Game of Monsters - 149 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

-Walk into the Fire-

“We’ll hold them off but-” was as far as Yasaka got through his Communication gift.

He’d worked on the thing for a long time. The little trinkets had come a long way since he’d first made them as a Christmas gift. He’d reworked the engraved circles and replaced almost the entire material composition. He didn’t even know what version of the things they were at anymore.

After all, if they were to be his communication means with his family, then he needed them to be perfect. It was all for the sake of a situation like that one. A situation in which they needed to call for help, because they were under attack, that’s what he’d worked so hard on them for. That was also the only reason his trinkets had been able to pierce through whatever spells Khaos Brigade had put around them.

Even then, it’d been cut off midway through.

Joshua had gotten all the information he needed though. Khaos wasn’t just going after him. They had gone after Yasaka, after Kunou. They were attacking Kyoto, with all that they had. There was Cao Cao, for sure, but there were others involved too. Others that sounded suspiciously like Vali’s team, minus Kuroka.

He knew all that now.

And he was furious.

He ignored the screens popping up, telling him that his Bloodlust skill had leveled up. There were several, and all of them were unimportant. All that mattered was Khaos and that they were targeting him, targeting his family. All that mattered was that he was going to kill them for the audacity.

They were all going to die.

The Egyptian pantheon had a lot of deities, he knew, and it became clear at that moment, when he felt many them come closer to him through their connection. He felt all of them and their power flow through him, justice, punishment, revenge, fury, even family and parenthood. The gods and goddesses poured their support through his connection, not quite like the connection he was sharing with Shed and Nephthys as he channeled them, but more similar to how it felt when he used the energy of his spells to fuel himself.

However, this was on an entirely different level.

“Are you afraid, human?” Kokabiel asked, clearly very pleased with himself. He either didn’t realize or didn’t care for what he was unleashing on himself. Joshua would make sure he understood what he’d done, that much he promised.

“It’s you that should be afraid,” he replied, feeling himself, his energies, the Egyptian link and his spells around House of Water, now recovered. No spell or array is infallible, he’d taught his students. He knew that very well, what with his defenses having been breached several times in the past.

So, he liked to have a back up when he could.

One of the back ups in House of Water was that there was a way for the spells to be re-cast in case anything happened. A secondary defense room had been set up and “trusted” people taught how to cast them. One such person was Elizabeth, who Agnes had confirmed was on her way to casting the thing once more before. Initially he’d tried to communicate with her about that, but it seemed Khaos had something to prevent communications, not only towards the outside but even inside.

Good thing he’d put some extra oomph on the spell to communicate with those important to him. Even so, the extra power hadn’t been enough for a full communication, it seemed. He’d have to work on that.

For the moment, he was in the middle of a fight.

“You are, indeed, much more than you were before,” Kokabiel commented, grinning widely.

“Can you stop just chatting and do what we came here to do?!” Shalba demanded, and it was so good to see that they didn’t get along. He’d worried initially when he saw them, but it seemed that Khaos wasn’t very well organized between branches.

Not surprising, considering each of them had drastically different goals, to say the least.

“You are such a kid. The original Beelzebub must be rolling in his shallow grave,” Kokabiel replied, his expression turning disinterested before he shook his head. “But I guess you are right. It was good knowing you, Joshua Davis. Maybe you’ve achieved enough to come back eventually,” the fallen added, his energies shifting to a more active stance, something that showed in the way electricity cackled around him.

The time for chatter was over again, it seemed. Such a shame, but also not unexpected, he supposed. Shalba didn’t seem to have noticed, but there was no way Kokabiel wasn’t aware that his spells were draining their energy to grow stronger. Thus, he’d have to be a particular kind of stupid to let that happen. Not even Kokabiel was overconfident enough for that, evidently.

That suited him just fine.

As it was, he barely could keep himself focused, he felt. Because he wanted them all dead even more than before. Creuserey had gotten off easy – Because Joshua didn’t want an unknown factor to screw him over. – and these three would know it. Not only had they made the wrong life choices, but they had also decided to do the absolutely most stupid thing they possibly could.

So, Joshua pulled on his connection with the gods. Shed and Nephthys were great. One helped him focus and fight while the other pushed his teleportation magic that extra notch that he needed for it to be effective in the fight, especially against someone like Kokabiel. That wasn’t enough though, he needed more.

He wanted to crush them.

So, the god of Salvation and the goddess of Protection were joined by another god.

The god of Violence.

‘The three of us,’ Joshua thought, letting his body transform into sand around Shalba’s magic attack. ‘The first three, we’ll show these idiots,’ he continued, reforming and feeling the approval of the three deities. ‘But first, I need a small favor… Could you lend me your strength, Thoth?’

[}-o-{]

[Agnes Waterhouse]

That was her moment, she realized.

Right when the devil and the fallen engaged Joshua and Ordinton continued to rain holy projectiles on the other devil, if the tentacle abomination could even be called that anymore. Everyone seemed busy and they seemed occupied enough. Agnes rather doubted Joshua had forgotten about her, but everyone else seemed to.

It worked for them, because Agnes worked better as support. She could frontline and fight as well, for sure, but her Curse Magic was a debilitating factor that truly shone when she was helping others, for the most part. People would likely scoff at that. Because what’s the point of making other weaker when you could be actually doing damage, right?

Those were the same kind of people that would look at a hexer and say they were just a worse version of a warder.

A fitting comparison, considering who she was going to play support for this time. Although, Agnes was pretty sure there was a difference between showing the strengths of an underappreciated magic and just being an absolute monster with it. If she was the former, then Joshua Davis definitely was the latter.

‘I can humor idle thoughts some other time,’ she thought to herself, her hand already raised and a circle already shining. It was all Joshua’s fault, really. He made it seem like her association’s base being attacked by a Cadre and Satan descendants was no big deal. There he was, having almost instantly killed one of the latters, injured another and dropped the last one on his apprentice which wasn’t much better at making it seem like a big deal. All of that while he kept the fallen busy. Hell, Ordinton was basically dragging the female devil to standstill, the sea of tentacles being pushed back by waves of holy items.

Still, even with that, Agnes had some pride to protect, she supposed.

So, she started casting, because these people dared attack her precious association, the pride and joy of her family, tainted as it had been for years. It was hers, after all, and she’d be damned if she let these… pests as Joshua had called them, try to mess with it. So, her magic started doing its work. She weakened the tentacle one’s defenses, she made the bleeding of the injured male devil worse, she made the focus of the fallen waver.

Curse Magic wasn’t flashy, no, but there was a reason why the original Agnes Waterhouse was feared by many.

‘They aren’t paying attention to me at all,’ she mused, a grin slowly growing on her face. After all, there was nothing quite like knowing you were the doom of someone and they were none the wiser. Poor fools. They probably felt the very weak power of her magic and thought it irrelevant, in the grand scheme of things. That was fine. Agnes knew she would be the one to cause their downfall, a defeat by a thousand cuts.

So, she cursed away, throwing any and all spells she could think appropriate for the occasion at them.

All the while, she watched holy projectiles rain on the tentacle beast.

More importantly, she watched, intrigued and impressed, how Joshua Davis fought. She knew about his prowess in defense, after all, but this? This was a side of him that she’d known almost nothing about. And oh was it surprising. It was already frightening enough to witness his absolutely crazy achievements in the arts of Wards, Hexes and Boons.

It was another entirely to know that he could go toe to toe with immensely powerful devils and a fallen angel.

Yet there he was, teleporting to avoid attacks, letting them pass through his sand body – that she assumed had something to do with the Egyptians, by the feel of the energies – and outright stopping any attack that he couldn’t somehow avoid. He’d killed one of them before they could do anything, he’d injured another and provoked the devils effortlessly. That was before he even got serious about things, for some reason she couldn’t quite piece together but could hazard a guess about, from what she’d heard.

Agnes could do little more than watch and cast magic though, and she thought it was enough.

Because what she could see was… anticlimactic.

If someone had told her that Joshua Davis would be fighting these people, with this much power, before? She’d have thought maybe he could stand a chance if he was prepared. A close fight though, probably, but that’d be all she’d dare bet on.

Instead, there she stood.

Joshua was having no trouble avoiding damage. He wasn’t attacking much after those starting hits, but he didn’t need to. His magic was doing all the offensive for him, draining their enemies of their strength little by little. All he needed to do was continue buying time and that was exactly what he did. He teleported close to them when they tried to do something about their predicament or when he saw an opening. There were a few cuts on the male devil that proved what could happen if they got careless.

Joshua wasn’t letting them do anything. They were trapped there with them, with him. It was like… like watching a cat poking at the water of a fish tank. The fish could swim about and struggle, but ultimately there was nothing they could do to fight back or get away.

She knew the man was a monster, she knew that.

And yet, every single time, he found ways to make her even more terrified of him. There was nothing else Agnes could possibly think of what was going on in front of her. Especially when one of the cuts Joshua delivered proved one too many and the remaining male devil fell to the ground. That’s when the fight was cut off and she could see it, the way both Joshua and Kokabiel stood in front of each other, looking at each other and taking in the battlefield.

“To think I almost killed you not long ago,” she heard the latter say, somehow not sounding bitter or angry. Instead he sounded… darkly amused. “And now here I am, barely stopping you from leaving.”

“It’s really annoying, I have to say,” Joshua replied with a smile and a tone that were anything but friendly. “You could leave and survive, but you chose to get in my way.”

“Haha, yeah, I guess so… but I can’t, right? You can’t leave and neither can I. It’s my loss. We really didn’t know enough about you, did we?”

“To be fair, nobody knows what I can do,” Joshua replied, starting to move towards his opponent. “Now, kindly just die. I have places to be.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Kokabiel said, his expression and voice turning to the same kind Joshua was using. “Even back in the wars, I was merely an annoyance to the true powers in them,” the fallen continued and Agnes tensed up as more lightning poured out of him towards Joshua. Only, the man continued walking towards the Cadre, unconcerned and unstopped, merely bringing up a shield to cover his advance. “All I could do was hinder them for the truly strong to take care of. And here I am, doing the same. Maybe this is the time when I die, but I’ll do it knowing that I won anyway.”

“You think you’ll win here? But you won’t,” Joshua replied, sounding amused. “You’re attacking Kyoto, Yasaka and my daughter.”

“True Longinus, the Vanishing Dragon, the Monkey King, Pendragon’s descendants. Do you think the nine-tailed fox can stop them all?” Kokabiel told him but Joshua didn’t react to his words, even though that was… concerning. The upper echelon of a pantheon might survive that, but Yasaka? She was a Leader, for sure, but she wasn’t the leader. She led half a faction and she worked under the Shinto pantheon. She led half of the Shinto version of the Church. She was impressive for such a position, maybe one of the – if not the – best, but still…

“They’ll be fine,” Joshua said with utmost certainty and Agnes wished she could have that confidence. She shuddered at the thought of facing those opponents. If those had come with Kokabiel and the devils… Then they’d have stood no chance. Had they really underestimated them that much, or had they prioritized the attack on the Youkai?

That latter option couldn’t be the case, right? No way they had managed to fool Kokabiel for that. Right? Something was going on. Agnes couldn’t let her guard down. They had to be missing something.

“You sound very sure,” the fallen commented and it filled Agnes with a sense of finality. The chatter was coming to an end once more and she lamented that fact. Joshua and her benefited quite a lot from their opponents wasting time, after all. It was why, despite how nerve wracking it was, she very much appreciated Joshua’s shittalking skills at that very moment.

Maybe there was something to that silly show he was part of with Leviathan.

“I am sure,” Joshua said and there was a shift in his voice. Agnes hadn’t even noticed, but the changes to his body, the dark circles around his eyes, the long oily black hair, the line patterns on his skin, the fans and the animal eyes… all of those had receded a little through the talking. Now, they were back just as strongly as they had been before. “Just as sure as I am that I can kill you.”

“Let’s see about that!” the fallen exclaimed.

Then something changed on the battlefield, again. There was a crackle of lightning around Kokabiel, which wasn’t precisely something new, really. However, this time, that wasn’t followed by an attack. Instead, it was followed by a massive shift in his presence. Where he’d been intimidating, like a storm looming up above, Agnes now felt like she was in the eye of a hurricane.

There was energy everywhere, swirling and circling. The oppressing presence was obvious and overwhelming. Agnes saw Ordinton falter and she couldn’t fault the girl. It was a good thing that between her holy element and the curses Agnes had thrown at the female devil, they had more or less taken her out. Not quite fully, since she was still struggling and trying to recover, as opposed to the already done male devil.

Before she knew it, the view from her spot had changed very suddenly…

And it made her face pale.

Right in front of her stood Joshua, his arm extended forward and a shield spell was centered at his palm. Beyond that, there was only a sea of light. No, not light. A sea of lightning was what she could see past the man and his defense. The thunder boomed in her ears and the force made her body shake, even though most of it was stopped by Joshua. Or, maybe, there was no force at all and it was just the fear creeping inside her.

Because how was she supposed not to be afraid when she could feel all that power, practically electrocuting her through her magic sense alone. She’d felt massively powerful presences before, for sure. Nephthys came to mind almost immediately, but there were other deities she’d come across through her years as Director. They might not have been many but they’d been there.

Usually, it was like they were a sun, massive, incomprehensible forces of nature that were just beyond her.

At that moment though, she felt like she was standing right on the surface of one such star.

“Not enough yet, Idiot,” she heard Joshua say, his voice carrying even through the noise. “You took too long,” the man added.

Agnes felt yet another massive change in the atmosphere and she wondered how much of that she could take. This time, it was a subtler thing, however. She felt Joshua’s spells reacting, although that might be a stretch of the word. The truth was that they’d been working throughout the whole encounter.

Now though, the presence of his wards, his hexes and his boons seemed to loom over the entire area. The man himself continued holding back the lightning attack, but there was little beyond that Agnes could feel. Everything else was drowned by Kokabiel.

And yet, there stood those array presences that Agnes had gotten used to, the same way one might get used to mines being in their front yard. Because they were harmless, after all. She couldn’t trigger them, so they were safe.

Except, that didn’t make them any less dangerous.

And oh were they dangerous, because there was no other way to describe them at that very moment. The three combinations of magic, similar yet unique, loomed over the area. They stared down at the lightning sun that was Kokabiel…

And they found him wanting.

[}-o-{]

[Kunou]

“It’ll be fine, Kunou,” her mother said calmly, sitting in one of their emergency rooms. “Your father cast many defenses around here. Even if he’s not here, he’s protecting us.”

Except, Kunou knew her mother was trying to reassure her. Mainly because she’d stopped referring to Joshua as “her father” and had just gone back to calling him Joshua some time ago.  They were also going through the emergency teleport defenses Joshua had left around and fast. She wasn’t sure how many there were, but she didn’t think there were many left. It made the distant sound of explosions that much more scary.

Khaos Brigade had come back.

“Where is dad?” she asked, trying and failing to put on a brave front. Instead, all she managed was a slight pout as she looked down at her lap and gripped her clothes tightly. “Mom, where is he?”

“He’s fighting Khaos Brigade on his side of things,” Yasaka replied and Kunou knew that was the truth. She said it calmly, as one would comment on the weather, something casual, something unimportant. She was trying to make her feel like things were alright.

She was also lying.

Maybe her words weren’t lies, but her voice lied. She wasn’t calm, she knew that. She wasn’t unafraid. She wasn’t relaxed and confident. Kunou couldn’t quite answer how she knew all that, but she did. So, instead of trying to find the answer, she pulled Cheshire into a hug.

They didn’t know how or when, but her dad’s familiars had found them in one of the emergency teleports that were the closest to Joshua’s place in Kyoto. That was a little worrying, but it was also so very reassuring. Because there was no safer place for Kunou to be than with her mother and father, under her dad’s spells, in between Nagini’s coils, with Cheshire by her side, Margalo singing songs and Morag hanging from the ceiling.

Her father wasn’t around and Morag was with him, but other than that…

Everything was fine.

Now, if she could actually feel safe, as she should be.

The fact that they were teleported once more didn’t help.

“Well… it seems things are getting out of hand,” she heard her mother say before the woman stood up. Kunou looked at her and saw Yasaka taking a deep breath in. That wasn’t the important part though. No, the important part was that she could feel the shift in energies around the place.

Her mother was getting ready and that meant one thing…

“Girls,” Yasaka said, turning to look in a particular direction. “I trust that you’ll keep Kunou safe?” she asked and there was an immediate response from all three of the familiars. Nagini tightened her body around Kunou, Cheshire shifted into her biggest tiger form and Margalo let out a cry that seemed to pull strings within Kunou.

“Mom?”

“Everything will be fine, Kunou. I promise you that,” her mother said.

“You are lying again, mom,” she mumbled, drawing into herself.

“... So I am… but what I can promise is that you’ll be safe, Kunou. Nobody is getting to you. Not while your father and I draw breath,” her mother told her. The previously calm and relaxed voice was gone, however, replaced by a solemn tone.

“Mom…”

“You’ll be fine, sweetie. I love you,” her mother said, moving closer to her and kissing her forehead. “I love you a lot.”

“Mom-” she couldn’t get further than that, however, because an explosion broke one of the sides of the room. Kunou couldn’t see what happened though. Nagini had moved her body to shield her before the whole thing had even finished happening, in a split second. She heard Cheshire growling from close by-

“Even with Leonardo making all sorts of creatures to break his spells, Joshua Davis proves to be an annoyance of the highest order,” a voice said and Kunou recognized him without having to see him, the Man with the Spear. “I almost want to commend the guy.”

“My partner is very impressive, indeed,” she heard her mother say and Kunou couldn’t help the proud twitch on her lips. Because yes… Her dad was the best, the best of the best.

“Dad will kill you all,” Kunou said and she could almost imagine Joshua telling her that it wasn’t nice to say that, or that it wasn’t cute. However, dad also liked when she was honest.

And she was telling nothing but the truth.

“We’ll see about that. For what he’s reduced me to, working with… half-breeds and monsters, I owe your dad a nice spear through his chest. I almost wish I could see how Kokabiel roasts him alive… completely this time,” the Man with the Spear said and Nagini twisted her body as she hissed. It was just enough for Kunou to see the many men and the single woman in the Khaos group. She didn’t recognize most of them except the Man with the Spear and the Man with the Sword.

“You will not speak of Joshua like that,” her mother said in a voice that Kunou couldn’t quite place. She’d heard her mother being stern and even angry, but this was a lot… colder. “And you will not speak to my daughter at all.”

“Lady, you don’t know how outnumbered you are,” the Man with the Spear kept talking and Kunou just wanted him to shup up. More importantly, she wanted her dad to be there. “But that’s enough chatter, I feel.”

“Finally,” a man with white and blue metallic wings said, walking towards them.

And then, Kunou’s vision was obscured once more. This time though, it wasn’t Nagini or Cheshire’s bodies. There were four people between her and the bad people. They looked… familiar.

“Sorry to interrupt~” a female voice was the first to say something. “I can’t let you attack these two, especially the cute lil’ girl. Joshua would be mad, nya~,” she commented, cat ears and twin tails twitching.

“Joshua-sensei’s girlfriend is truly a sight to behold,” a male voice commented, the man facing Yasaka before he shook his head. “But attacking a place with a kid? You truly are the worst,” the armored figure added, a red gauntleted hand punching the palm of the other.

“It’s gonna be fine, Kunou,” the most familiar of all told her, a kind tone and an even softer smile. “Just leave it all to Auntie, alright? I got this,” she added, turning and creating a small curtain of blond hair that shone ever so slightly more with the light of her swords.

“You targeted the wrong family,” the last of the four said, her voice reminding Kunou of how her mother had spoken just before. “For that, all of you, vermin…” the woman said, her four black-feathered wings spreading and her hands being brought up. “You will all burn,” she finished, purple fire appearing on top of her palms.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I think this is the longest I’ve had action go on for, chapter-wise. Then again, there’s a lot of inner monologue going on in between the action pieces. I apologize for that. I know it kind of… takes away from the action. However, Joshua’s fighting – among other things – requires me to explain stuff, if I don’t want to have things make no sense at all.

I hope that’s not too annoying.

Man, I’ve been wanting to write a scene like that last one for like, forever ago. I don’t know if I did justice to how it looked in my head, and it’s certainly not the same as it was originally, but it’s… I think it turned out alright, at worst.

Am I being too optimistic?

Either way, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Lots of people are involved in this mess. Which are your favorite characters of the bunch?

See you.