DxD: Celeste 19

DxD: Celeste 19

…

Commissioned by Chaosbrain           

Wordcount: 2000

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Operation Ophis, thankfully, is quite synergistic with my current plans.

That is to create a money-printing machine to fund my way back home.

I mean, if I get into Ophis’ good graces, 90% of the work would be done given infinite power, but the last ten percent will need a lot of work in order to make something that can safely go through dimensions and search for my home.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Here we are, Ophis. Your very own room.”

“Oh.” Having worked with Sheridan regarding Ophis from time to time, I knew quite a few things about Ophis. With her it’s not about splendor and wonder, instead it’s more about comfiness and entertainment all in the same place. That is to say, I’ve prepared a tricked-out bachelor pad for the Aspect. The fact that I got an ‘Oh’ was pretty much confirmation that I got things right.

“Let me show you around.” Ophis nodded with her eyes ever-so-slightly wider than usual. I went forward to her first favorite place. The living area was swaddled in large places to sit and lie down. The sofa was plush and good enough to act as a bed. There were massive beanbags and cushions in the corner, and some large, cute plush animals that doubled as chairs. They all surrounded a coffee table that was wide and long enough to serve a feast on, whether that be in junk or actual food and it was in front of a massive television with multi-screen ability configured in and all the consoles and games I could get loaded in for easy access. “Here’s a sleeping and play area. If you want any food, you can just press this button and choose anything you want from the menu. If there’s something you want that isn’t here, you just need to ask.”

I’d already been working on a food fabricator to make my ventures into space easier and ease up the hunger found in some parts of this world. The prototype model was too expensive for mass-production and had too many technologies that would upset the economy of the world, so I’d just been using it to enjoy some snacks from back home. Ophis getting it was better than it being a glorified vending machine.

“Button?”

“Ah, let me show you.” Ophis was a visual learner. A terrifyingly good visual learner, in fact. She can see most spells and instantly replicate it with infinity augmenting it. It was a useful method of getting her trapped in the clutches of my perfect slacking-off room. “Press here, a menu will appear, and you just press the picture for any food you want. It’s in alphabetical order, but you can sort by using the tab buttons.”

I showed her how to navigate and got myself a slice of cheese pizza, and before I knew it she had her own slice and a glass of fizzy cola… and looking at the machine with genuine wonder.

“Amazing.” Her eyes practically glittered with delight at the machine. “Can it last forever?”

“With a bit of power, yeah, but don’t do anything for now. It might break with too much.” Ophis nodded seriously at my words and nibbled on her pizza. Hard to believe this cute little girl could break thew world in half with her pinky. Then again, no one would suspect me being able to do the same with a few minutes of time and some more elbow grease. “How about you try some video games?”

“Video games?”

I’d gotten her interest, so now I have her attention.

Still, I couldn’t press to hard on the subject. According to Sheridan, she’d just picked it up one day and decided she liked it.

“It’s a human method of playing games on this screen that you see here.” I began to explain with a smile. “Here let’s play together. I’ll show you.”

Now that I thought about it, wasn’t this a good time to pay Ophis back for all the defeats she’d given me back home?

…

It didn’t make sense.

How could she be so good at games already!?

“Rematch!”

“Ok.” Ophis gave me a thumbs up, while I growled and looked at my controller. I’d already had to reinforce its material structure with magic to prevent my grip from breaking it. Was there something else wrong with it? I checked the buttons, the wires, and various other doodads within the archaic piece of tech. Everything came off as brand new and working as intended. Heck, with my reinforcement, it was operating better. So… why was I losing!? “Which game?”

I looked over the titles with a critical eye.

None of them were like the games that I played, even while I grew up. Sheridan wasn’t much of a player either. He spent his hours in time dilation in VR to read, relax, and catch movies. Not play games. Most people played multiplayer games and… right, I’m suppose to encourage Ophis to interact and spend time with others, while also limiting her time interacting with the real world.

The best way to do that is through MMOs.

“Actually, I think I should introduce you to a new game. This one lets you go on adventures with others without them knowing who you really are.” Using my knowledge of the future, I’d gone ahead and bought budding MMO studios from my world. After implementing some general administrative changes to make them not shit, they were now functioning workplaces where artistic talent could make fun experiences for other people. From my last check, all five of the MMOs they were churning out were in the millions of players and we were raking in the money with cosmetics. Nothing pay to win, of course, otherwise I’d find myself facing down all the Dragons when I got back home. “You can even play just by yourself if you want to, but I think you’ll be able to meet people and get to know them better if they don’t know you’re Infinity.”

Ophis’s eyes widened just a bit, which may as well have been her screaming out in astonishment.

“I would like to try this game.” Ophis had been lonely, according to Sheridan. She’d gone out of her way to accommodate those who would spend time with her for that reason. As simple as it may have sounded, loneliness for countless millennia was nothing to scoff at. “But after we play a bit more. Together.”

“You got it.”

As much as I was trying to keep her power out of Ouroboros’ grasp, I also wanted to make sure that she would be happy to.

…

Azazel looked at me and I looked back.

“You’ve contained Infinity… with a bunch of video games and some luxuries?”

“Yep. You’ve still got a long way to go before you can say you’re better than me, kid.” I gave Azazel a finger gun, while he turned his gaze to the lake. We were fishing. After a couple days of playing games with Ophis, I decided to indulge in another form of leisure and invited Azazel along. It was relaxing, even though we were talking about work rather than just spending time with each other. “And, they’re not luxuries. Just creature comforts. It helps that I knew her from my own world. We got her out of Ouroboros’ clutches the same way… though not before someone convinced her to kill off most of the gods.”

“…I think you told me that already, but yeah. That’s great. Really great that the gods aren’t dead.” Azazel nodded slowly and pulled in a good trout. We were in Alaska and I decided I liked the place a lot. Back in my world, very few people lived in the region, since it got converted over into a resource extraction site and most of its inhabitants folded into a single arcology. “What about the Chimera?”

Right, I’ve been looking into that.

“Sent out probes in the nearest dimensions. Mostly nothing, like it usually is. Lots of resources for extraction, so I can start working on some real big stuff without messing with the world.” The nearest dimensions to this one had earth-like planets without life. Not because of any malign intent, but because of odds. Some Earths just never had the chance to develop life. Magnetosphere isn’t strong enough. It’s not in the right space for life to exist. Water isn’t an issue. That sort of thing. Most Earths are just barren planets that never beat the odds. “That’s good for this planet. Even if I did go back in time and the Chimera are present somehow, there’s a dead zone that they can’t cross. It’ll just be too expensive for them to do so.”

Studies on the Chimera’s methods of advancing through dimensions were limited and post-war. Most of the work done to stymie them was done by Great Red barring that one time Song and everyone else went off to cleanse a whole system of Chimera. The Aspect of Dreams went out of its way to destroy Chimera and left a lot of ruin in its wake. Barring dimensions that were anchored to ours, whose destruction would affect ours, the Dragon of Dreams eradicated the Chimera across multiple dimensions and was probably the main cause behind their sudden drive to revive Destruction as a counter.

Destruction ended up meeting Conflict, so that ended up getting sorted out just fine, and last I heard no one knew what happened to the Chimera after they got burned by Destruction.

Still, I knew better than to be confident.

“I’ll set up a few perimeter stations before building anything heavy, though. Best case scenario we can blow up a few barren Earths so they really can’t get over here.” Chimera weren’t interstellar. They had a few organisms and methods of traversing in-system, but even with just a rudimentary space fleet, we’d held orbit just fine. If they open several gates and find nothing but rocks in space as landing points, then they’ll know better than to try coming this way. Was I sticking them onto another planet this way? Probably, but with a few decades to build up and hopefully with some old friends helping me out, the Chimera of this dimension and time should be relatively easy to handle. Or, maybe, they won’t exist at all. This could be so different from my dimension that it might be a different reality… I’ll have to test that theory later. “Don’t worry about the outside or Aspects. I’ve got that covered. You need to keep your eyes out for Ouroboros. How’s that going?”

Azazel seemed to regain his composure after being reminded of the issues that he could handle.

“Well, without having to worry about interdimensional fortresses powered by Infinity, I’m feeling a lot better. My Homunculi are also helping a lot.” I nodded. Homunculi were integral to most future magical technologies that we had, but they were also great and capable individuals. Treat them well and they treat you well. Azazel really one-upped me when he made them back home. A whole race of powerful beings with free will that have a near-perfect track record to anyone who treat them right? Yeah. Definitely my kid. “We don’t have hard evidence, but we’ve heard tales of a few organizations here and there with a few bad intentions. Some of them amongst the Fallen. They’re not connected, at least I think so, but they’re definitely planning something.”

Azazel turned to me.

“I think someone right now is trying to reignite the Great War between Factions, just like you said they would.”

And, just like that, my relaxation time became more important.

Looks like we’ve got a lot of work cut out for us.