“Look, would you just listen to what I—”
“Ah!” Jasmine sighed, her cheeks growing a dark red. “I can see it all now. You, a teacher. Me, a student…”
As the conversation degraded further, Alex watched as Jasmine slipped further and further into what must have been one serious delusion.
I think something inside of her head just broke…
9
Standing inside of a classroom, Jasmine backed into a wall as Alexander advanced on her, his steps strong and confident. She half-heartedly tried to run away, but she didn’t move very fast. That would have defeated the purpose.
He placed his hands against the wall on either side of her head, pinning her in place physically as well as with his gaze.
Heat rose to her cheeks. “No… Alexander, we can’t do this. You’re a teacher and I’m a student. Don’t you see? It’s wrong!”
“You said that, but I gave you ample opportunity to run away. The fact that you didn’t bother to run when you could have tells me that you want this just as much as I do.”
Alexander leaned down. At the same time, he placed a hand under her chin and forced her head to tilt. His face was so close to hers now, so close that if she just leaned her head a little more, tilted it up a little higher, she would be able to kiss him.
“N-no… I…”
Jasmine closed her eyes, pretending that the tingle running down her body wasn’t from excitement. Just a little more… just a little more and she and Alexander would share their first kiss!
“Jasmine,” Alexander whispered in a voice that was suave enough to put high-class male prostitutes to shame.
“Oh, Alexander…”
“Jasmine…”
“Alexander…”
“Jasmine! Jasmine! Snap out of it!”
“Eh?”
Jasmine opened her eyes. She blinked. She was not in a classroom, Alexander was not in front of her, and there was no kiss forthcoming. Was that… had that been a dream?
“Hey, Jasmine!” Alice shouted again. “Bro and Gabrielle have already left! Let’s get a move on or we’re going to be late for class!”
“C-coming!” Jasmine shouted.
With enough heat to power a furnace creeping up on her cheeks, Jasmine ran to catch up with Alice, who was already past the gate and walking into the academy. She cursed herself. How could she have been so foolish as to get lost in a fantasy?
Still, she thought as she caught up with her friend, wouldn’t it be nice if he really did become a teacher? Oh ho…
10
Alex found a surprise waiting for him when he and Gabrielle arrived at the principal’s office, though he didn’t know if that was a good thing.
Chatting with the principal as if they were old friends was Karen and Yumi. While Karen sat on the couch with one leg crossed over the other, Yumi stood several meters away, leaning against the wall, her arms crossed and her face expressionless. They must have been waiting there for a while now.
“Commander! I mean, Ms. Karen! What are you and Vice—Yumi doing here?” Alex asked, pointing a finger at Karen and Yumi.
“Didn’t I tell you yesterday?” Karen asked rhetorically. “The police aren’t allowed to help you overtly, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to render what aid we can.” She gestured to the person sitting behind the desk. “Alexander, Gabrielle, this is Caridna Tepes, the principal of Atreyu Academy and a former member of the Special Forces.”
Alex and Gabrielle looked at the one called Caridna. Her blond hair was similar to Karen’s, except instead of looking like drill bits, she had them tied into a long ponytail. Her youthful face was cherubic and appeared quite young. At first glance, Alex would have assumed that she was only around 14 or 15 years old, which would have matched her height. Even while sitting, he could tell she was quite short. She wore a dark business suit, which looked really out of place on such a young-looking girl.
“So, these are the two brats you were telling me about?” Ms. Tepes said, studying him and Gabrielle like they were one-celled organisms under a microscope. Her lips twitched into a smirk, as though an amusing thought had occurred to her. Alex wasn’t sure he liked that expression.
“Hi!” Gabrielle waved a hand and beamed at the principal. “I’m Gabrielle Angelise. It’s nice to meet you!”
“Well, she’s a cheerful one,” Ms. Tepes sounded entertained. Alex felt the hairs on his neck prickle when she turned her blue-eyed gaze to him. “You know, you’re almost the spitting image of Farone S. Ryker?”
“R-really?” Alex stuttered, surprised. This woman knew his father? How? Alex didn’t know whether to feel happy or frightened.
“Oh, yeah. If you grew your hair out and dyed all of it silver, you’d look exactly like him.”
“Caridna was Captain Ryker’s second in command when he was in the Special Forces,” Karen informed him.
Alex looked at Caridna in a whole new light. “Then does that mean you have a lot of stories about my father?”
“Do I have a lot of stories?” Caridna chuckled in a manner that seemed both condescending and delighted. “Brat, I have more stories about your old man than Karen has gray hairs—ouch!” Holding her hands to her head, Caridna glared at Karen, who’d come up behind her and smacked her in the back of the head. “What was that for?”
“For being an idiot. Don’t talk about things that you don’t know anything about. I don’t have any gray hairs.”
“Only because you dye it—ouch!”
Alex looked back and forth between Karen and Caridna, who were quarreling like a pair of children. He then looked at Yumi. “They seem awfully close, don’t they?”
Huffing as if having him address her was a pain, Yumi said, “that’s because they are close. Ms. Tepes is Commander Karen’s older sister.”
“What? Really?” Alex looked back at the bickering siblings. “No way.”
Yumi sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Yes, Caridna married Commander Karen’s older brother six years ago.”
“So these two are siblings,” Gabrielle murmured, her lips curving into a happy smile. “They do act a lot like my younger sisters do. Michelle and Ariel are always arguing, but you can tell that they really love each other. They have such a nice chemistry, don’t they?”
“If you say so,” Alex said.
He didn’t know if he believed Gabrielle on this. He’d never really argued with his sister before, but that might have been because of the nature of their relationship.
Aside from not being truly related, Alex had, for the past several years, acted as brother, father, and mother for Alice. He woke her up, cooked her meals, did her laundry, scolded her when she did something wrong, and when they were younger, he’d even bathed her. Perhaps his act of juggling roles simply meant there was no room for fighting.
Ugh, great. I’m thinking about psychology now.
The two siblings eventually stopped arguing, and a somewhat embarrassed Karen coughed into her hand. “Moving on, the reason that I called you here was mainly to introduce you to Caridna, who will be our go-between. If you ever need help, or if any one of Gabrielle’s suitors shows up again, I want you to inform her. She’ll be able to help you in our place.”
“Help?” Gabrielle inquired. “What kind of help are you talking about?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Caridna said, grinning as she stood up and walked around the desk. Standing in front of them, she began ticking items off her finger. “The first thing I can do is offer you a safehouse. This school was built to be capable of withstanding a sustained barrage from a dreadnaught-class cruiser. I can also offer you intelligence, supplies, and munitions. On top of that, I plan to keep an eye on your sister and your friends, so you don’t have to worry about any of the alien princess’s suitors trying to use them as hostages like that Shii-rya did with the cute pastry girl.”
“That… is a lot of help,” Alex admitted.
“I know, right?” Caridna’s chest puffed up in w
hat Alex guessed was pride. Too bad she didn’t have much chest. “It’s way more help than my hag of a sister can offer—guagh!”
Alex and Gabrielle winced as Karen slammed her fist into the back of Caridna’s head, sending the woman face-first to the ground.
“Don’t call me a hag when I’m four years younger than you,” Karen said with an annoyed grunt. “Anyway, that’s most of what I wanted to tell you. I’m uploading Caridna’s personal communicator into your IDband. If you ever need help, call her first.”
“Right,” Alex said, glancing at his IDband, which now showed Caridna Tepes’s personal information on it. He blinked.
Is that her weight, height, and three measurements?
What. The. Heck. Did he need those for?
Gabrielle leaned over and looked at his IDband as well. She hummed. “That’s pretty nifty. Do you think I should make a IDband like that?”
“I don’t think it would matter even if you did,” Alex said. “These IDbands aren’t just a communication device that also tells the time. They’re an ID for citizens who live in Mars City. Basically, all of these IDbands are connected to a supercomputer known as Terminal Six, which allows everyone within Mars City to freely exchange information. Even if you built an IDband just like this, without having it hooked up to Terminal Six, it’s just another communicator.”
“Oh.” Gabrielle’s ears drooped and her wings slumped. “That’s too bad. I thought it would be nice if I had an IDband like yours.”
“If you’d like, we can set you up with a temporary citizenship visa,” Karen offered. “It won’t grant you as many liberties as the one that Alex has—his probably has many unnecessary modifications anyway—but we can get you an IDband that will serve a similar function.”
Gabrielle’s eyes brightened. “Really?! Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” Karen said. “Now, I believe it’s time you two left. Classes are starting soon, and I don’t want someone like Alex disrupting the students’ learning with his destructive tendencies.”
“Urk!”
Alex doubled over as if someone had punched him in the gut. He wondered if Karen would ever let him live what had happened while he was a cadet down.
Probably not, he concluded with a sigh.
He and Gabrielle left the principal’s office and began walking toward the warp point that would take them outside of the school.
“That was an interesting meeting,” Gabrielle said. “It looks like you know a lot of people.”
Alex laughed. “Well, the only two people I knew in there were Karen and Yumi. Even though Caridna was the principal while I was going here, I never actually met her. Still, I’m surprised that she’s never tried talking to me before. I mean, she knew my dad, so you’d think she’d want to at least tell me a little about her time with him.”
Gabrielle was silent for a moment. “Maybe she did but didn’t want to bring up bad memories. It sounds like she and your papa were really close. Perhaps it hurts to talk about him?”
“You may be right.” Alex could understand how Caridna felt if that was really the case. Even now, thinking about his dad hurt a lot.
“Say, Alex,” Gabrielle started.
“Hm?”
“I know this might seem like a weird request, but do you think you could give me a tour of this school?” Alex looked at her oddly, which Gabrielle must have noticed because she tried to explain herself seconds later. “It’s just… this is the school that you graduated from, right? I’d like to see more of the place where you went to school, so I was thinking you could give me a tour or something.”
Alex thought about it. It wasn’t like he had anything to do after this. He didn’t have a job, he didn’t have cadet training, and he was no longer with the police force. In which case, there was nothing wrong with showing her around.
Karen wanted me to leave… but she’s not my boss anymore. She can’t order me to do something.
Yes, it should be fine if he gave Gabrielle a tour.
“Sure, why not,” Alex said. “It’ll be fun to show you my old stomping grounds.”
“Thank you!”
When Gabrielle smiled at him with her glimmering green eyes and beautifully curled lips, Alex knew that he had made the right choice.
11
As first period ended, Selene stood up from her seat with all of the other students.
“Don’t forget that you all have a fifty-page history report on the Secession War due next week,” their teacher, a crotchety old man with numerous wrinkles, said as the students stood up and hurried out. “If you don’t hand it into me, complete, then you’ll get a failing grade and won’t be allowed to take the test.”
Several students groaned, but not Selene. While she didn’t like homework any more than the other students, she wasn’t going to complain either.
She left the classroom with her two friends. Serah Regina Longfield, whose shoulder-length, honey blond hair bounced as she walked, and Ryoko Koyomi, a girl whose skin color was an envious shade of dusk.
They’d been her friends for several years now, ever since her seventh year in primary, though Ryoko and Serah had known each other long before that. The two of them were rarely seen without the other. Selene suspected they were in a relationship, but since Ryoko often shared stories of the boys and girls that she’d “conquered,” Selene had no basis for that hypothesis. The fact that several of those boys and girls were in their class further emphasized her lack of evidence.
“Can you believe that guy?” Ryoko complained. “Giving us so much homework? Who the heck can write a fifty-page report in two weeks? That’s insane no matter how you look at it.”
“I would much rather spend that time finding some innocent young girl to play with,” Serah agreed.
Ryoko laughed. “You’re such a lesbo.”
“Damn right I am.” Serah laughed with her.
Selene was always uncomfortable when she listened to these two talk about matters of sex. While Serah was a full-blown lesbian, Ryoko was a proud bi-sexual and told anyone who was willing to listen that she’d do both boys and girls. For Selene, someone who’d never dated a single guy before, hearing her friends talk about all of the people they’d been with made her feel self-conscious.
Of course, she didn’t know if their stories were real or not. While there were several boys and girls in their class who called Ryoko “Mistress” and worshiped the ground she walked on, Selene had never seen either her or Serah spend time with anyone other than each other outside of school. A part of her felt like they were playing a joke on everyone. It certainly sounded like something they would do.
“Hey, isn’t that Alex?” Ryoko suddenly stopped walking and looked to their left. Selene turned her head and, indeed, walking through the halls with Gabrielle was none other than Alex.
“That is Alex!” she exclaimed. “I wonder what he and Gabrielle are doing here?”
Ryoko grinned. “Wanna find out?” She asked, not giving them a chance to respond before she bounded over to the currently unaware pair.
Selene felt something drop into the pit of her stomach. Whatever her friend had planned couldn’t be good.
I have to stop her.
Unfortunately, Selene was too late.
12
Alex took Gabrielle on a tour of Atreyu Academy. Because the academy was so large, it wasn’t possible for Alex to give Gabrielle a full tour without taking dozens of warp points. The academy spanned nearly twenty-kilometers of land. In many ways, it could almost be considered a town instead of a school. This was because there were over 25,000 students who attended this institution. Atreyu Academy was the school with the largest student body population in Mars City.
Most of the academy was indoors. However, there were a few exceptions. Physical Education classes were taken on the roof, which had been specially manufactured to look like an old-school track and field area from Earth.
As Alex and Gabrielle wandered the halls, many of the stude
nts who were heading to their next class stopped and stared at them.
“Whoa, who is that babe?”
“Man, check out the tits on her!”
“Is that guy she’s with her boyfriend?”
“I wonder why he looks so familiar…”
Alex tried to ignore the whispers. Gabrielle must have heard them, too, since she had better hearing than him. However, she was either being willfully oblivious, or she just didn’t care. With her arms wrapped around one of his and a bright smile on her face, she asked Alex all kinds of questions about the school.
“Do you have any interesting stories of your time here?”
Alex thought about that before nodding. “I do have a few stories. I don’t know if I told you this, but I was in the same class as Selene for my first few years. During what would have been my ninth year, I took an accelerated course and graduated early. However, before that, Selene and I would always spend a lot of time together with our friends.”
“Do you have any other friends from school?”
“There were a few, but they weren’t really my friends, per se. There was one guy named James—that’s Jasmine’s older brother—who was always picking fights with me. I never really liked him. Anyway, there was also Serah and Ryoko—they’re Selene’s friends. I don’t know Serah that well because she doesn’t like men for some reason, but Ryoko was hanging around while messing with people.”
“Did someone call for me?” a voice asked from behind him. Alex only had enough time to feel startled before a pair of hands snaked underneath his shirt and cupped his chest.
“W-what the—”
“Oh, my. Is it just me, or have you gotten more muscular since the last time I saw you?” the voice asked as the hands continued feeling him up. A pair of balloons pressed against his back. Alex stiffened. “This is nice. Police training has really done you a world of good.”
Alex finally found a semblance of control, yanked the hands out from under his shirt, and then spun around. He glared at the person behind him as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Ryoko, what the hell are you doing?”
A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol. 2 Page 10