Creation Side Stories: Of Dragons and Deadbeats

 Creation Side Stories: Of Dragons and Deadbeats

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Commissioned by Blue Flaming Wings

Wordcount: 2500

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There are more than a few regrets to have over several millennia of life. However, given that my previous self had the foresight to try and do things differently with a different personality, most of my regrets are just odd things that have me scream internally out of embarrassment. While a normal, regular individual would have the content of such memories be something utterly idiotic, such as making an ill-fated joke to a crowd of peers, mine centered more around mistakes that rippled through all of Reality.

Accidentally creating the Fae is one. Those Courts were a headache and a half, especially with how utterly alien they were. Lucifer is a huge mistake. Who would’ve thought that trying to make a perfect best friend would’ve gone wrong? Just about every child over the age of three. Yet, I did that and got myself killed, when I could’ve probably just walked to an average human town and did my best to fit in for a few decades, before “dying.”

I’m happy to say that I don’t have many regrets in my current life. Not managing to be smart enough to stop my mother from doing stupid shit notwithstanding, I’ve done a pretty well. I’ve kept in the shadows and kept Heaven growing on its own, helping them out when they get little issues with anything they made in the shadows. Having a secret lab, developing weapons against monsters was a good use of my time, and it made sure I didn’t lose my temper in battle and fuck up everything. Then, of course, there’s me doing my best to clear my mother’s name, help humanity out, and surround myself with jerks who’ll never lie about me being a piece of shit.

I thought I’d been doing rather well, despite everything that’s been going on.

However, letting my best friend go AWOL is definitely going to be something I’ll regret for my entire life.

There were a dozen different ways I could have prevented that.

I could have looked into Devils more, instead of focusing on Heaven. I’d finally had access to Devils for the first time since they were created. Unmitigated access to creatures made by Lucifer from Demons, who before I’d only studied so that I could kill them better. Had I not been okay with consigning a whole species to be nothing more than things I could kill with a snap of my finger, Val wouldn’t have had to turn into a dragon, because I could’ve have done SOMETHING about the FUCKING KILL SWITCH built-into MILLIONS of SAPIENT BEINGS.

A bucket of icy water was dumped on my head.

It helped a little to cool me down.

“I’ll fetch another bucket. Try not to blow up the bar while I’m gone.” I thanked my secretary for her hard work, while I sat at the bar. It was a Polynesian Paris Bistro and I was going to have words with whoever made the theme of the place be retro 40s later, but I couldn’t exactly focus on the creative abomination my created abominations were filling up the underwater sea base with. “I said, don’t blow up the bar while I’m gone, Ms. Thomas!”

It was a really smart idea to give Jackie a monitor for my blood pressure, but I was sure it was ruining her own blood pressure.

Still, it was a better alternative to going full Old Testament.

Going full Old Testament might work for Li, but that shit was off limits for my pert, dumbass behind.

I asked the bartender for a drink, even though it wouldn’t work for me.

“The usual attempt to destroy your liver, ma’am?”

I managed to nod, despite having my wet, soaking face glued to the atrocity that was the aluminum air-wing bartop.

While the bartender was composing something that would kill most humans in a second flat, I fished an ice-cube out of my shirt, then focused on being morose instead of being angry. How do I do that again? I forget. Dead puppies. Bastards, who kills puppies!? Nope, that’s not the feeling. That’s still anger. Hrmm… people walking away from my life, because I’m a weirdo. Jerks, why can’t appreciate me for me!? Okay, there’s still anger in there, but there’s some sadness and depression there. We’re getting there Celeste.

Li Song having to fix my mistake, while having to do everything he can to save the world.

And, there’s the pure, distilled depression I wanted.

We have a winner.

Millenia of doing my best to help out humanity, then in not even a year Li Song comes along and shows me how to really do it. Messing with free will by interacting with humans? What a joke. If I’d made my kingdom on Earth, how far would humanity be now, and I could’ve just let them govern themselves while staying neutral in their wars. If I spent centuries advancing medicine, agriculture, and other technology, instead of making “perfect” people to be my companions, how much better off would humans be right now?

What if I walked amongst people, took their problems, and did my best to solve them while being conscious of their rights as people?

Not a ruler.

A helper.

Just… helping people out with their problems and challenges.

Li Song got in a few years, despite suffering all he did, and being nice about everything and to everyone. What the heck. Why did I spend so much shitty time making Heaven for the worthy, when I could’ve made it so that people didn’t have to be shitty and commit sin? How many people wouldn’t have to be shitlords, if they didn’t have to worry about their next meal, if they had a roof over their heads, or anything else like that?

How many less people would be dying to Chimera, if I didn’t spend my last life fixing the Sacred Gears, and just stayed on Earth to do as much good as could?

Yeah, this is the feeling I need to have while thinking about Val and how she just FUCKING runs AWAY!

The door to the bar opened and a bucketful of ice-water struck me.

Good timing.

“Thank you, miss.”

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Five buckets of ice-cold water later, I was sitting in front of my therapeutic journal. I hated the gosh darn thing. It was small, thin, and held all my deepest darkest secrets and concerns. Therapy required effort from the individual, but I always thought it was a bit much to have to write everything I thought, then read it to myself, and have to fill up a whole book before I got to the fun part of burning it.

I may fear you today, you wretch, but know that one day you will burn just like the rest of your kin.

Wow, I’m really pissed off today.

I really need to start writing.

Alright, Celeste Thomas, you can do this. You’re in your room. Just you, sitting in front of desk, and with the door locked. No one’s going to interrupt, no reports are going to reach you, and work’s off until tomorrow. If you want to scream into a pillow, just to vent frustration, that’s available and no one’s going to ask question if you need a new pillow… or new furniture. Your friend has just done something monumentally stupid, permanently changing herself, and there’s currently nothing you can do about it.

Oh, and your biggest mistake ever’s back to fuck people over, even if the whole world hates him and he’s being hunted down, Mr. It’s Either Perfect or Dead is FUCKING back.

And, they said making an indestructible pen was a bad idea. Ha!

Augh, I’m delaying things with humor again.

“Ceiling, why does the smartest person I know do the dumbest things?” I rate my latest ceiling, of my many ceilings (don’t judge me), a 7/10 ceiling. Clean, well-kept, and stoic, but certainly not warm and understanding. It might have something to do with my current chair. I really should’ve made my room comfier, but when you’re someone with superhuman attributes and anger issues, fancy furniture in the room where you blow off steam is a mistake. “Is it because of all the stress? No. That can’t be the case. She’s got less to do nowadays than she ever did.”

Taking a deep breath, I did my best to get rid of my bias and think logically about why Creighton was being an idiot.

Technically, I was also talking to myself, but I directed to question to my ceiling.

I was weird and needed help, but I did not talk to myself.

This was therapeutic.

I swear.

“I get that she did it to fight against Lucifer and pay her friend back for giving his life. I guess… I’m angry because I made Lucifer and imprisoned Albion in the first place.” Just letting the words come up helped. However, the issue with this stream-of-consciousness crap was that I wouldn’t be able to review it without looking back with biased memories. I wasn’t going to record myself either, even if I could get a recorder that wasn’t connected to everything and couldn't possibly be hacked. Burning up recycled paper was one thing, but electronics? That was wasteful. Oh, right, I’m self-reflecting. “So, even if I didn’t do it, I’m still a little at fault, because I tried to fix everything the way I did in my previous lives. That pisses me off a lot, even though I’m being unfair to myself.”

But am I really being unfair to myself?

“Is blaming Lucifer on me and imprisoning monsters for power on me?” The question was more stupid when I said it aloud. The answer was no, of course. My past lives did that. Essentially, my past was catching up with me and people I cared about, but how much say did I have in how anything happened in the past? What power did I have then to change anything? Nothing. My past selves… they’re not me. I might have their memories, know why they did it, and how they did it, but just because I understood and had the same ability didn’t mean I had any choice in their actions. “Right, right. I really need to stop getting hung up on that.”

However, I can’t let the wrongs of my past mean nothing to me.

Not because the “wrongs” were mine, but because it hurt people I cared about.

Lucifer was never going to stop. There was no chance of him ever doing that. Even if he changed himself, no longer being within the body I made for him, that only made him more deadlier. Whatever changes he made to himself, as the most spiteful and petty person to ever exist, would all be upgrades and changes that he thought were better than what I did. Where he got the androgynous, pretty fetish from I don’t know… okay, I have a clue where he got that from, but I refuse to acknowledge him in any way. Regardless, what mattered was that he was a threat to the Cradle, the people I cared about, and the tenuous peace that all the factions had, even if it was because of interdimensional alien locusts.

I’ll destroy Lucifer because he’s a threat to things I care about, not because the fact that he exists is my fault.

The reason why I do anything is important.

Some could get away with being fueled by anger, but doing that was a one-way ticket for me to get myself killed.

It can’t be because I’m fixing an irritating mistake, but because I need to protect people I care about.

Now what about Val?

“Damn, Val, why do you have to be such a high-maintenance piece of shit?” Sealing Albion away in a Sacred Gear was not wrong. Heck, the guy gave up his life for another person. A Dragon gave up his life for a Half-Devil. I never thought I’d see the day, but it happened, therefore there’s some hope for all the dragons that are and will be. What I didn’t like was how he did the saving. Valerie Creighton was no longer a Devil, which should make me ecstatic, but she’s changed. Permanently and irrevocably, barring some extreme weirdness, she is now a Dragon. “Couldn’t you be a little more considerate about your friends with too much power and too many anger issues?”

I was nowhere near close to the correct mental state to consider Val’s actions. Heck, while I could think about Lucifer logically, my best friend’s situation was elevating my BP faster than one of Song’s fangirls walking into him while he’s training. I was getting palpitations faster than one of the thirstiest beings in existence around one of the most thirst-provoking beings in existence.

“Really, though, a little care and consideration would’ve been nice, Ms. Perfect!”

There was a knock on my door.

Again, I expected to be alone until morning, when I awoke in a trashed room that needed new furniture, but slightly refreshed and ready to take on the day. Barring extreme circumstances, there was to be no situation that I was to be interrupted.

So, since there was a knock on the door, the situation was very extreme

My ice-water toting secretary seemed disheveled when I opened the door. The glorious pinstriped pantsuit she wore was slightly wrinkled, her glasses were slightly askew, and a stray lock of hair hung upon her forehead. If she were not a homunculi, there would’ve been some very happy sweat fetishists, but she was a homunculi, so I missed my chance to pander to that particular demographic in the Aspect Popularity Polls. It was light work to beat Destruction, Time, and apparently Reality, but I had to keep working hard to take number one.

But, back to the extreme emergency that only I could respond to, whilst all other Factions could only twiddle their thumbs.

Maria held a sticky note in her hands. Bright neon yellow paper with an adhesive strip that gave up after an hour.

Yet my hands trembled whilst reaching out for it.

In perfect, cursive handwriting the summons read thus:

Family emergency. Everyone is here. Please come. -Sheridan Creighton.

Any ounce of anger I felt for Val vanished in an instant.

All I felt for her was pity.

Not only did she piss off Li Song, but I totally underestimated how the Creighton family line was going to react to Valerie Creighton up and disappearing without a word to them. Allow me to repeat: Val managed to piss off not only Li Song, but her extended and close family. Timestopping cousins, esoterically beautiful and charismatic princesses, and warriors ripped out of legends, if they didn’t live in the same age as Li Song.

Perhaps, if I wasn’t her best friend who’d look after her no matter what, I’d have felt some satisfaction at the Sticky Note of Doom.

Instead, I walked straight to the lab.

I needed to get into contact with her YESTERDAY.

Why?

I didn’t want my best friend to friggin’ DIE!

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