Alex knew that what he was saying was stupid, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was no way he could let them be married off. At the same time, he couldn’t just say he’d marry them. That would amount to the same thing he was trying to avoid. However, if he didn’t at least agree to the idea of marriage, then his argument wouldn’t hold as much weight.
Defective products…
That was what King Lucifer had called them. Their own father had called them defective. He didn’t know what that meant, but no father should ever consider their child defective.
“Hmm… very well. Since you feel so strongly about this, here is what I propose. I am going to let their suitor know about you, about what you told me. He’ll probably show up sometime in the next month or so and challenge you. If you win, I’ll let those two do what they want. If you lose, they come back and marry the man I chose for them.”
Alex’s arms shook as he curled his fingers into a fist. He didn’t like this idea. It felt like he was deciding Ariel’s and Michelle’s fates for them, but he liked even less the idea of their father marrying them off.
“Fine. You have a deal. Send that man my way. I’ll kick his ass so hard, he won’t want to be in the same quadrant as Ariel and Michelle.”
“We have an accord. It’s been a pleasure, son of Samael.”
The holographic image vanished, and Azazel, who’d been standing behind his king, picked up the device and returned it to his D-space. The expression on his face, the look he gave Alex, was quite strange, containing a mixture of emotions that Alex couldn’t place. Not that he cared right then. It might have been wrong, but he was just as upset with Azazel for going along with his king’s plans as he was at King Lucifer.
“You’ve done what you needed to do,” Alex said in a soft but harsh voice. “So do me a favor and leave.”
“I suppose that would be for the best,” Azazel admitted. “Before I go, let me say this. I do not approve of how you spoke to King Lucifer just now. However…” The Angelisian commander took a deep breath, let it out, and smiled. “… I can’t say I dislike how you’re willing to stand up for those three. It might not be my place to say it, but please look after them. Those princesses can be quite the handful.”
Azazel stalked over to the door, which slid open with a hiss. A loud squawk echoed from the now open entrance. Azazel hopped backwards as Ariel, of all people, tumbled into the room.
“Ariel?” Alex blinked. “What are you doing? Did you finish your homework?”
“Erm… well, I…” Ariel fumbled with her words for a moment, but then she stood up, crossed her arms, and huffed. “It’s not like I was worried about you, but I came to see what was taking you so long since your sister was worried! I was just deciding to be nice!”
Azazel quietly slipped out of the room as Ariel tried to come up with a suitable excuse to explain why she’d been kneeling in front of his door. It was clear to him that she’d been listening into his and her father’s conversation. However, if she wasn’t going to admit it, then he wouldn’t say anything. Considering how ashamed he felt of his own words to King Lucifer, he was more than willing to let this matter lie.
“I understand.” Alex smiled. “Thank you for checking up on me for Alice. As you can see, I’m fine, so could you tell her that everything is okay?”
“Y-yes, of course I will!”
“Good. Thank you.”
Ariel dithered in place despite herself. She looked at him, then looked away, and then looked at him again, only to look away once more. Alex waited patiently for her to say what she wanted to say. This girl was nothing like Alice, but he was well-versed enough in the art of being a brother to know that prodding the girl would only make her more stubborn.
“H-homework…” she mumbled at last, still not looking at him.
“Excuse me? Homework?”
“Y-you said… that you would help me with my homework.”
So that’s what this is about…
“I did.” He stood up and gestured at the chair. “Why don’t you sit down here and show me what equations you’re having problems with.”
Ariel stumbled as she slowly sat down in the chair and placed her tablet on the desk. Her cheeks were an inflamed shade of crimson as she pointed at the screen. “I-it’s these ones here.”
That’s problem number one… Alex felt a small trail of sweat travel down his face. It’s not just that she’s bad at math. She’s absolutely terrible at it.
“In that case, let’s go over these problems together,” Alex said.
For the next two hours, Alex leaned over Ariel’s shoulder and slowly helped the girl with her math homework.
1
Gabrielle watched Alex through her monitor as he helped Ariel with her homework. She was surprised that her younger sister had asked Alex for help, as Arial was a stubborn individual who rarely sought help from others. Even she had been rebuffed when offering to help her sister. However, it made her happy to know that the two of them were getting along. She had been worried.
She and Michelle were sitting inside of her room. While she sat on the bed, a large circular bed with pink and blue sheets, Michelle was sitting on a chair beside the desk. The desk was right next to the bed, though, so both of them were watching Alex as he helped Ariel with her math.
“Isn’t Alex a wonderful person?” she asked Michelle.
“Huhuhu, he’s like a harem protagonist in one of my video games,” Michelle giggled.
Gabrielle studied her sister. Michelle’s face had taken on a strange quality that, if she had to describe it with words, Gabrielle would have said it reminded her of an old man. It actually sort of reminded her of Papa when he was with one or more of their mamas.
Papa always got that look when he was with their mamas.
“Hmmm…” Gabrielle crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “A harem… that’s when someone marries more than one person, right?”
Michelle stopped giggling. “Yes, that’s right. Typically, a harem is when one person has at least three spouses.”
“Papa has a harem.”
“He does.”
“Does that mean Papa is also a harem protagonist? By the way, what does it mean to be a harem protagonist?”
Michelle stared at her for several long, silent seconds, making Gabrielle wonder if she had said something wrong. Perhaps her question was hard to answer? No, wait. Maybe her question was really easy to answer, which was why Michelle looked like she had said something stupid.
Finally, Michelle sighed. “You are way too pure, Sister.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing.” Michelle waved her off. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how to get Alex to show more interest in you, but I haven’t thought of anything yet. I believe more information is needed.”
The chair that Michelle was sitting on was Gabrielle’s hover chair. Of course, she called it a chair, but it was actually a pad made of memory foam sitting on an anti-gravity repulsor field. There was a control on the left side of the chair. Michelle used it to make the chair turn around and face Gabrielle.
“What sort of information do you need?” asked Gabrielle.
“I’d like to see how he responds when new variables are thrown in,” Michelle said. “Fortunately, we have a new variable in Prince Arthur.”
“Yeah… Prince Arthur…” Gabrielle hummed some more. “Who is that guy?”
Michelle stared at her. “Do you mean to tell me that you don’t remember who Prince Arthur is? You two played together for the month that his parents stayed at the palace.” She paused. “Well, it was more like you dragged him around and used him for your experiments, but it amounts to the same thing.”
Gabrielle squinted even more as she racked her brain trying to remember. Her past was something she tried not to think about. Nothing fun had ever happened back when she was younger. Papa ignored her, her mamas were always traveling so she never saw them, and the old men and women in the military kep
t demanding that she make them more weapons. There were very few bright spots in her past.
Saying that…
“Oh! I think I remember now!” Gabrielle slapped her left fist into the palm of her right hand. “You’re talking about Arty, right? Yeah, I remember him! Huh, so he was a prince. You know, I had forgotten all about him.”
Gabrielle only vaguely remembered Arty, the boy she had met when she was younger. It was back when she’d been six. The king from another planet and his wives had come to visit Papa, and they’d had a son who’d come with them, Arty. She remembered having him help her test all of her inventions. It had been fun, but Arty had only stayed in the palace for about a month. Once he left, life had returned to normal, and Gabrielle had forgotten all about him.
“It’s just like you to forget someone so easily.” Michelle sighed. “Anyway, Sister, there’s something I want you to do that will help us determine how to proceed with making Alex confess his feelings for you.”
“What is it?” asked Gabrielle, tilting her head.
Michelle smiled as she told Gabrielle her plan.
2
Alex was up bright and early Tuesday morning. Having just finished showering after his spar with Nyx, his hair was still damp as he stood in front of the stove, dressed in pants and a T-shirt as he made a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast.
Since the number of guests living in his house had increased, he had to buy more groceries to make more food. This put a bit of a strain on his new budget. Just as she said she would, Karen Kanzaki had taken basically all of the money he made from his patents and inventions. Alex had checked his bank account the day before to discover that only 10,000 of the 9.5 million credits he had were left.
He didn’t blame Karen for this. Alex knew that he had caused her a lot of problems throughout the years. During his time in the Mars Police Academy, Alex had caused an estimated total of 16.6 million credits worth of property damage. That he was only paying 9.5 million credits was getting off easy.
As he added some grated cheese into the scrambled eggs that he was cooking, the padding of feet reached his ears. He turned his head just as the door leading into the hallway opened. He had expected to find Nyx coming down, but the person entering was Ariel instead.
“Good morning,” he greeted with a smile. “Breakfast will be ready in a little while. Why don’t you sit down while I serve you up?”
Ariel dithered for a second before eventually nodding. “O-okay.”
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“Erm… uh, w-what do you have?”
“Let me check…” Alex went over to the cooling unit and looked inside. “It looks like we have… milk, orange juice, and caffa… I could also make you some tea or hot chocolate if you would like one of those instead.”
“I’ll have hot chocolate… please.”
Alex nodded, went over to his walk-in cupboard, and rummaged around the shelves before finding the pure cocoa and some cinnamon and sugar. He didn’t like using the instant stuff most people used. While he finished breakfast, making sure the bacon was extra crispy, Alex made Ariel some hot chocolate and added a few marshmallows to her drink.
“Here you go.” He placed the drink in front of her before moving back to the kitchen side to grab the breakfast.
“T-thank you,” Ariel mumbled.
“You’re welcome.”
As he prepared the plates and put all the food onto a set of trays, Alex looked at Ariel out of the corner of his left eye. She held the mug he’d given her in both hands. She blew gently on the drink to cool it, took a slow sip, and then paused. Her long ears suddenly wagged once before, taking another sip, they waggled again.
I guess that means she likes it.
“So…” Ariel started. “That seal inside your head…”
“Hm? You mean the one sealing my memories?”
“Yeah. I think I can break part of it now.” Ariel paused to take another sip of her hot chocolate. “It looks like whoever made it did a very good job. They made the seal in segments, so one seal only blocks certain memories, while the other seals block the rest in a sort of overlapping set of layers or compartments. I don’t know what memories each seal blocks, but the first seal is easy enough to undo.”
Alex felt a jolt ripple through him. While he had tried his best to not think about the seals currently locking away his memories, and the ones around his core, which Gabrielle believed was blocking—partially blocking—his Angelisian genes, it was something he worried over.
Quickly setting the trays of food on the table, Alex wandered over to Ariel and took her hands in his. Like the rest of her, Ariel’s hands were quite small. His hands engulfed hers. He ignored that in favor of staring at her in abject hope.
“Can you really?” he asked.
Ariel leaned back. “W-w-would you stop getting so close to me?! And let go of my hands!”
“Oh.” Alex released Ariel’s hands, allowing her to jerk them back. He took a step back. Sucking in a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down. “I’m sorry. I got so excited I lost myself.”
“It’s fine…” Ariel mumbled. “Anyway, I can undo the first seal right now if you’d like.”
Alex seriously debated having Ariel release the first seal right now. He really wanted to know what memories were locked away inside of his mind, but after a few seconds of thought, he realized that there were a few problems with doing it right now.
“Let’s wait until later in the day,” he said. “I don’t know what memories have been sealed, but there’s a chance it could be something bad.” Why else would his memories be sealed if not because something terrible had happened? “I’d rather wait until after everyone is ready for bed before doing this. That way I can look after all of you until then.”
It would really suck if he was incarcerated because the seal was undone and something happened while he was incapable of helping.
“B-Bed?!” Ariel squeaked.
“Is there a problem?”
“No! No, no!” Ariel waved her hands back and forth in front of her face. “There’s no problem. Um, then if you want the seal released later tonight, how about I come to your room after everyone else is asleep?”
Alex thought for a moment before nodding. “That sounds like a good idea.”
Before Ariel could respond, another voice spoke up.
“Ho? What’s this? Is Arial having a midnight tryst with our Honorable Sister’s fiancée?”
The person who spoke was Michelle, twirling her silvery blue hair as she stood in the doorway. An amused smile was plastered on her face. Amethyst eyes gazed at them, half-lidded and possessing an amused gleam. Unlike Ariel, who wore modest yellow pajamas, Michelle wore only a semi-transparent nighty that did nothing to cover her purple G-string.
Behind her was Nyx, wearing an all-black set of pajamas that Alex had bought for her.
“W-w-what?! T-this isn’t a midnight tryst!” Ariel squeaked as she leapt to her feet and pointed at Michelle. “Don’t take what’s being said out of context like that, you… you… you perverted beast of a sister!”
“Falling back on insults because you’re embarrassed? My, how childish.”
Alex went up to Nyx as Michelle wandered over to Ariel and began arguing, not at all bothered by their loud shouting. This seemed to be their standard dynamics. He guessed since they were so close in age and had such different personalities, they tended to clash. Selene and Melanie were kinda like this, too, though there was less screaming with them.
“Would you like some breakfast, Nyx?”
Nyx nodded. “Yes, please.”
“Then just grab a plate and start piling up food. I’m going to get Alice and Gabrielle.”
“Okay.”
Nyx walked past him and sat down at the table, where she began piling eggs and sausages onto a plate. Alex felt a moment of dismay when he saw the mountain she soon had on her plate. He really hoped she wouldn’t eat everything he’d made by the ti
me he came back.
Because manipulating her nanomachines to fuel her alchemy used up a lot of energy, Nyx ate more than the average person, about three or four times more. Alex had always been proud of how much he could eat. However, Nyx’s appetite put him to shame.
Alice was in her room. He knocked on the door, received a muted response, and told the girl that breakfast was ready. To increase her desire not to be a sloth, he added that Nyx would eat everything if she didn’t hurry up. He’d never seen the girl come out of her room so fast before.
Going up to Gabrielle’s room, which was right next to his on the newly created circular loft, Alex knocked on the door several times. No response. He frowned and knocked again. When he received no response again, Alex pushed a button on the door’s left and stepped inside when it opened.
He’d never been in Gabrielle’s room before. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but it looked pretty plane all things considered. The beige carpet was soft beneath his feet. The walls were a light pink. A few of Gabrielle’s inventions lay scattered about, but outside of that, the only thing of note was the large desk with a really big six-screen computer, the massive bed, and a small table with a few cushy-looking, bag-shaped chairs.
Gabrielle was at the table. She was sitting in one of the chairs, but she was leaning so far over that her entire torso was resting on the table. An object sat before her. It was one of her inventions, though it had been taken apart. Gabrielle’s arms lay at her sides, still gripping her all-purpose tool.
As he wandered up to her, Alex saw that Gabrielle’s eyes were closed. Her lips were partially opened. Her back and shoulders rose and fell as she breathed in and out, a slow, deep, even breathing that let him know she was quite asleep. The white angels’ wings jutting from her back were folded in.
He knelt down and stared at her face.
Gabrielle’s silver hair fell in front of her face, light reflecting off it to give it a sparkle effect. Long eyelashes the same color as her hair gave her an ethereal aesthetic. They complimented the fair color of her skin. As he continued to watch at her, Alex found himself staring at her glossy pink lips.
A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol 6 Page 7