A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol 4

by Brandon Varnell

  Several seconds later, Alex was sent sailing back through the wall, this time by a nosebleed.

  Nyx’s face darkened as her hair began to writhe like tentacles. Red eyes were cast into darkness as shadows crossed her face. “T-this is so perverted. I hate perverted things.”

  And then something happened. Something pounded into the cleaning robot with incredible force. Under the assault of the blurry assailant, which moved at an impossible to see speed, Mr. Clean-Clean Octopus was slammed into the floor, shattering into a thousand metal components underneath the impact.

  Alice, Gabrielle, and Nyx all dropped back to the floor. While Alice landed on her butt, Gabrielle and Nyx landed on their feet.

  While Nyx covered her chest and crotch with her hands, Gabrielle looked sadly at her broken invention.

  “I guess it’s back to the drawing board. That’s not cool. I really thought Alex and I had created something good this time.”

  “You guys are seriously troublesome,” Alice said as she stood up, rubbing her now sore butt. “Seriously. What the heck was up with that invention? I’m completely naked thanks to that thing!”

  “Tee-hee! Sorry.” Gabrielle wrapped her knuckles against her head. “I guess there must have been something wrong with the algorithm. We had made it so that it would only clean dishes, but we might have missed something.”

  Alice tried to find something that she could cover herself with while she grumbled under her breath. “‘Tee-hee,’ she says. Tee-hee my troublesome ass.”

  While Gabrielle stood next to her machine, completely unconcerned about her own nudity, Alex walked back into the room.

  “Ugh, my head. I wonder what… hit… me…?”

  He stared at the three girls in the house.

  The three very naked girls.

  “Uh…”

  “D-don’t look, you troublesome big brother!” Alice crouched low and tried to cover herself.

  Nyx glared at him. Even though her face still looked expressionless, Alex thought he could see a hint of red on her cheeks.

  “I hate perverts.”

  “W-wait a second, Nyx! I-I can explain—”

  “I hate perverts!”

  Alex would never get a chance to explain that he hadn’t meant to see them naked, because at that moment, something large and black slammed into him with the force of a speeding shuttle.

  Alex sailed through the hole that he had made in the wall for the third time that night.

  10

  It took two hours for Alex to fix the hole that he had made in the wall. It might have taken less time if the invention that he and Gabrielle had made for that express purpose worked, but for some reason, they couldn’t get it to function properly. Mr. Fix-It had simply made the hole bigger.

  “Gabrielle can already manipulate time and space freely. Really, compared to that, you’d think inventing something that could create matter out of nothing would be easy,” Alex grumbled before sighing and wiping the sweat from his brow. Leaning back, he grinned at his work. “There, all done.”

  He looked at the repaired wall. It was a little discolored because he’d been forced to use a different type of plasteel—scraps that he and Gabrielle had no use for—but it wasn’t bad for an on the spot patch job.

  “Now I should take a shower.” Alex wrinkled his nose as he sniffed his armpits. “Dang, I reek.”

  He was about to make his way to the shower room when Nyx headed him off. She stared at him with the same look that she always wore, but Alex thought he saw something different in her eyes, an emotion that he couldn’t place.

  It’s probably just a trick of the light.

  In the day that he had known her, Nyx had only really displayed one emotion, annoyance, and it only happened when something perverse went on, like that time where he’d accidentally fallen face first into her crotch... or the moment that happened just now with the octopus.

  “Follow me,” she said before turning around and walking away.

  “Follow you? H-hey! Wait a minute, Nyx!”

  Alex cursed as Nyx walked out the front door. He hurriedly put on his shoes and followed the girl outside. He rushed to catch up with her, running down the walkway and out of the gate. Nyx was already walking down the street, so he picked up the pace before slowing down as he reached her.

  “So, um, where are we going?” he asked.

  “…”

  “Nyx?”

  “... I wanted to speak with you alone.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that,” Alex said, amused. He looked around, noticing the canal to his left—the very canal that he and Azazel had fought near what felt like a lifetime ago. “We’re traveling a pretty fair distance from home. Do we really need to be this far away?”

  “Yes.”

  Alex said nothing to that. He observed the young woman in his company. Something felt off about Nyx. She seemed… worried? No, maybe not worried so much as reluctant. Alex didn’t understand how he knew this, but he could tell that something was bothering her.

  The Outer District of Mars City, called such because it wasn’t part of the city proper, looked like a cul de sac transported directly from earth. It surrounded the real Mars City, sitting at the edge of the crater that Mars City was located in. The dome expanded far past the Outer District. Alex had never been to the edge, where the dome met the ground, but it was supposedly around ten kilometers from the Outer District on all sides.

  Blacktop roads with sidewalks meandered through the district, architecture of a bygone era. They had no use for roads anymore. It was simply decoration. Trees lined one side of the roads, the side nearest the canal, while the other side was walled off. Beyond the walls were houses that looked similar to his own.

  They eventually found themselves standing on a bridge that ran over a canal. There were several such bridges located along the Outer District. He assumed they were mostly for aesthetic purposes, and because they were familiar landmarks. Humanity had grown so used to building bridges that not having some in their cities felt wrong somehow.

  Alex leaned against the railing that separated him from a very long drop. He looked down at the barely visible waters. It was still daytime, but the artificial sun was dimming, showing that night would fall in a few hours.

  He turned around to Nyx. She was standing about a meter away. An overhead lamp shone down on her, causing her midnight hair to shimmer and her pale-skin to glow with a beautiful vitality. She really did look like an extremely pretty doll.

  “You said you wanted to talk to me alone?” Alex tilted his head. “What did you want to talk about?”

  Nyx grabbed her right elbow. It was a curious gesture, especially because it was normally made by self-conscious teens, not something that he would have expected to see it on Nyx, who seemed incapable of showing even basic human emotions.

  “Is something wrong, Nyx?” The girl twitched. “You know that you can tell me if something is bothering you, right?” Nyx remained silent. “And if you can’t talk to me about it, then you can always talk to Gabby. I know it’s sometimes easier for a girl to talk about certain things with another girl.”

  Nyx forced her body to relax. Her eyes, which had been lowered to the ground, suddenly raised. They were still blank, but Alex could’ve sworn he saw a flicker of something within them.

  “… I am sorry.”

  “Sorry? For what?”

  It was seconds after Alex asked that question that it happened.

  Nyx pulled a band off her arm and raised it. Alex watched as the band melted, losing color and cohesion. It turned to something like ooze. Then it began to grow. It looked almost like liquid as it moved. It defied gravity, elongating and changing shape, and then regaining color—silver—the color of metal. What had once been a black armband had now become a long, curved sword.

  “I’m sorry, but I am going to have to kill you now,” Nyx said, and for the first time since they had met, her face displayed an emotion that was not annoyance.

 
; It was sorrow.

  High above them, the artificial sun continued to dim.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE BEAUTIFUL ASSASSIN

  Alex stared at Nyx, unable to comprehend what she’d just said. The sounds around him faded and his vision grew dim, the edges darkening until all he could see was the beautiful girl standing before him, who even now was wielding the sword that had, at one point, been a black leather band attached to her arm.

  “I’m sorry… but could you repeat that, please? I could have sworn you just said that you were going to kill me.”

  “I did say that.”

  “I see.” Alex paused. He needed a moment to figure out what he should say next. “Can I ask why?”

  “Because I was contracted to.”

  “Contracted…” Alex muttered, resisting the urge to close his eyes. If she was contracted to kill him, that left only one explanation. “You’re an assassin.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well, that makes sense.” A mirthless chuckle. Alex’s mouth twisted into the facsimile of a smile. His heart felt like it had just been crushed underneath a space barge, but he was also strangely relieved. “So all the time that you and I spent together, it was just a means of getting close to me for this, so you could kill me?”

  “No.” Nyx shook her head. “My original plan was simply to kill you the moment we first met. When we bumped into each other and you paid for my magazine, I became curious and decided not to kill you right away.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I wanted to find out what kind of person you are,” Nyx said honestly.

  Alex almost smiled. Were the situation not so grim, were his mind not reeling, he might have.

  “And what did you find out?”

  “That you are nothing like my employer says. When I was contracted to kill you, the person who hired me said that you were a disgusting tyrant who committed heinous crimes against others, who enslaved women and turned them into your sex slaves. He said that you were the kind of person who would do anything, commit any atrocity, so long it helped you accomplish your goal.”

  Alex noticed that Nyx was being awfully talkative for an assassin. He wondered why she was bothering to tell him all this and not just killing him. Why would she…? No, could that be it? Maybe. He supposed there was only one way to find out.

  “And what do you think of me now?”

  There it was. It was hard to spot, but Alex noticed the way her lips twitched, the flicker within her red eyes. Reluctance. Hesitation. He was surprised to see it, but it only confirmed his theory.

  “I have come to realize that you are a good person, even if you have a bad habit of destroying most of the things you touch.”

  “Ugh!”

  “And you have a bad habit of ending up in perverted situations.”

  “Urk!”

  “You’re also hopelessly naive, constantly believing the best in people, and never questioning others about their motives.”

  “Gurk!”

  This girl didn’t pull any of her punches, did she? Alex almost felt each flaw she pointed out like a physical blow. By the time she finished listing his flaws, he was crouching on the ground, drawing circles on the durasteel with his index finger.

  “It’s not like any of that stuff happens on purpose,” he mumbled softly. “I am trying to get better.”

  Nyx either hadn’t heard him or was purposely ignoring him. She continued speaking. “However, even with these deficiencies in your personality, it does not change that you are a kind person who willingly helps others, even when they are complete strangers to you.”

  Alex wondered if he should feel flattered by her words. He supposed he should, but the fact that she’d been hired to assassinate him put a damper on any warm, fuzzy feelings that her words might have invoked.

  “Is there any way I could convince you to not kill me?”

  Nyx’s left hand, the one that was not holding a weapon, twitched.

  “... No. I… despite how my employer lied to me, I still accepted the contract, which state that you must die by my hand. As an assassin, I have a reputation to uphold. If I back down from a contract, it will cause my standing among those who might hire me to lower, and then they will go to someone else who is more likely to take whatever job is being offered.”

  The fact that Nyx was taking the time to explain her reasons for killing him told Alex a lot. She probably didn’t want to kill him. She wasn’t doing this because she took pleasure in the idea of offing him, but because it was her job. He still didn’t know how such a pretty girl had become an assassin, but he did know one thing.

  Nyx might be a killer, but it was not by choice.

  His heart ached, but Alex felt oddly calm about this situation. The knowledge that Nyx didn’t want to kill him helped mitigate the pain in his chest.

  “I understand. If you can’t terminate your contract to kill me, then I won’t try and convince you to stop.” Alex clenched his fists. A fire burned within him, turning all his hesitation into ash. “Instead, I’ll simply beat you. I’ll take you down and force you to admit defeat, and then make you promise never to accept a contract someone puts on my head again.”

  Nyx frowned, but Alex thought he saw a glimmer of respect in her eyes. It was hard to tell; she was pretty far away, and she still wasn’t displaying much emotion. Still, for a second, he could have sworn he saw it… and was that the hint of a smile?

  “You should know that I am the best assassin in the galaxy,” Nyx told him. “I have never failed to eliminate a mark. Are you sure you can beat me?”

  Not really. Alex was almost certain that he would die. He didn’t have any of his inventions in his possession, didn’t have any weapons, and his crisis suit only had sixteen minutes left before it ran out of power. The chances of him escaping with his life much less pulling off a victory, was slim.

  But he wasn’t going to let her know that. He wouldn’t show weakness. Taking a deep breath, Alex fixed her with the most determined look he could muster.

  “I suppose we’ll find out.”

  Alex didn’t wait for an invitation and decided to start this off with a bang. He rushed forward and moved into a slide tackle meant to knock the girl off her feet. Nyx merely leapt over the attack. Alex then bore witness to another surprise power of his new foe when Nyx grabbed another armband, transformed it into a giant fist, and tried to smash him flat.

  Not feeling up to getting smashed like a pancake, Alex deftly rolled out of the way. The fist slammed into where he had been standing, denting the durasteel bridge. When the fist pulled back, revealing an imprint in the durasteel that was in the perfect shape of giant knuckles, he gulped. It would probably be best if he didn’t get hit by that.

  He leapt backwards as Nyx pulled out several more bands from her arms, held them between her fingers, and transformed them into spears, which elongated and shot forward at speeds that he could scarcely follow. They tried to impale him, but instead they only speared the ground, penetrating the durasteel bridge with incredible force. Alex could feel the air being cut as he leapt backwards to avoid having his body turned into Swiss cheese.

  What kind of abilities does this girl have? Piercing durasteel plating? Turning armbands into weapons? A giant fist? What’s going on here?!

  Alex knew that there were aliens out there who had strange abilities. Shii-rya had been able to transform into whoever he wanted and harden his skin. That was a pretty unusual power, but what he saw that reptilian alien do was nothing compared to what this girl was doing.

  Nyx didn’t give him time to even try and analyze her strange abilities; she leapt at him like a tiger pouncing, once more holding a single armband that had been transformed into a sword. Alex could feel several strands of hair being sliced off as he ducked under the attack, which whooshed over his head, cutting the air with a loud whistle.

  Planting his left hand firmly on the ground, Alex lashed out with a mule kick to Nyx’s stomach. His intent
to knock the wind out of her met with failure when she moved her blade, blocking his foot with the flat end of her sword.

  Clang!

  The dull ringing of steel meeting his foot echoed all around him. Not one to admit defeat, Alex kicked off her blade, moved into a handstand, and then struck out with a helicopter kick.

  That, too, ended in failure when Nyx’s armband transformed into a whip, grabbed onto his legs, and she threw him into the air.

  Alex managed to right himself as he began descending toward the ground, but he found his vision blocked by the pretty assassin, who now had black wings sprouting from her back—no, from her clothes. It looked like the wings were a part of her clothing.

  So now she can grow wings, too?!

  Gritting his teeth, Alex managed to avoid being sliced in half by catching Nyx’s blade between his knee and elbow. The blade swiftly lost cohesiveness, becoming more like stretchy rope as it latched onto his arm. Alex used his crisis suit’s enhanced strength to wrench himself free, but not before several spikes suddenly appeared on the rope-like band, tearing through his suit and biting into his flesh.

  The crisis suit was an excellent piece of equipment that enhanced his strength and negated elemental damage such as fire, electrical, and ion-based attacks. However, it could do nothing about blunt force trauma or piercing attacks.

  Alex skidded along the ground, holding his now torn arm to his chest. His arm felt like it had been ripped apart by a wood chipper. Blood trailed down his forearm and dripped to the ground.

  He stared at Nyx, who floated above him, her pitch-black wings flapping to keep her aloft. In return, the soulless doll stared down at him, her emotionless eyes boring into his like daggers. He thought he saw a flicker of something, another emotion like before, but when he looked again, there was nothing.

  Nyx descended toward him swiftly, swooping down like a bird of prey, and then flipping herself around and extending a single leg.

  Her boot shifted into a giant black ball with several silver spikes on it. Alex leapt out of the way, but he was blown back by a shockwave when Nyx struck the bridge. The blast was so intense that it knocked him off his feet.