A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol 3, page 14
From the “sand” comment, Gabrielle guessed that the D-box Alex had been sucked into contained a desert. It was certainly possible, though they would have had to put a lot of sand into that dimension, not to mention that it was difficult to shape the D-box world the way people wanted. If they had made a desert in the D-box, then they must have hired a professional D-box programmer.
“What did you say?” Jasmine asked, her voice a harsh whisper.
Gabrielle turned to look at the girl. She looked different from before. Jasmine was looking at the ground, her bangs falling over her eyes, casting shadows on her face. Gabrielle didn’t know if she was just seeing things, but a strange aura seemed to surround the girl, and a non-existent breeze caused her drill-like curls to writhe. For some reason, her hair reminded Gabrielle of sairan lilin snakes.
“Huh? Who are you?”
“Never mind who I am,” Jasmine ground out. “What. Did. You. Just. Say?”
“Uh… I said that Gabrielle and I are—”
“Not that. After that. What did you say after that?”
“I said that Alex is probably already dead?”
“I thought so.”
There was a moment of silence, and then…
“Oh ho ho ho ho! Do you really think that Alex would be defeated by anyone? You do not know him like I do. However, even if he is unlikely to lose, I cannot let such an insult toward him slide. Prepare yourself!”
“Prepare my—what the hell?!”
“Oh ho ho ho ho!”
Laughing like a rich lunatic, Jasmine leapt at the first puppet. She seemed intent on destroying it before it had time to fight back.
“Oh ho ho ho ho! Taste my wrath! The wrath of the one who is called the Queen of Fighters! You never stood a chance against me! Oh ho ho ho—KYA!”
A beam of superheated sand shot out from a small hole in the puppet’s palm. It hit the ground in front of Jasmine. An impressive explosion followed, launching the blonde girl into the air. She ascended higher and higher, eventually disappearing as she flew beyond what they could perceive with their vision.
“Jasmine…” Alice sounded like she was trying to shout but was too lazy. She stared up at the hole in the ceiling, through which Jasmine had disappeared.
“JASMINE!” Madison was much more vocal.
“Wow!” Gabrielle murmured. “She flew really far!”
“Is she going to be okay?” Jessica asked, using her hand as a visor as she looked up.
“I’m not sure,” Nicolas mused as he rubbed his chin. “I guess we can catch her when she comes back down, but…”
As everyone focused on Jasmine while she disappeared into the sky, Madison rushed forward as though to save her. However, the puppets reacted quickly, blasting superheated sand at her. Madison was forced to leap back.
Since everyone now seemed distracted by the sight of Jasmine flying into the air and Madison’s reckless rush to save her, Gabrielle decided that it was the perfect opportunity. Jasmine had provided her with this distraction. She wouldn’t let her friend’s actions be in vain.
“Everyone get behind me!” Gabrielle shouted.
Swiping her hand through the air, Gabrielle summoned Mr. Recycle Doggy version 3.0. Unlike previous versions, which were small and cute, this one stood at the same height as Gabrielle. Sharp fangs glistened in the light. Red eyes glowed with wicked intelligence. Its vocoder box made every sound that came out of its mouth more akin to vicious growling than a puppy’s happy barking.
“Mr. Recycle Doggy, eat those puppets!” Gabrielle pointed at the three puppets.
“Uh oh,” was all Ibn-Al Kalbi could say before the dog leapt at the puppets.
The puppet at the front was the first to fall victim. Mr. Recycle Doggy pounced on it, ravaging the creation like a rabid beast feasting on a carcass. Gabrielle’s invention first bit the puppet’s head clean off, chomping on it with a loud crunch! that echoed in everyone’s ears. Then the rest of the body followed. The sounds of glass shattering and metal being ground apart was enough to make everyone except for Gabrielle wince.
“Hmm…” Gabrielle, still holding her tablet, brought up Mr. Recycle Doggy Version 3.0’s design manual and began taking notes. “It seems that Mr. Recycle Doggy version 3.0 can withstand extreme heat well.”
“My precious puppet! Damn you!!”
The other two puppets split apart. They caught Mr. Recycle Doggy between them and raised their hands, palms pointed at their foe. Heat gathered, a congealing mass that distorted the area around their palms seconds before four compressed beams shot from nozzles hidden in their hands. Even though she was standing several feet away, Gabrielle could feel the heat singing the hairs on her arms.
Mr. Recycle Doggy leapt into the air. The four beams slammed into the space where it had been, erupting. Plumes of fire and molten sand exploded everywhere.
Gabrielle reacted quickly, erecting another barrier. A large dome of silvery blue energy surrounded her and the others, protecting them from the heat and flying debris. However, the barrier wavered as she tried to contain her own massive power, and she knew that she was reaching her limit. She couldn’t afford to use her aura much more if she wanted Mars to remain unharmed.
I need to think of something that I can use to defeat this guy—oh! I know!
Her shield vanished as the explosion dissipated. The room, once pristine and filled with all kinds of interesting furniture, now looked like a lava storm had flown through it. Minus the area where Gabrielle had erected her barrier, which was shaped in a perfect circle, everything else was covered in red, bubbling, molten sand. The table, counters, and sofa had become piles of melted goop. Steam hissed as the melted down furniture bubbled and popped.
What happened to my—ah!
Realizing that her tablet had gone missing when she erected the barrier, she searched around for it, only to discover that her tablet had become nothing more than melted slag.
“My tablet!” she cried.
“MY HOUSE?!” Nicolas screamed, eyes wide as though he was on the verge of despair.
“My puppets! They’re ruined!” Ibn-Al Kalbi screamed.
Indeed, the two puppets that had tried to attack Mr. Recycle Doggy version 3.0 were lying on the floor in broken heaps. From the dents in the walls and scattered parts that littered the floor, Gabrielle assumed that the puppets had been sent flying by the explosion, hit the wall, and shattered. Those puppets were surprisingly fragile.
“That does it! Now I’m bringing out my secret weapon!”
“Did he just say secret weapon?” Alice asked.
“I believe he did,” Jessica said.
“I wonder what kind of secret weapon he has,” Alice pondered.
“It’s probably a giant puppet robot or something,” Gabrielle said.
As if her words had prophetic powers, a giant robot rose above the mansion. It looked like a titan peeking down at them through a hole. This wasn’t the same robot that Alex had fought. Large horns on its head and a bulbous body gave it an even more bug-like appearance. Massive pincers sliced through the walls and ceiling, which crumbled as if it had been made of ash.
“My house! My house is being destroyed!” Nicolas cried, his hands on his head, tearing at his hair.
The giant robot didn’t seem to care about Nicolas’s feelings. It tore down what was left of the house, revealing more of its bulky frame. It really did look like a giant bug, a massive stag beetle that stood on two legs instead of four. Gabrielle judged it to be at least fifteen meters tall.
It slashed more of the house apart, gouging out chunks of concrete and earth. The melted remains of the house splashed around them. Jessica and Alice screamed as several splatters hit the floor in front of them, sizzling and bubbling much like lava did when it was cooling. Nicolas didn’t even pay attention. He’d sunken to his knees and was staring at the remains of his house, tears pouring from his eyes.
“Even if you are an angelisian, there’s no way you can compete with the strength of Gackomon!” Ibn Al-Kalbi shouted from a speaker system located in the giant robot beetle.
Gackomon must have been the name of his robot, Gabrielle figured. It was an odd name. Wouldn’t something like Mr. Giant Bug Robot be better?
“And now, I’m going to take you by force! You and I are going to get married, no matter what anyone else says!”
So, this person also wanted to marry her so they could become Emperor of the Galaxy? They were just another person who was after her for her father’s throne. They didn’t care about her like Alex did. In that case, not only would she not feel guilty about doing this, she wasn’t going to go easy on them either.
Blowing whoever was in the super giant robot a raspberry, Gabrielle said, “Blegh! There’s no way I’m going to marry you!”
“You say that like there’s something you can do about it! I’ve already decided that you and I are going to get married! You might be an ugly humanoid creature, but my planet needs the resources that you can bring! You’re not getting a choice in the matter!”
“Not happening!”
“It is happening!”
“No, it isn’t!”
“Yes, it is!”
“You can’t make me!”
“I can!”
“Then just try! Blegh!” Gabrielle blew another raspberry at the robot.
“Fine! You’re coming with me, Princess!”
The giant robot shaped like a beetle tried to grab her with its scythe-like antennas, but Gabrielle leapt back. She skidded along the ground, then bent her knees and pushed off, causing her to shoot forward. Rearing her fist back, she summoned her aura for the briefest of seconds, and slammed it into the beetle’s antenna.
A beam shot from her fist. The antenna shattered as if it had been made of dried mud. Gabrielle ploughed through it with ease. As the robot reared back in shock, she leapt into the air, her wings spreading as she used them to fly up, ascending above the robot.
“AAAAHHHHH!”
Screaming from above her caused Gabrielle to look up. She was just in time to see Jasmine falling toward her. She caught the girl, who continued to scream in her arms.
“Hi, Jasmine!” Gabrielle greeted.
The screaming stopped. Jasmine looked at her. “G-Gabrielle, what… have I… you caught me?”
“Yep!”
“I-I see… thank you…”
“You’re welcome. Now, hold on tightly to me, okay? I have a robot to smash.”
“What? Wait a minute! What did you mean by thaaaAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!”
Gabrielle plummeted back down, right toward the giant robot. It looked up at her. Two glowing red eyes seemed to stare at her in what almost looked like surprise. Its remaining antenna moved to intercept her, but she smashed it apart with a well-placed kick. She released her aura with just enough time to spare. A beam shot out of her foot and destroyed the antenna, but it didn’t harm anything else. Gabrielle would have breathed a sigh of relief, but she didn’t have time.
Continuing her descent, Gabrielle landed feet first on the beetle’s head; a loud tearing sound rang in her ears as her feet, encased in her aura to create a drill, hopefully for the last time today, tore straight through the robot’s metal carapace. Gabrielle and a screaming Jasmine went straight through the robot’s head and came out the other side, landing on the ground. The machine remained stationary for a moment. Then it toppled, falling over the side of the mountain that Nicolas’s mansion had been built on.
Gabrielle peered over the edge just as the machine hit the ground and exploded. She thought she saw someone flying away. She also thought she heard a scream, but she couldn’t be sure. Oh, wait. Jasmine was still screaming.
As the blonde girl’s raucous yelling pierced her ears, an object flew high into the air, disappearing in a twinkle of light.
1
Alex stood in the middle of a wasteland.
He needed a second to figure out what had happened. One moment, he’d been about to step in between Jasmine and Gabrielle before his blonde friend said something she would regret. The next, he was standing in a desert with nothing but sand as far as the eye could see and a blazing hot sun overhead.
This isn’t warping.
His first thought, which was that someone had warped him there, was immediately discarded. Warping was the act of breaking someone or something down to their molecular constituents at and rearranging them at point B exactly as they had been arranged at point A. However, even though molecules were microscopic, they couldn’t pass through other matter. They had to go around it. Mars Homespring Resort didn’t have a desert or a sun. Wherever he was, it wasn’t Mars Homespring Resort.
Then there was the person in front of him. He couldn’t see anything beyond the lower half of their face, which appeared human, save for the chitinous skin along their jaw. They wore a long black cloak, which obscured everything except for that single part, barely a dozen square centimeters worth of skin.
“My name is Al-lāt, the queen of Jāhilīya. I would like to request that you give up on Gabrielle and secede your right to marry her to my older brother.”
This person had called herself Al-lāt. He knew that name. Azazel had informed him of the current ruler of Jāhilīya. That had been several days ago, after he had his first run in with those four puppets that were being controlled by her brother.
Alex scratched his head. “You’re the queen of Jāhilīya?”
“I believe I just said that,” the figure spoke.
“Right.” Alex nodded. “Just checking. Listen, I don’t know why you’re trying to make Gabrielle marry your brother. I’m sure you’ve got a good reason. But, I promised Gabrielle that I would protect her, no matter the cost. I promised her that I would make sure she didn’t have to marry someone who she didn’t love. Sorry, but I’m not letting you or your brother touch her.”
The lips, one of the only parts of this woman that he could see, frowned. “I would like it if you would reconsider. My planet is at stake.”
“My solar system is at stake,” Alex shot back. “Gabrielle’s old man has threatened to eradicate my entire solar system if I fail to protect her from her suitors. Sorry, but while I understand your reasons, I can’t let you or your brother have her.”
“Then we are at an impasse,” Al-lāt said. “I had been hoping that we could solve this without violence. However, if you are not going to leave me any other option, then so be it. This desert will become your grave.”
A stiff breeze blew through the desert. Alex, sweltering under the blazing hot sun, discarded his outfit, revealing the crisis suit that he’d worn underneath it. He momentarily cursed as he realized that he didn’t have any of his weapons on him. Even his electro-whip, which he normally kept on his person at all times, was missing.
When I get back home, I’m going to ask Gabrielle if she can help me make my own D-space.
Calming his mind, Alex reached into himself, calling up images of the people he wanted to protect. Gabrielle’s smile floated across his vision. Jasmine’s laugh warmed his soul. Alice’s deadpanned expression made sweat roll down his scalp, but her endearing smile also made the love he felt burst to overflowing.
Power flowed through him like a tranquil river. His aura, a silvery blue, flickered around him like an ethereal flame.
Alex thought he was prepared for this battle. He might have been a little under equipped, true, but with his aura, fighting off a single person, even an alien who used puppets, should have been a piece of cake.
Then the sand rose from the ground, a towering wall that surrounded him on all sides, and Alex suddenly realized that this battle was going to be a lot harder than he imagined.
Well, shit, Alex thought as the massive walls of sand came crashing down.
2
Jasmine eventually calmed down, though she still seemed jittery after her impromptu flight. Gabrielle didn’t know why the girl was so scared of heights. Maybe it was because humans couldn’t fly? Well, that was a thought for another time.
Nicolas had remained inconsolable. The last Gabrielle had seen of the man, he’d still been in the ruined living room, wailing in despair. Jessica was with him, consoling the distraught man.
Gabrielle couldn’t blame him; she guessed it was pretty shocking to witness his house being turned into a molten wreck. Giant robots and battles also weren’t very common either, from what she understood of human culture. They also weren’t too common where she came from.
“What are we going to do now?” Alice asked, looking around the room that Gabrielle and Alex had slept in the day before.
Unlike the living room, it was still mostly intact. One of the walls was missing, but at least it still had a roof. Gabrielle was just glad that Alex’s stuff hadn’t been destroyed by the fight.
“Mr. Source was destroyed during the fight, so I can’t locate Alex by tracking the D-box through its Source ID. That means I need to find another method.”
Mr. Source was the locater that she had created specifically for finding the location of D-boxes. It was actually a program built into the tablet she used. It worked by decoding any IDs from a D-box within a limited range. She didn’t know if she had all of the parts needed to build another one.
“Is there another method that we can use to find Alexander?” inquired Jasmine, who sat on the bed, hands in her lap and back straight.
Gabrielle looked at the girl whose hair had become completely frazzled by her impromptu flight. “There could be. It depends on what Alex brought with him. I know that he likes to carry several of our inventions to tinker with. I once offered to carry them in my D-space, but he said that he’d like to have them on hand in case I wasn’t there.”
“So I see—wait. What do you mean by ‘our inventions?’”
“Alex and I like to invent stuff together,” Gabrielle said happily. Just thinking about how much fun it was to invent new technologies with Alex made her heart feel like it was being encased in a warm cocoon.
Jasmine looked like she’d swallowed something sour. “H-how long do you and Alex spend inventing stuff together?”
“Hmmm, we usually spend a couple of hours in the lab working on our projects,” Gabrielle answered after thinking about it. “Sometimes we’ll spend the whole day in the lab inventing stuff, but we also like to go out because we’d go crazy if we spent all of our time cooped up in a lab.”
