A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol 4

by Brandon Varnell

  Alex filed away the words “angelisian blood pills” with a promise to inquire about them later. They sounded useful.

  “What happened after that?”

  “After that I carried you to the police department because I knew they had a hospital here.” She sniffled and looked down at her hands, which were playing with the sheets. “I didn’t know what else to do. While it’s within my capabilities to build a medical bay, the idea never occurred to me because I didn’t think we would need one. I’m really sorry. If I had the foresight to build a healing chamber, your injuries would have been healed much more easily.”

  Alex could tell that she was feeling guilty. He didn’t understand. In the life of a regular human being, there were far too many variables to predict what would happen at any given time. In the life of a human faux-engaged to the princess of a galaxy-spanning empire, those variables became truly incalculable. There was no way that she could have predicted something like this would happen. He sure hadn’t.

  “Try not to worry about it too much, Gabby. None of this is your fault. All we can do is learn from what happened and move on.”

  Gabrielle clearly didn’t quite feel the same way, but he knew that it wouldn’t be wise to let her dwell on this. So, he changed the subject.

  “What happened after you carried me here?”

  “I met with one of the doctors. They carried you away on a stretcher and locked themselves behind this big door, telling me to wait there. After that, Karen stopped by and asked me all these questions. I told her what I could, but I’m not really sure what happened myself, so there wasn’t much information I could give her.”

  “That’s fine. I’m sure Commander Karen is already working overtime to figure out what happened to me, and I have no doubt she’ll interrogate me once she learns that I’m awake.”

  He grimaced. The idea of being interrogated by Karen Kanzaki was not a pleasant one, especially since he was cooped up in a hospital bed, injured.

  “Alice was really worried about you, too, once she found out,” Gabrielle suddenly added. “She hasn’t left your side since.”

  “Alice is here?” He blinked, took a survey of the room, and then blinked again when he couldn’t see his younger sister. “Where is she?”

  Responding to his question, Gabrielle looked down at his bed. Alex followed her gaze and discovered an abnormally large lump underneath his covers. Upon pulling the sheets away, the lump revealed itself to be none other than his sister, Alice, curled up on his legs like a giant feline. Her eyes were closed and her breathing even. She was snoring.

  “When did she get down there?” A pause. “And how come I didn’t notice her until just now?”

  Gabrielle shrugged at him, as if to say, “beats me.”

  4

  Not long after Alex woke up, Alice also stirred awake and realized that her brother was no longer unconscious.

  Alex didn’t think he could ever recall a time where his little sister had berated him so thoroughly or displayed such a wide range of emotions. Even if many of those emotions were negative, it was still emotion. No, perhaps they were even more powerful because they were negative.

  After he received a verbal lashing from Alice followed by a fierce hug—which was, quite thankfully, nowhere near as bad as Gabrielle’s bone-crushing hugs—his little sister grabbed an apple from a fruit basket, which she then proceeded to peel and cut before offering them to him.

  This was the scene that Commander Karen walked into, followed by Second-in-Command Yumi, Mrs. Caridna Tepes, and…

  “Alex-senpai!!”

  “Oh, God! No!”

  Alex quickly rolled off the bed, landing on his back, air rushing from his mouth as oxygen was forcibly expelled from his lungs. Overhead, a certain obsessed police officer flew by and crashed face first into a wall.

  “... I’m okay,” Darrick groaned, raising his hand and giving a thumbs up.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m not,” Alex muttered as he stood up. His chest was hurting now, which either meant the painkillers were wearing off, or he’d just caused himself more bodily harm. Alex didn’t know which of those he preferred.

  “Are you okay, Alex?” Gabrielle asked as she and Alice came over and helped get him back into bed.

  “No… I think something just broke.” Alex turned pleading eyes on Karen. “Why did you have him come with you? You had to know that Darrick was going to react like this.”

  “Consider it a punishment for getting yourself stabbed.” Karen apparently didn’t much care for his plight.

  “You’re mean.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Karen crossed her arms under her chest and stared down at him. “Now then, why don’t you tell me everything that happened. I’d really like to know how you managed to destroy a durasteel bridge and get yourself stabbed at the same time.”

  “I’m more interested in the stabbing part myself,” Mrs. Tepes added with a grin.

  “Quiet you,” Karen shushed her.

  A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead as Alex was met by Karen’s glare, Yumi’s glare, and Alice’s glare. Faced with three lethal expressions, only one thought crossed his mind.

  This isn’t going to end well.

  Explaining what happened, how he’d nearly been killed by a girl that he let into his home, hurt Alex more than he thought possible. Nyx had explained why she was going to kill him, and he understood her reasoning. He also didn’t he blame her. However, that didn’t change the fact that it meant Nyx had chosen her profession as an assassin over him.

  I suppose it was too much to ask for. She and I only knew each other for a little over a day.

  Alex wondered if Nyx would have been so set on killing him if they’d spent more time together. If they’d bonded more, become closer, would she have still done what she did? Would she have decided that her reputation as an assassin was less important than her friendship with him? He didn’t know, but a small part of him liked to think that she would have chosen him over her contract.

  The others sat or stood around his bed, listening silently as he offered his report. Karen stood in front of his bed, arms crossed and expression stern. Standing faithfully next to her like a silent sentinel, Yumi peered at him with curiously gleaming eyes set on a blank slate. Mrs. Tepes, the principal of Atreyu Academy and former police member on his father’s squadron, leaned against the wall, a surprisingly serious expression on her child-like face.

  Gabrielle and Alice sat on either side of him, both gripping his hands tightly. Karen had tried to make them leave, but they’d refused. When she tried using her authority as a police officer, Gabrielle, in a spontaneous bout of political genius, pointed out that she was a princess, that her father controlled the galaxy, and that they couldn’t order her to do anything. Alice just said that leaving would be too troublesome.

  As for Darrick…

  “Senpai is so manly!” He was crying. “To think Alex-senpai managed to fight off and survive against an assassin with such a powerful ability! I’m so moved!”

  “It had nothing to do with my manliness,” Alex said dryly. “The reason I survived that fight is because I was lucky. In battle, sometimes a little luck is all that we have to see us through the trials and tribulations we might face and… what are you doing?”

  Alex’s stare went flat as he saw Darrick, a touchpad in one hand and a stylus in the other, writing.

  “I’m taking notes,” Darrick stated, even as he continued to write. “The Manly Action-senpai has given me a piece of his wisdom. I must make sure to write it down so that I won’t forget.”

  Alex palmed his face. “I give up. I just—no, I give up. I don’t even care anymore. Do whatever you want. Take notes or whatever.”

  “Thank you, senpai!”

  Karen’s brow furrowed at Alex’s explanation of the events that had transpired. Her blonde hair, woven into a tight bun that day, looked particularly severe. As always, she wore the austere police uniform. Had Alex been a lesser man, he
would have been tempted to stare at the contours of her voluptuous body, with its soft curves and powerful muscles.

  “I’m concerned about this assassin. Whoever they are, they’re clearly not human. I know of no humans who have an ability like what you described.”

  “I know who Alex is talking about,” Mrs. Tepes chimed in, earning the attention of everyone in the room.

  Yumi stared at the shameless and a child-like principal with narrowed eyes. “You know who attacked this useless waste of space?”

  “That last part was completely unnecessary,” Alex muttered and was ignored.

  A grinning Mrs. Tepes nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then just who are we dealing with?” Commander Karen asked.

  “This is the information you asked for Alex, so be sure to pay attention,” Mrs. Tepes said. “The person known as Nyx is a very prominent assassin in the galactic underworld. She’s infamous for never failing to kill a target, and she is also known for killing employers that lie to her about the targets she’s contracted to kill.”

  “So we’re dealing with a highly skilled and infamous alien assassin? I suppose I should have expected something like this,” Karen sighed.

  Alex rubbed at his shoulder where he’d been stabbed. “What about that ability of hers? While I’ve seen aliens with some weird powers, I’ve never seen any of them with a power like that.”

  “That’s because it’s a power unique to Nyx and not an alien ability,” Dr. Gideon Fletcher said as he strolled into the room.

  Dressed in black slacks, a pink shirt, and a white lab coat, he didn’t look like much of a doctor. His slouched posture also denoted someone who was extremely lazy. Alex also didn’t like the way Dr. Fletcher eyed the women in the room.

  “What type of ability does she have?” Alex asked, more to get the doctor’s attention off of every girl’s chest than because he actually wanted to know.

  “It’s known simply as alchemy. It’s a form of artificial transmutation, where she can take an object—any object—and transform it into another object. Not only can she transmute objects, but I’ve heard a rumor that she can even transmute her own body. This is due to the hundreds of billions of nanomachines that her body is composed of.”

  “Nanomachines?” Gabrielle perked up. “You mean—”

  “Yes. Nyx isn’t really an alien. She is actually a weapon that was created by a powerful conglomerate that disappeared around seventeen years ago. While I don’t know all of the details, rumor has it that Nyx is the one who destroyed the company when they tried to use her for their own purposes, essentially going AWOL. She disappeared for about ten years before her name began to spread through the galactic underworld. She has since become the most feared assassin to date.”

  Alex found it hard to believe that Nyx was actually an artificially created weapon. Even after having witnessed her abilities first hand, he still couldn’t believe it, or maybe he just refused to.

  “If she’s made of nanomachines, then doesn’t that mean that she can’t use her abilities all the time?” Gabrielle asked. “I’ve never dealt with nanotechnology before, but I know plenty about them. Their generally used in medical procedures or physical enhancements. However, if a person’s body is made entirely of nanomachines, then they should be able to change the molecular composition of their body to anything they want. If what you’re saying is true, then it means that the more she uses her powers, the greater the risk of her body overheating.”

  Commander Karen seemed impressed by Gabrielle’s knowledge on nanotech. Alex was impressed, too. He knew that Gabrielle was intelligent, but seeing her like this, hearing her talk like this, it made how intelligent she was really hit home. Alex was positive that this girl was quite possibly the greatest genius in the galaxy.

  “Is that so? It sounds like this Nyx has a great weakness that we can exploit. This will make taking care of her much easier,” Karen said.

  Alex became startled. “Take care of her? What do you mean by that? Do you mean—”

  “I mean that this girl is too dangerous to let live. I plan on having all of our forces set up an area wide search, and once we find her, they’ll close in on her location. We’ll fight her from a distance until her body overheats and she collapses, and then we’ll finish her off.”

  “B-but wouldn’t arresting her be enough?”

  Karen raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you want me to spare her? You do realize that this woman tried to kill you, right?”

  “I know that, but—”

  “And besides, even if we only arrested her, it’s not like we could keep her confined. It’s just like Gideon and your princess said; her entire body is a weapon. She could easily break out of any prison we put her in, and I’m not willing to risk the lives of my police just so I can stay on the moral high ground.”

  “But—”

  Karen swiftly cut him off. “But nothing, Alexander. This woman is not one of Gabrielle’s marriage candidates and is therefore not under the rules imposed by her father. We will take care of this assassin. You just stay put and get some rest. You’re still injured, and I need you to heal soon. I can’t discuss how you plan on repaying the damage done to that bridge you fought on while you’re holed up in a hospital.”

  Alex clenched his hands as Karen walked out of the room. Yumi stayed for a few seconds, watching him with curious eyes. Then she grabbed Darrick by the ear and dragged him out of the room. Alex could hear Darrick’s cries of pain fade into a distant echo as the door slid shut behind them.

  “Sorry about this, kid.” Mrs. Tepes seemed genuinely apologetic. “I’d love to help you out on this one, but even I’m not gonna go against Karen when she gets like this.”

  She and Dr. Fletcher both left, leaving Alex alone with Alice and Gabrielle.

  “You alright, Bro?” Alice asked.

  Alex tried giving her a smile, even if he didn’t feel much like smiling. “I’ll be fine.”

  Alice’s return look was one of skepticism. Not that he could blame her.

  “Really?”

  When Alex said nothing, she simply nodded, gaining her answer from his silence.

  Sitting beside the two, Gabrielle’s cute frown and furrowed brows showed that she was deep in thought.

  “Is something wrong, Gabby?”

  “I’m just trying think about what we should do now,” she said.

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  “Of course.” Gabrielle’s answering smile was bright enough to outshine the sun. “I know that you’ve got something planned, and I’m going to help.”

  Alex wondered when he’d become so easy to read. Gabrielle was right. He did have a plan. Even though Nyx had tried to kill him, Alex still wanted to be her friend. He still wanted to help her.

  “I can help, too,” Alice added, only for Alex to shake his head.

  “The last thing I want is for you two to get involved in this, especially you, Alice. You’re far too young to be put in harm’s way, and I would be an atrocious older brother if I let you join me in what I’m planning to do.”

  Alice frowned at him. For a moment, he thought she was going to protest. However, after nearly one whole minute of staring, she sighed.

  “Alright, fine. I understand that you don’t want your sweet little sister getting involved in your reckless high jinks. I’ll stay out of whatever you plan on doing. It would be too troublesome for me to become involved anyway.”

  Alex smiled. He knew that, contrary to Alice’s words, she really did want to be involved in what he planned on doing. That was why he appreciated her agreeing not to involve herself.

  “Thank you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What do you plan on doing, Alex?” Gabrielle asked.

  In response to her question, Alex gingerly stood up from the bed. His shoulder ached. Pain flared. Alex rubbed his shoulder and took a moment to shunt aside the sharp agony, pushing it to the back of his mind.

  “I’m going to
rescue Nyx before the police forces can get to her,” he said.

  “Didn’t she try to kill you?” Alice pointed out.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re going to save her because…?”

  “Because I…”

  Alex paused, recalling his battle with Nyx. The way she had fought wasn’t what he would have expected from an experienced assassin. She had confronted him openly, told him her intentions, and even explained her reasoning. While he’d never dealt with an assassin before now, he imagined that a real assassin would have killed him before he could even blink. They wouldn’t explain themselves like she had done.

  He also remembered her tears. People who mercilessly killed others did not shed tears for the people they were killing, and he refused to believe that she had ever truly wanted to kill him.

  “Because I don’t think Nyx is a bad person, and I’m fairly sure she didn’t want to kill me.”

  “How sure is sure?”

  “About sixty-eight percent.”

  “I’m not liking those odds, Bro.”

  “I don’t really know if I like the idea of rescuing her either,” Gabrielle chimed in.

  Alex turned to her in shock. “Why not?”

  “Because she hurt you.” Gabrielle crossed her arms under her prominent bust and pouted. “You took her into your home, and she tried to kill you. I can forgive a lot, but I lay down the line when someone tries to kill my future husband.”

  “Still going on about the husband thing, huh?” When all Gabrielle did was puff out her cheeks, he sighed. “This isn’t something anyone can talk me out of. Even though Nyx is an assassin, she isn’t a bad person. I refuse to let anyone kill her, even if the people after her life are the police.”

  Alice sighed and placed a hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder. “There’s no point in trying to convince him when he gets like this. Alex has a hero complex the size of this solar system. Nothing short of dropping a building on top of him is going to keep him from doing what he wants. The best thing we can do is support him.” Gabrielle still didn’t look convinced, but Alice added a carrot. “Once he rescues Nyx, we can begin questioning her ourselves, and if we don’t like the answer… well, we can always jettison her into space or something.”