A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol 3, page 2
“Actually, the simulated version you just fought is a little weaker than Papa. That was how strong Papa was before the Unification War.”
Alex deadpanned. “You mean your old man is even stronger than that?”
“Yep.”
“Great. It looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
Alex was kind of hoping that he wouldn’t have to fight Gabrielle’s father now, as fighting against someone who was that strong didn’t sound appealing at all. Not even he, someone who wished to become a hero more than anything, was stupid enough to fight against someone like that.
“Anyway, why don’t we stop here,” Gabrielle suggested. “I think I know enough to calibrate your crisis suit now, and once I do that, you should get a significant boost in your physical abilities.”
“Would that allow me to fight your old man on even footing?” Alex asked as he unsteadily climbed to his feet. His legs were feeling all kinds of wobbly.
Gabrielle Angelise, his friend, roommate, and fake fiancé stood before him with bright green eyes like glittering emeralds and a vibrant smile. Her long, glorious silver hair parted as her ears, far longer than a human’s and ending in rounded points, wiggled up and down. She wasn’t wearing her angelisian crisis suit. Her blue skirt fluttered around her legs, and the sleeveless pink shirt revealed her lovely alabaster shoulders. Behind her, a pair of white wings flapped in time with her ears.
“No way.” Gabrielle waved a hand back and forth as if to emphasize how impossible that was. “Papa is so strong that even with an angelisian crisis suit, you’d still be killed within seconds if you two fought.”
Gabrielle’s father was King Lucifer, the ruler of the galaxy. He had never met the man, but Alex didn’t like him. He had tried to force Gabrielle into an arranged marriage by setting her up with suitors.
“U-ugh.” Alex’s shoulders slumped at the harsh criticism of his strength.
“Don’t feel too bad, though. Papa is so powerful that no one can come even close to him. Even Azazel wouldn’t last more than five minutes in a spar with Papa.”
“So I see. Maybe I should try sparring Azazel first, then.”
“That’s a good idea. We can do that next time.”
As they conversed about how Alex should train his powers, the door to the lab slid open, and Alice stepped into the room.
Alice’s messy brown hair looked nothing like Alex’s raven locks. Likewise, her doe-like brown eyes, which were half-lidded and seemed perpetually bored, were completely different from his blue eyes.
It made sense that they would look different, since Alice wasn’t his real sister but a step-sibling. They had both already been born when their parents had married each other. That morning, she was wearing pajama pants and a long-sleeved shirt with buttons.
“Good morning, Alice!” Gabrielle greeted enthusiastically. Alice gave her a stink eye, as if disgusted that someone could be so cheerful this early in the morning.
“What’s up, Alice?” Alex asked. “You almost never come down here. Actually, you’re almost never awake at this time. I’m kinda surprised.”
“I don’t come down here often because I value my modesty.” Alice yawned as she rubbed her eyes the sleeve of her yellow pajama shirt. “Anyway, Bro, Karen’s in the living room right now. She said that she had something to talk to you and Gabrielle about. Also…” Alice’s stomach suddenly gurgled. “I’m really hungry. Make me some breakfast.”
Alex sighed. “Right. Breakfast.”
Traveling upstairs with Alice and Gabrielle, Alex wandered into the living room. Karen Kanzaki, his former boss, was, just as his sister said, sitting on the leather chair and sipping a cup of tea. The light filtering in through the sliding glasteel door highlighted her blonde hair, and the polished faux wooden tiles reflected her image. As she set her tea cup on the coffee table, which sat atop a rug, the woman turned her attention to him.
“Alex,” she greeted.
Karen was a beautiful woman with a tough as nails demeanor. Blonde hair descended from her head in numerous drill-like curls, framing a gorgeous face that screamed “mess with me and you die.” She wore her Galactic Police Force uniform well. The white skirt wrapped around her athletic hips and revealed stunningly well-muscled legs covered in black stockings. Her white shirt with its long sleeves and black stripes gave her an air that was both professional and feminine, while the gun strapped to her side let everyone know not to screw with her.
Alex was surprised she was wearing the formal police uniform instead of the unitard that was the standard, but he said nothing.
“Com—I mean, Ms. Karen. I heard you came to speak with me and Gabrielle,” Alex said. For some reason, even though two weeks had passed since he’d been kicked out of the police academy, he still had trouble not calling Karen by her title. He guessed it was because she exuded a presence that demanded respect. Alex always felt himself standing straighter when she was near.
“That’s right,” Karen said. “Come here, you two. We need to talk.”
Alex and Gabrielle sat on the sofa. Despite its size of one meter, Gabrielle sat right next to him. She was so close their thighs were touching. Then she wrapped her arms around his right arm and hugged it for all it was worth.
He tried not to blush.
He failed.
Alice, not knowing what else to do, sat on Alex’s left. She looked remarkably out of place in her yellow pajamas.
Karen took a deep breath as though preparing herself. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“Because you wanted to see us?” Gabrielle guessed.
“No,” Karen’s answer was immediate. “I’m here because yesterday, some idiot had created a fifty-meter trench in the Outer District. This person also smashed apart a robot with an alien inside of it, which sent the alien in question flying into the dome, which, by the way, now has a sixty-meter crack running through it and will have to undergo costly repairs.”
As Karen spoke, Alex got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, as though a ball of lead was dropping into his gut. He knew this conversation was not going to end well.
“Do you remember when, after you two caused that huge shuttle crash, I told you that I was going to come up with a suitable punishment?” Karen asked, her tone almost conversational. Alex couldn’t contain the shiver running through him.
“I remember that!” Gabrielle exclaimed, clearly not feeling the sense of doom that he did. “That was the first time I’d ever been to the place where Alex used to work.”
“Right.” Karen nodded. “Since then, I had come up with what I thought was a suitable punishment. However, after you destroyed even more public property the other day, I have decided that having you two do community service work is nowhere near enough to compensate for what you’ve done.”
This… why do I feel like something horrible is about to happen?
“Therefore,” Karen continued, “I have decided on a new punishment. Alexander S. Ryker. Gabrielle Angelise. For the next week, you two are going to live with Alex’s grandfather and do everything that he tells you to, regardless of how humiliating it might be.”
Alex’s entire body went stiff like a corpse undergoing rigor mortis. A shudder traveled from the crown of his head all the way down to his toes, and then went back up. Every cell in his body screamed in terror and outrage.
Life… had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.
2
Nicolas Ryker sat in his office, behind a sturdy desk of wood imported from Earth. Light reflected off the polished surface. His holocomputer sat in front of him, a small device that projected a holographic screen and keyboard for him to type on.
His usual word processor wasn’t showing, and instead, what showed on the screen was a message from Karen Kanzaki, which basically told him that Alex and his new squeeze would be arriving some time tomorrow. It seemed his grandson had gotten himself into some trouble once again.
“That woman is as prompt as ever,” Nicolas said to himself. “It’s nice to see that some things never change.”
Swiping his finger against his holocomputer, he closed the message and opened another file, one that contained a series of images. In each image were two people. One was a young man with black hair, blue eyes, and silver highlights bangs that created a sharp contrast with the rest of his hair. The other was a beautiful silver-haired girl with green eyes, white wings, and a smile bright enough to blind people.
Gabrielle Angelise, huh. Nicolas mused as he studied the image. She was quite the looker. It was too bad she was far below his strike zone. I never thought I’d meet another angelisian—and a princess to boot.
Nicolas chuckled. The next week was going to be interesting indeed.
3
Alex sat in the shuttle that was taking him to the dome where his grandfather lived. Sitting beside him, Gabrielle practically bounced in her seat, her eyes shining like two holographic projectors as she stared out the window, which showed the desolate wasteland that was Mars’ surface. He was sitting by the window, so it was hard for her to see. She was forced to stand up. Alex considered himself lucky that she hadn’t decided to lean over to get a closer look.
He didn’t know if she was excited about the shuttle ride or meeting his grandfather, though he hoped it was the former. No one should ever feel excited about meeting that old fart.
A soft ding preceded the pilot making an announcement over the speakers: “We will be arriving at the Mars Homespring Resort in just fifteen minutes. Please be sure to keep your seatbelts fastened and do not stand up while atmospheric pressurization is taking place. Thank you.”
“Isn’t this exciting, Alex?” Gabrielle asked. “We’re going to see your grandpa!”
“I don’t see anything exciting about it,” Alex grumbled.
Alex would have been perfectly content never seeing his grandfather ever again. The man wasn’t even related to him, not really. He was related to Alice, who wasn’t even coming with them. Her excuse had been that she had school and that missing a week would be troublesome. Alex just thought she didn’t want to visit that perverted old coot.
Gabrielle must have sensed his moody disposition. She tilted her head and gave him a quizzical look.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, something’s wrong. We’re going to see that old fart.”
Gabrielle appeared confused. “But I thought you would be excited to see your grandpa. Didn’t you tell me that family is important?”
“Family is important,” Alex admitted. “However, if you knew my grandfather like I did, then you would understand why I’m not excited to see him.”
“Speaking of, what is your grandpa like?”
“He’s a lecherous old fart who has way too much time on his hands.” Alex clenched his hands into fists, his arms shaking with emotions he’d rather not feel. “That man is always screwing around with women, even when he was married to grandmother. What’s more, every time I see him, he’s always trying to hook me up because he thinks I need to lose my virginity. I mean, he hired a freaking hooker for my thirteenth birthday! Who does that?!”
“What’s a virginity?” Gabrielle asked. “Is that some kind of food?”
Alex stared at Gabrielle for several long, hard seconds. A sense of emptiness filled him. After the seconds passed, he turned his head and looked out the window.
“… Never mind.”
He could see Gabrielle’s curious expression reflected in the glasteel surface, but before she could voice another question, the intercom dinged again.
“Attention all passengers, we are now coming up on Mars Homespring Resort. If your seatbelts have not been fastened, please do so now. We are about to enter the docking bay.”
“Oh, wow! Look at that, Alex!”
Alex blushed when Gabrielle leaned over to get a better glimpse of the view out of their window. Her breasts were pressing into his head, though she seemed oblivious. She wasn’t even paying attention to him or the fact that the back of his neck was being smothered by her massive mammaries.
Outside of the viewport was a giant dome. While not as large as Mars City, Mars Homespring Resort still spanned one hundred kilometers. The lightwave barrier that protected the dome from harmful debris appeared as a multi-colored energy field. As they traveled closer, a small section of the barrier peeled apart like the petals of a flower, allowing their shuttle to pass through.
Gabrielle was in awe. “What kind of technology is that?”
“The lightwave barrier? It’s an energy shield that uses weaving technology. You know how when fabric is woven together, it’s much stronger than fabric that isn’t? It’s like that. Located on the dome at one-meter intervals are a series of particle arrays. These produce an energy shield made from billions of energy strands that, when woven together, are much stronger than a single flat panel shield.”
“That’s like a bigger version of the angelisian crisis suit, except it’s utilizing energy instead of fabric!” Gabrielle said excitedly.
Alex thought about that for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I guess it is. Only it’s on a much larger scale and uses energy instead of semi-sentient fabric.”
As their conversation continued, the shuttle slowly docked within a large hangar bay. The hiss of magnetic clamps rang in their ears. Outside the window, half a dozen of workers rushed to the shuttle, and large equipment on four wheels moved around, connecting fuel lines and calibration wires to the hull.
Gabrielle watched with sparkling eyes as the docking bay pressurized their interior with the interior of the shuttle. This was done so people’s ears wouldn’t pop when they were exiting. Of course, there were other problems that could happen if two spaces weren’t properly pressurized, but no one’s head had exploded in several dozen years.
“We have now docked. You may remove your seatbelts and exit the shuttle. Please don’t forget to take any luggage that you brought on board. I hope you had an enjoyable flight, and thank you for flying Mars Shuttle Lines. Have a great day.”
Alex grabbed their bags, and then he and Gabrielle exited the shuttle with the other passengers. Alex felt some slight discomfort as they entered the docking bay, a sort of pressure around his head, but it wasn’t bad, and they were soon directed toward the exit. They strolled through a hall made of glasteel windows and durasteel floors. Gabrielle looked at everything with eyes that reminded him of a child.
Domed cities on inhospitable planets had strict regulations in regards about matters of decontamination. Not only did people have to get vaccinated, but once they arrived in another dome, they had to be decontaminated, which involved standing on a moving walkway that took them through a room.
The room itself was quite long. It was made of durasteel. Numerous red lights were being projected from arrays within the walls. The lights were actually highly focused lasers that removed germs and harmful bacteria. Once he and Gabrielle passed through that, the group was allowed to walk into the main terminal of the spaceport.
They walked through a set of sliding glasteel doors. The decontamination room opened into a massive terminal filled with people. There must have been hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people packed into that place, walking back and forth across his vision.
Alex grabbed Gabrielle’s hand to keep them from getting separated. She didn’t seem to mind. Her fingers curled around his hand, sending a jolt up his arm. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t seem to be paying attention, busy as she was looking at all the people, which was good, because it meant she didn’t see how red his face was.
I’m holding a girl’s hand…
He’d held hands with Gabrielle before, but it never ceased to make him feel embarrassed. How mortifying.
“Hey, Alex. Where is your grandpa?”
“Um, I don’t see him. He’s probably waiting for us outside. That old fart stands out a lot, and he’s well-known, so he likes to avoid crowds.”
Alex led Gabrielle through the throng of people. He needed to push and shove his way through, and several times he discreetly broke the fingers of perverted men who tried to grope Gabrielle’s rear as they walked by. Of course, calling it discreet might have been a misnomer, as the noise those people made when he snapped their fingers like brittle candy reverberated across the entire terminal. Fortunately, no one seemed to realize that he was the one who’d done the breaking.
They made their way outside without further incident. There was a limousine waiting for them.
It was a sleek shuttle, streamlined and aerodynamic, reminiscent to an old sports car from the early 2000s, but it was longer and jutting from its sides were a set of repulsor lift wings. The fuselage in the back was made of chrome instead of standard durasteel, and the chassis had a glossy black finish. It was an old model, a relic from a time long since past.
Standing beside the limo was a beautiful woman with shiny blonde hair and breasts the size of her head. She wore a skimpy maid outfit. Her bust was practically spilling from the notorious gap in her cleavage, and it jiggled every time she moved.
She’s still working for him, huh? I can’t believe it.
“This way,” Alex said to Gabrielle.
The woman smiled when they walked up to her. “Master Alexander, Mistress Gabrielle, I am here to pick you up.”
Alex rubbed his eyes. “Jessica, I’m guessing the old fart didn’t come?”
“He wanted to, but he felt it would be better to act with discretion.”
“How is a scantily clad maid picking us up in a limo discreet?” Alex wondered if the brittleness he felt in his soul was a sign of early aging. “Whatever. Let’s… let’s just go, please.”
“Of course,” Jessica said, still smiling as she held the door open for them.
The interior was every bit as extravagant as the exterior. Opulent was the word he was looking for. The seat, a long couch that curved around the limo, was made of real leather. There was a bar in the corner, which was loaded with alcoholic and carbonated beverages. Low lighting set an intimate mood, and there were even hidden speakers playing some kind of old-fashioned jazz music to create a romantic ambience.
