so much though, admittedly.

“I promised Millicas that I’d spend time with him soon,” she answered with and that was all that he needed to know. “I don’t mind at all, but do you think there’re any kids available for a playdate? Millicas is lovely, but he really needs others his age too.”

“I might know one or two,” Joshua replied with a chuckle. “Let me call Ravel and Koneko,” he added, smiling and leaning back. “Before that though, I feel like doing absolutely nothing for a bit. Do you mind-?”

“Not at all,” she answered before he could even get through the whole question, beaming at him. “I know this wonderful park nearby where we can go lie down. I think you’ll like it, Underworld plants aren’t too shabby, if I do say so myself.”

Turns out she was right, but Joshua didn’t really spend as much time looking at them as he otherwise would have. Instead, he just lied down and rested his head on Serafall’s lap for most of the hour they spent there. She didn’t seem to mind too much, playing with his hair and talking about random things.

If anything, Joshua would almost say she preferred that, but then again, he was no people expert.

[}-o-{]

[Koneko Toujou]

She looked at Kunou, Ravel and Millicas as they argued over the cards. Apparently, Millicas was having trouble deciding between a fire spell or an illusion trap for his deck and the two had really been unable to help themselves. Expectedly, they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with the argument.

Personally, she’d have added a cat creature, but that was just her. The boy seemed to think he had enough creature cards, for some reason. Koneko had once thought he was smart, but it seemed he wasn’t. How could he think that one could have enough creature cards?

Especially cat cards. He only had the one other than his catastrophe elementals.

Rookie numbers.

“They are still at it?” a voice asked and a moment later someone set up a bowl with popcorn next to her. On the other side, Serafall giggled, especially when Joshua leaned down and hissed the top of her head. Koneko wasn’t jealous of that, not at all. “Did he manage a hard no for the cat creature?” he followed up with, turning towards Koneko with a slightly amused expression.

“Has enough creatures,” she mumbled and she was most assuredly not sulking. She was just… focusing on other things because the three were annoying, yes. That was it. Just like Joshua was annoying, reaching to pat her head and ruffle her hair. He was annoying, nothing else.

She used to be better at pretending, but evidently she’d lost her touch, if Serafall’s giggles and Joshua’s chuckles were anything to go by.

“So, do you have any ideas for cat cards?” the man asked her and Koneko immediately focused on him. The smile he gave her then was annoying too, admittedly, but not enough to distract her from the chance. “I take it you do?”

“Yes,” she answered, straightening and turning to face the man better. Idly, she reached to pick up some popcorn before eating them one by one. Joshua, who grabbed a handful and dropped most of them in his mouth, was a barbarian… but he was also a barbarian that made her cards, so she’d allow that. “I thought maybe there could be something strong, like Cheshire,” she angled, thinking that maybe appealing to the man through his familiar would work.

Because she’d be damned if she lost one more time to the Fox Queen or the True Phoenix. Cats could have high level creatures too, she was sure. She just needed to find a way to convince Joshua.

“Cheshire is a tiger though,” the man said and she narrowed her eyes at the man. When she turned to look at the feline, who had been napping to the side, she saw her in her Byakko form instead of her cat form like she almost always was. When she turned to look at Joshua with even more narrowed yes, the man had the gall to laugh. “What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Maybe a cat that transf-”

“Would that still count as a cat?”

No, it would not.

Still, rude.

“I’ll see what I can do about stronger cats,” Joshua told her then, reaching for more popcorn as he glanced towards the trio of still arguing children. “Anything else?” he added, focusing back on Koneko. She tried to pretend that she wasn’t happy to have his attention when there was the daughter of a great Pillar family, the son of a Satan and his daughter right there.

“A few things,” she mumbled, curling up a little and continuing to eat popcorn as she explained some of her ideas. She could tell that he was only half-listening, his expression grew vacant a little as she went on, for example, and he kept glancing to the side. But he was listening. Whenever it looked like she’d stop talking, he turned and asked questions or commented something.

His mind might not have been all there, but she didn’t really blame him. He looked like a mess those days, for one. For another, she knew that he was working a lot more than before. Even Kunou had commented how he struggled to make time for her, which she was surprisingly patient about. It spoke volumes though, because Joshua adored Kunou like she was really his daughter.

Koneko wasn’t jealous.

“Hm, Friday noted it all down,” Joshua told her and she nodded. Maybe she’d get some of those cards. That’d show the others. It was better to use opportunities like those, since Joshua was a pushover and would really listen to requests like that. “So, everything alright on your end? You never talk much about things back home,” he asked and she paused.

Back home, right…

“... Fine,” she replied simply with a shrug. And that was what she could say. Everyone was great, for sure, but Rias… Well, she was better since Joshua got rid of Riser, but she had her hobbies and things she liked and Koneko… didn’t really like those. Akeno was much the same and she couldn’t really let go of the past, not that Koneko was one to talk until recently. Kiba tended to be busy with Jeanne and when he wasn’t…

Well, in general, the Gremory peerage didn’t have a lot of things in common.

It was fine though, really.

“... Glad to hear that,” Joshua replied, sounding about as convincing as Koneko thought she did before. Neither of them pressed things though, and she was fine with that. “So, do you wanna stay for dinner?” he asked.

“Sure,” Koneko answered and she realized a moment too late that maybe she’d been too quick to do so. Fortunately, neither Joshua nor Serafall seemed to point that out, even though she knew they noticed. Instead, she saw the man smile at her softly before he turned towards the others.

“Stop arguing and play something, will you? Maybe that way Millicas can choose for himself,” he called and the three of them perked up. “Also, anyone want popcorn?” he added and that seemed be the last nudge they needed to stop what they were doing and listening to Joshua. “That’s more like it,” the man said, smiling softly at all of them.

And Koneko entertained the hope that maybe he looked at all of them the same way.

[}-o-{]

[Joshua Davis]

It was time to stop theorizing and start testing, he decided.

If he didn’t start casting stuff soon, he’d never know what worked and what didn’t. His information gathering of the Dimensional Gap was going poorly on both the outside knowledge and his own research, so Joshua decided that maybe it was time to try and do stuff. He needed to see what worked and what, most likely, failed miserably.

Maybe that would be more effective than what he was already doing.

Besides, if things failed in the Dimensional Gap, then… Well, there was little loss in that, right? He was more nervous about the fact that he might need to isolate some flavor of Dimensional Gap in his homeworld. That could have a lot of catastrophic consequences.

With some luck, his idea of making a bubble within the Gap would work, because at least then he wouldn’t need to potentially bring the harmful… whatever that the Gap had to his home. There was no way he could do that with a calm mind. No, that would be a last resort…

A last resort that he likely would need to tackle, but he tried not to dwell on that.

“You ready?” he asked, taking a deep breath in and looking at Georg. In response, the man pushed his glasses up and nodded, purple mist already starting to gather at their feet. It kept growing, covering more area and becoming thicker. “Let’s go,” Joshua decided and they were swiftly covered by Dimension Lost before appearing in the Gap.

‘Let’s do this,’ he thought, trying to get a handle of his energy to cast magic and almost failing. Controlling his energies while covering himself from the aggressive atmosphere of the place proved to be difficult though. Not only did the Dimensional Gap do its best to erase their existence, it also did so with their magic, evidently. That meant that casting was difficult.

It was like trying to do so with his anti-failure spells eating away at the still in process magic. Except it was much worse and he didn’t even understand how any of it worked. All the same, he pushed through in the same way his own body did. He used more magic so that it could resist the erosion of the Gap. Slowly, after several tries and an already developing headache, Joshua managed to get a spell done.

And by then, he’d started picking up information already. Or, at least, what he thought was information. He’d need to test all of it, probably several times, but he might be able to get something done with what he was getting. Turns out throwing spells in the Dimensional Gap was very informative. More informative than his senses, at least.

He knew how magic worked outside, and now he was learning how magic worked in the Gap. That was bound to give him some idea of what went on in there. It hadn’t yet, but Joshua thought he might be picking up some clues here and there. He’d need to test all of it to make sure, but at least he felt like he was getting something. That was already more than he had before.

Just with that, he’d have felt like everything was a success.

He was far from done just yet though. So, he continued, casting more spells and checking the effects in the Gap. None of his spells worked properly, but that was expected, especially after seeing how even casting was affected. He’d need to rework the entire thing if he wanted to be able to do anything properly in that limbo between dimensions.

‘Really hoping I really am onto something here,’ Joshua thought to himself, watching yet another spell fail and collapse, consumed by the Gap. Very few of his spells even survived contact with the thing, even after being thoroughly overpowered with magic so that they’d be cast at all. As soon as they tried to do their jobs though, they would break apart no matter what Joshua did.

Very interesting…

But also very frustrating.

Joshua knew that if it weren’t for Ophis and the deadline he had, he would have found the Dimensional Gap the most interesting thing in the entire verse he’d found himself in. Nothing was clear and every time he so much as thought he found something, he’d get a million questions and ideas. Many of those weren’t even for the project he was trying to work on. It was a gift that kept on giving, really.

Except he didn’t want that at the moment.

At the moment, he wished for nothing more than for it to be simple, easy, boring.

Yet, life had that kind of twisted sense of humor, Joshua supposed.

Time was ticking and not only his life but that of everyone he knew and loved did too. He didn’t know if Ophis was going to kill all of them, but he also couldn’t afford to risk thinking otherwise. He didn’t know the Dragon of Infinity. He had some scattered memories from canon and their meeting and that was it.

He couldn’t use either to assume anything, as far as he was concerned.

So, he’d just work with the worst case scenario and go from there. Better to be prepared for everything, as he’d learned in his time as a magician. Prepare for the worst and don’t let it happen. That was a lesson he’d learned very early on.

So, he kept testing, kept thinking, kept trying.

Because he needed to prepare.

[}-o-{]

[Gabriel]

When Joshua stepped out of the purple mist, she wasn’t the only one to sigh in relief.

All three of them had at least some idea of what the Gap was like and none of them liked the idea of Joshua going there, especially so regularly. They liked the idea of Georg being the one to get him in and out of that nightmarescape even less. Not only was he an enemy before, he was also a prisoner and generally someone that none of them trusted.

He did display some slightly reassuring aspects since being freed, but that was far from enough for Yasaka, Serafall and Gabriel.

Alas, what other option did they have? Getting into the Gap was difficult on its own. The three of them had ways to get there if they really needed to, but they weren’t easy nor something they could do a lot. And Joshua needed to go there regularly, to look for clues, information and now testing too.

“Any luck?” Serafall asked, cheerful mask firmly in place. Gabriel envied her that. She could don her persona so easily that it almost fooled even her. It was a fortunate thing at that moment though, since she helped keep Joshua from seeing how worried they all were. Or, at least, from realizing how really worried they all were.

“Some, I think,” the man answered, not sounding very sure. It was better than the outright no that most of his attempts had yielded though, admittedly. Joshua followed that by taking a deep breath in and running his fingers through his hair. Then he straightened his back and continued. “I guess now I have to work out something to see if I really did get something,” he added wryly and then he started moving.

“Good luck~!” Serefall called from behind him and the man turned to give her a brief smile before continuing. He left the room with little else said, but they were far from offended.

Instead, they followed him with their eyes as he walked through the door. Then, checking with the other two, Gabriel saw the same fondness she herself felt. It was difficult to be angry at him for not paying too much attention when he was working himself into the ground trying to crack something nobody had a clue about for their sake.

It was what she liked about him, truly.

Maybe it was wrong of her to say, as an angel and especially as a Seraph, but she liked that Joshua didn’t do what he did because it was right, or good, much less for pride or self-preservation. He did all that he did for those he cared about, for those he loved. Gabriel knew he’d have been happy without ever stepping into the grander world, tinkering away his magic where nobody could see him.

Instead, he was becoming more and more of a powerhouse with every passing day, doing the opposite of what he wanted, for the sake of those that he’d deemed loved ones. If nobody had ever threatened him or any of his, he’d have done absolutely nothing. But they had and he did.

It was that overwhelming capacity to care that drew Gabriel in.

“Mr. Foster,” Yasaka said, remembering what Joshua had forgotten, or rather who. “If you’ll follow me. I’ll be the one accompanying you to your quarters,” the woman added and that was far from a privilege. Georg wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without supervision at the moment. Normally, they’d have left that for Raynare or Kuroka, but Yasaka likely wanted to get some questions out of the way while she was at it.

“Haaa, wish I could stay,” Serafall mumbled with a pout as she exaggeratedly deflated where she stood. “I have a few meetings to attend to, do you mind…?” she started asking, turning towards Gabriel. Their little competition may have mostly ended, but even she found herself a little uncomfortable when it was just Serafall and her around, especially when they had to actually talk to each other.

“Do I mind spending time with Joshua?” she finished for the Satan, a slight smile on her face. Admittedly, it was becoming easier with time, she found. Odd, but easier. Maybe it’d even be nice at some point. Gabriel would admit that she’d been relieved Serafall and Yasaka were there when Ophis made her visit. They had all drawn strength from each other and that was the only reason Joshua had been able to lean on them to pick himself up and get to work.

Gabriel had no doubt about any of that.

“Don’t look so happy about it,” Serafall grumbled, pouting even more than before. “I’m gonna be back later,” she added, narrowing her eyes at Gabriel. In turn, she just smiled placidly at the woman, knowing that was better than anything else she could have said and done.

So, maybe the rivalry was still there somewhere, but they were making it work anyway.

A few minutes later, the Seraph found herself sitting across a table from Joshua, watching him do what he did best. Apparently, the chances that he’d actually found a few things to work with were looking better and better the more the man looked at things. It was a reassuring sight, if not what they all wished to see. It was better than the absolutely lost appearance he had before. It was… giving her hope.

They were all too used to seeing him look at a problem and immediately assume it was possible. The Dimensional Gap was the first thing that Gabriel had seen completely baffle Joshua. He hadn’t known what to even do to get started and even when he did, he had seemed utterly confused when trying to find a way to get things done.

Now though, he seemed to be – slowly, ever so slowly – going back to being the confident miracle maker he seemed to be. She saw him work and Gabriel wasn’t concerned anymore, because Joshua was still there. The Joshua that had told her he could give angels more wings. The Joshua that had created life. He was right there, sitting across from her.

So Gabriel felt like there was nothing to fear.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well, finally a proper step into the Silence Project. Took a bit, but this is, as has been stated several times, the hardest project Joshua has taken up. Which makes me realize that there’s powercreep even in that… Funny that.

And yeah, there was only one way that Joshua and Ajuka could meet that wouldn’t end up destroying the DxDverse and that was with a lot of ideas for both of them. If you’re wondering why one happened and the other didn’t, it’s because Serafall was there to keep an eye on both of them.

With all that said, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: How do you eat popcorn? Most of the time, I just grab a handful and drop it all in my mouth. I’m not a very sophisticated person, evidently.

See you.