Game of Monsters - 183

I’ll Always Watch You Grow

[Margalo]

She loved festive days, especially what Joshua called Christmas and New Year’s.

Margalo wasn’t very sure what those were all about, but she loved that the entire family gathered together or at least dropped by often those days. Everyone they knew and liked came around and she liked that. Well, there’d been some unpleasant sights, like the bad winged one, similar to Eager, as Nagini called the one who now partnered with the Flame. Those aside though, most of the people that came around to visit were nice.

Most importantly though, Margalo loved those days because she got to sing a whole lot more and everyone seemed to like her songs plenty more than usual, which was already saying something. Everyone just seemed happy and she liked that too. The very air seemed to be so filled with joy that she wanted to sing more and then they’d be happier and then…

Well, the idea was simple, really.

So, Margalo loved festive days.

“Having a good time, are we?” Joshua asked her when she perched herself on his shoulder and trilled some notes. She just doubled down at his words and it was more than answer enough, evidently. “I’m glad to hear it and you,” her father told her and she nuzzled against his cheek, being careful with her beak. Not many liked to be poked, after all. “Was Kunou doing her homework?” he asked her and she chirped something and nodded.

Just like her sister had told her to.

“Lying isn’t nice, Margalo,” Joshua told her and she shrunk. She knew that already. But Kunou would be upset if she told Joshua that she was working on spells like he usually did instead of doing what the boring people told her to. Apparently though, that was good for her, so Margalo wasn’t sure what to do… “It’s fine. I’ll let her get away with that for a bit. Festive spirit and all that, right?” he told her and she perked up right away. That sounded much better. “I know she doesn’t like to study, but she needs it though, so don’t cover for her, would you?”

She nodded, chirping apologetically.

“I know, I know. You’re too nice for your own good,” Joshua commented, patting her and making her rub her head against his fingers. “Don’t tell Nagini, but I wish you could be a little like her, a little colder,” he added, although it was odd that he said that, because he was definitely loud enough for the snake to hear him. This was further proven by the fact that her sister preened, very obviously pleased. “Don’t be grumpy like her though.”

Nagini also heard that, if the resulting hiss was anything to go by.

All the same, Margalo nodded.

“I knew you were my favorite for a reason,” he said and the reactions were fairly funny. Friday was instantly staring right at them. Nagini hissed louder and Morag pulled back, clicking her mandibles. Cheshire was the calmest, simply staring at him, unimpressed. “Absolutely adorable,” Joshua added, apparently unconcerned by the looks he was getting.

“You shouldn’t do that, Joshua~ That’s mean~” the Curious Cat said, playful as always as she moved around Joshua with her wide grin. It was nice to see her animated again, but Margalo mostly hoped she’d learned her lesson. Joshua had been very upset when she’d poked at him too much and she’d been very afraid afterwards too. Margalo wasn’t a fan of either of those things.

“They could do with a little humbling from time to time, is all I’ll say,” Joshua replied with a grin. Margalo was pleased to see that. Always nice to see people she liked smiling. “But I guess that’s fair. Especially to Friday. I didn’t mean that, girl,” he added, looking up and closing his eyes before his emotions washed over the connection he shared with Margalo and her sisters, especially with Friday though, as he’d said, the living magic swirling around them like she always did when she was happy, kind of like how Margalo liked to do little tricks sometimes when she was excited.

Every single one of her sisters – with the exception of Kunou, who wasn’t present but also didn’t share the same connection they did – took a moment to enjoy their father’s presence. His magic touched theirs, covering them like the warm light of the sun on a cold day. And then in the strength of that single, calm, safe, peaceful moment, it happened.

Joshua’s magic touched theirs a little too much. Their connection was leaned on just enough. And their presence, full and solid as it had been, always linked to Joshua, was pushed. It was subtler than the other times. Where before it had been like the world exploded with them in a single dramatic moment, instead Margalo felt like she was being snapped from a half-asleep moment.

She was there, just fine and then something nudged her, shifting her entire perception of everything.

Her magic snapped, from perching idly to soaring. Morag’s magic snapped, like jumping forward when something landed on her web. Nagini’s magic snapped, from coiled to plunging. Cheshire’s magic snapped, like throwing itself at prey after crouching for long enough.

And their magic, their souls, sung their songs for all to hear. Margalo heard it so loud, so clear, unlike anything she’d ever heard. It was so new, but so, so very beautiful. The melody of her family, the music of her sisters, the song of her father, all mixing themselves together to create… more.

… To make them more.

And as the seconds passed, Margalo felt bigger, faster, stronger, more. No matter how many times she went through it, she’d never get used to feeling herself be a different bird than she’d been before. She was Margalo, but not the Margalo she’d been mere seconds – or was it minutes? – before. She was something else, someone else, but through it all, her father remained the same.

And that’s what mattered, she supposed.

[}-o-{]

[Joshua Davis]

“I was not expecting that,” he commented, still getting his bearings. At least his familiars evolving hadn’t knocked him out or almost done so. In a way though, all his preparation to be able to feed those transformations without them overwhelming him worked against him though, funnily enough. Because all the other times, there’d been so much exhaustion that he could barely focus through the whole thing.

Either that, or it’d been just the one or two evolutions, which was very different from what happened then and there. After all, all his familiars – sans Friday, unsurprisingly – had decided it was time to take a sledgehammer to his brain through their connection. That wasn’t quite an appropriate analogy, but it was close enough. Their changes send so much sensory feedback through the link that he was overwhelmed, no two ways about it.

“You okay, Josh?” Jeanne asked him. It was a testament to how out of it he’d been through the whole process that he hadn’t realized she was by his side and holding him up until that very moment. “Come on, let’s get you a seat, alright?” she added when he didn’t reply and he managed to nod weakly.

Even after the process ended, the changes that all the bonds had underwent was still shocking him. It was like there was a chunk of his own mind that he didn’t recognize. Emotions, thoughts, senses, all of it was right there, just like it had before, but it was all different. Like someone had changed the entire format of a document to the point that it looked like a different thing even though the text remained the same.

“Well, this is certainly something, Joshua,” Jeanne commented then. Finally having enough presence of mind to look at her, he noticed the amused expression with which his sister looked off towards where his familiars were. Taking a deep breath in to steady his mind, he looked at them himself and… ‘Well, that’s something,’ he thought, blinking repeatedly.

Nagini didn’t look that much different. She was bigger than before, but otherwise she still looked like a big, menacing snake. The only other change he could point out, although it was with some doubt, was on her eyes. He could have sworn they looked even more disturbing than they already did before, and that was saying something.

[Nagini

Title: Familiar of Joshua Davis

Race: Basilisk

Gender: Female

Strength: S-

Speed: A

Dexterity: A

Vitality: S-

Perception: S-

Magic: A

Life: A+]

He read over the screen for a long moment, pausing at the species before a smile tugged at his lips. That wasn’t too surprising, he supposed. It was actually kind of what he’d expected, having checked through familiar and magical creature books for plenty of reasons. One of those reasons being for the sake of knowing what went on when his familiars changed, of course.

Idly, he went for the next one, big, but not that much bigger than before, unlike Nagini.

[Cheshire

Title: Familiar of Joshua Davis

Race: White Tiger

Gender: Female

Strength: A

Speed: S-

Dexterity: S-

Vitality: A

Perception: S-

Magic: A

Life: A+]

White Tiger wasn’t all that descriptive and it might almost be misleading. However, he knew what it really meant. Much like how Tsuchigumo was translated into Earth Spider for Morag before, now the System had translated Cheshire’s race to White Tiger from Byakko. ‘You look majestic, girl,’ he praised, getting a pleased purr from the massive feline.

Then came those that changed noticeably more, however.

[Margalo

Title: Familiar of Joshua Davis

Race: Bird of Harmony

Gender: Female

Strength: A

Speed: S-

Dexterity: A+

Vitality: A

Perception: A+

Magic: S-

Life: A+]

Was it a downgrade that her feathers had gone from dark to golden and now silver? Maybe, but Joshua didn’t think so. To him, this looked even more impressive. There was a tinge of something otherworldly there. The shine of the light on the almost metallic feathers gave the bird an ethereal presence, or so it looked like to Joshua.

And then she perched herself by his side and sang.

And it was like the world changed just with the presence of the music. Every color seemed more vibrant, his blood seemed to sing along with his familiar and his mind was cleared and soothed like few times before. It was… a lot, but certainly not unpleasant.

And then…

The one familiar that had actually gotten smaller instead of bigger.

“Daddy?”

[Morag

Title: Familiar of Joshua Davis

Race: Woman Spider

Gender: Female

Strength: A

Speed: S-

Dexterity: S-

Vitality: A

Perception: A

Magic: S-

Life: A+]

‘Jorogumo,’ Joshua translated in his mind, looking at the half spider, half girl that Morag had turned into. She was smaller than before, shorter than him by a lot and even shorter than Kunou if she’d been around. Absently, almost on instinct, he made one of his daughter’s shirts appear over Morag’s form. She shifted, clearly uncomfortable, but it’d have to do for the moment. Good thing she was smaller than Kunou too, because it meant that a shirt was enough to cover her completely until they found a better solution to the new dilemma.

“Hey, Morag,” he replied, a smile tugging at his lips while she moved towards him and God was it odd to see her in this new form. It was more than any of his familiars had changed, ever. Hell, he hadn’t even known they could change into anything even remotely humanoid. But there Morag was, he supposed, ready to prove that he could still be surprised, no matter what. “Didn’t want to be outdone by your sisters, huh?”

“No,” the eight-eyed girl replied, beaming at him and he found himself grinning right back at her. “Do you like it? It’s kind of odd, but I like it,” she commented, spinning around where she stood as if to show off her new body.

And Joshua chuckled, reaching out and pushing some of her short black hair – where did that come from? – away from her eight eyes before replying.

“I love it,” he said, because what else could he possibly respond to that with?

[}-o-{]

“Is this weird or is it just me?” Joshua asked, watching as Kunou talked animatedly with the newly evolved Morag. The rest of his familiars had arranged themselves around them too, but it was mostly those two’s show. “I know they see me sort of as a father figure, but it feels… different, you know? A father figure, but not really, if that makes any sense. Except now there’s Morag.”

“I think I get it,” Yasaka replied, taking a sip from her cup of tea while keeping her eyes on the group together with him. “Is it bad weird or good weird though, as Kunou would say?” she asked and he considered that for a moment. There was no doubt in his mind though.

“Definitely not bad, but it’s… just weird for now. I’m sure I’ll get used to it. It’s just…”

“A drastic shift in how you saw your relationship with them, with Morag,” Yasaka finished for him like the smart, people savvy person that she was. “Well, at least someone’s got a clear idea of what their opinion is, so there’s that.”

“You don’t say,” he mumbled, his lips pulling up into a wry smile. Kunou seemed fairly enthusiastic about the new development, that was for sure. “She never did mention wanting siblings, right? I think I’d remember that,” he commented, leaning back and taking a sip from his own beverage.

“I think that, just like you knew your relationship with them was parent-child of a sort, she saw them as a sibling bond of a sort too. She’s just got a much clearer take on what she thinks of this shift. Understandable, since it’s much easier to adopt siblings, I’d say,” Yasaka explained, ever the voice of reason and sensibility. He hummed and nodded, letting out a breath as if that’d clear his head. It didn’t, but he didn’t expect it to. So, he turned back to his tea, every trustworthy- “Also, she might not have mentioned it to you, but she’s mentioned it to me a few times.”

He choked.

“You do that… on purpose,” he accused in between coughs and Yasaka’s innocent expression fooled absolutely no one. She had to know that much, he was sure. “Why am I just hearing about this?”

“Because these conversations happened before you even became a part of our lives. I think she’s happy as is, especially now that she has a more… official sibling, as it were,” Yasaka said calmly and he looked at his daughter… Daughters? Kunou had pulled the cards from Project Duel, actually. “Besides, I think I’d like to wait, at least until danger passes. Wouldn’t you?”

“... Sounds good,” he replied slowly. It wasn’t that he was unsure of his answer though. He definitely didn’t want to be more worried with Khaos Brigade around and the danger they represented to literally everyone. However, he hadn’t woken up that day ready for that kind of conversation, that was for sure.

Then again, he didn’t know what could have prepared him for it.

“You might want to consider what you’ll do with Serafall and Gabriel though, reached that point. They might get jealous,” Yasaka commented and he was fairly sure that she was teasing him, at least partially. The previous jab at him had been enough to put him on guard though…

Who was he fooling? It was working, and it was working a lot.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess,” he mumbled, taking a deep breath in. “Besides, you don’t know that,” he continued, even though he was sure that if anyone did know that, that’d be Yasaka. “I’d have to talk with Serafall and-”

“Talk with me about what?” someone said and Joshua almost jumped. Evidently, Friday and him had been too distracted to notice her arrival, mainly because they were used to kind of ignoring familiar presences like hers, for the most part. “Oh wow, they evolved again?”

“And Morag called me Daddy,” he answered, grimacing as he did so. He really meant it when he said that it was a bad kind of weird, but it was certainly weird. He still remembered Morag when she was a tiny spider that could fit in his palm. On that note, he still remembered when she’d been the tiny spider that the Hunter was going to use to kill him.

“Awkward~,” the Satan commented, eyes locked on the group of familiars.

“You’re telling me-”

“I definitely want one in the future though, just saying,” she added immediately and Joshua was grateful that he hadn’t been drinking tea that time. Instead, he just stared at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” he answered, eye twitching. “You finished what you had to do early, huh?”

“Yasaka sent me a message,” Serafall explained with, beaming at him and he blinked before turning towards the aforementioned youkai leader. In turn, the woman just shrugged.

“Well, this was an important moment, wasn’t it? I felt like she needed to be here. I sent a message to Gabriel too. She said she’d come as soon as she could,” she told him and he nodded slowly. She was right, of course. He wasn’t even going to argue that, because it’d be stupid and likely insensitive. Hell, he probably should have sent those messages himself.

In his defense though, he was still kind of recovering from the whole ordeal and wrapping his mind around it.

Still, looking at the gathering of his children, much more solidly called that this time, he smiled. He reached through the bond and looked deeper into them. Why hadn’t he noticed how childish they could be? All of them, not only Morag and Margalo. Probably because Cheshire and Nagini could be fairly precocious, he supposed, but they still had their moments of showing their true colors, as it were.

And considering those, all the little moments and what he was seeing in front of him…

“Yeah, I think I can agree to a few more of those,” he commented, a warm smile tugging at his lips, and it was the two women’s time to turn towards him with wide eyes. At that moment, he kind of understood the appeal for taking your partner off guard.

[}-o-{]

“When you’re not spell tinkering, you just go all out in order not to be boring, huh?” Sairaorg commented and Joshua just stared at him. “Like, damn, man. Nobody’s challenging you here or anything. Relax,” his friend continued, as if his expression weren’t telling him enough about what he thought of his attempt at “humor”.

Why was he friends with the musclehead again?

‘I need more male friends,’ Joshua thought to himself once he actually stopped to think about it. After all, who even actually was there in the list? Sairaorg, Issei… and Yuto, maybe? He didn’t feel like he actually counted. His male Stars, maybe? Better than Yuto, he supposed, but he wasn’t sure he’d call them friends.

Or was that his socially challenged self speaking?

“Don’t look at me like that. You do realize that people don’t normally have this many kids at your age, right?” Sairaorg asked him, eyebrows raised and an amused smile on his face. “You have a problem, man.”

“I happen to find it endearing, Mr. Bael,” someone called from the women’s table and he’d have expected that from Yasaka, or maybe Serafall if it came out more playful and teasing. As it turned out though, it had been Gabriel the one to say that. The angel had been in a great mood ever since his familiars had had a chat with her when she arrived. He’d only heard part of that conversation since he’d been talking with Serafall at the time, but he hadn’t caught anything that’d guarantee the change in attitude.

Maybe he’d find out later?

“Can I climb on you?” Morag asked Sairaorg, having gotten closer to the devil at some point. She then proceeded to look up at him with eight eyes that had no business being that adorable. No offense to his arachnid daughter, but Joshua was sure nobody expected those to look anything other than creepy or unnerving. Yet there she was, about as effective as Kunou herself.

… One day, those two would work together and discover how good teamwork could be.

Hopefully Joshua would have some back up when that happened, or he’d be screwed.

“Sure,” Sairaorg answered, apparently unsure of how to proceed now that he had a child’s attention on him. The big guy didn’t have to do much though, simply standing there while Morag got on his back and peeked over his shoulder in a matter of a second.

“You’re so tall~” Joshua’s familiar mumbled, looking around with all her many eyes wide. He wondered if she was acting though, because she definitely got higher views when she climbed on Nagini, at least when the snake positioned her body more straight up.

“Me too!” Kunou exclaimed, getting up and going up to Sairaorg, raising her arms. A little unsure, the devil picked her up and set her on his free shoulder. “You are tall,” she confirmed, looking around as if the world were completely different from up there.

“Well, you’re officially the family jungle gym, buddy,” Joshua commented, happy to be on the teasing side that time. “How’s it feel?” he added, grinning even wider when Margalo flew up to his friend and perched herself on his arm when Sairaorg offered it.

“It’s… odd?” the devil answered, unsure but not seeming uncomfortable. “Does this make me the cool uncle?”

“Well, they need someone cool. Who else do they have? Me? Jeanne?”

“Hey!”

“Good point,” Sairaorg replied with a nod.

“Hey!”

“Keep it up and maybe you’ll be their godfather,” Joshua added, grin still in place. Somehow, that seemed to make the man happy though, so he made a mental note to discuss things with his partners. Maybe they could make that semi-official too.

“One thing though. I’m pulling the best friend card here, by the way.”

“Ok? Did you need something?” Joshua asked, eyes widening a bit. He’d thought the guy came by for a visit. Sairaorg – and his peerage, even if those weren’t there that day – had come to their home to visit a bunch of times those days, aware that it was an important time for Joshua. So, he hadn’t been that surprised when he dropped by, but maybe he had an actual reason for dropping by?

“You can’t, under any circumstances, tell my mother about this or let her see me like this,” Sairaorg said, utmost seriousness in his voice and Joshua cracked up. “It’s not a laughing matter, Joshua!”

“She woke up grandbaby crazy, huh? That’s certainly… a problem to have,” Joshua replied in between laughs. He’d heard that she constantly asked how Sairaorg’s life had been while she was asleep, about girlfriends and such, but that was new information. He was definitely going to be bringing that up later.

That was prime teasing material, after all.

“I’m serious. Do you know how insistent she is? I’m happy to have her back, of course, but I could really do without that, I tell you,” Sairaorg said, sighing even as he absently scratched the side of Margalo’s neck. She was liking that too, if the way she wiggled her body was any indication.

“I’ll do my best, I guess,” Joshua replied, apparently reassuring his friend. The devil shouldn’t have been so relieved though, because he was definitely going to keep that in mind in case he needed to get back at him at some point. A few words to Misla and Sairaorg would know not to cross him.

A good magician was always prepared, after all, and his friend should know that better than most.

“You don’t have many male friends, do you~?” Kuroka asked, having gotten right behind him at some point. Her leaning over his shoulder was a bit much, but not enough for him to say something on the matter. Instead, he just chuckled.

“I was thinking the same thing before, actually,” he answered with a wry smile. “I really do need more male friends.”

“I can help with that~!” Serafall exclaimed, standing up where she was with Yasaka and Gabriel and raising her hand up in the air like an overexcited student in a classroom.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Character uses free will!

It’s super effective!

Adrian fainted!

Muse uses cackle!

And… yeah, more or less that’s how it went while I was writing this chapter, not gonna lie. This is not how I thought this would go, at all. But then again, that’s hardly new, is it? So… Surprise?

I hope you guys enjoyed my characters’ and the Muse’s bout of madness.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Do you think Friday will have her own evolution? What do you think it would be?

See you.