“What are you—?!”
“Hold on tight!”
With nary a thought, Gabrielle extended her pinions. Feathers glowed an iridescent silver. With a flap, dust kicked up all around them, and Gabrielle leapt into the air, soaring high above the houses.
“KKKYYYYAAAAA!” Jasmine screamed as they took flight.
She held tightly to Gabrielle’s neck. It was kind of uncomfortable having someone’s arms wound so tightly around her throat, but at least Jasmine was only human. Her strength was nothing compared to Gabrielle’s, or even those of her two half-sisters.
Soaring through the air, with a girl clinging to her like she was a lifeline, Gabrielle began her search for Alex.
3
Alex had retreated all the way to the canal. Several dozen meters away was a bridge, a massive construct situated over rushing waters. Ignoring the sight, Alex laid on the cool grass, breathing deeply, attempting to circulate oxygen through his body.
All his wounds, which he had sustained during his short but intense battle with the puppets, had miraculously healed. His burns were gone, the fragments embedded in his skin had been pushed out of his body, and his ulna, which he hadn’t even realized had been broken until a few seconds ago, had snapped back into place and healed. Yet despite all of his wounds being gone, the pain from each injury still lingered.
A cold sweat had broken out on his skin, his body’s way of trying to cool him off. He felt like he was overheating. Even though the energy that he’d felt had left him, his body remained a boiling pot.
Okay, Alex. Calm down and think. The person you’re fighting is a puppeteer, and his puppets are highly advanced constructs that fire off strange beams of some kind and are filled with sand for some reason.
That sort of technology was far more advanced than anything humans had, which meant that his opponent was, most assuredly, an alien. He didn’t know his enemy’s name. He knew neither their species nor where they came from. However, he didn’t need to know any of that to know why his opponent was after him.
Gabrielle.
It was the only possibility. This person was one of Gabrielle’s suitors. Alex remembered the last suitor that had come for Gabrielle just the other day. Shii-rya, a disgusting creature who’d kidnapped his friend to force him into giving Gabrielle up. If that was the standard by which he should consider these people, then all of them were scum.
Like hell I’ll allow Gabrielle to marry some jerkwad like that.
Now that he’d gotten his second wind, Alex thought about everything that he knew about his opponent. He used puppets, which gave him range and allowed him to remain hidden. Those puppets were quite powerful, with incredible strength and the ability to fire strange beams. Those beams. There had to be something special about them, but what?
Let’s review again. The puppets fire beams, are made out of something similar to but different than metal, and have sand inside of them. Why sand? Surely, the sand would ruin the puppets’ internal components. Is there something special about the sand? Maybe it has a unique function, some kind of property that allows it to be used as part of the puppets’... construct… ion…?
Alex paused as a thought occurred to him.
Sand turned into glass when it was heated to 2,300 degrees celsius. To retain its base form of sand, it needed to be heated even beyond that, to the point where it was so hot that it couldn’t become glass. What would happen if the sand was heated to that point and launched out of a nozzle?
I see it now. The sand is used as ammunition.
If sand was heated to around 3,000 degrees celsius, then instead of molten glass, it would become millions of grains of molten sand. It would make an excellent beam projectile. Not only would it scorch everything, but it would grind away at whatever it touched, eroding and melting it at the same time.
It was a dangerous technology. However, it wasn’t unbeatable. It had a weakness.
Three machines suddenly appeared around him, dropping from the sky like fallen angels. One of them was missing a hand.
“You finally found me,” Alex sighed and climbed wearily to his feet. His legs were shaking with exhaustion.
“Looks like you’re on your last leg,” his attacker observed. Alex still couldn’t pinpoint his location, as their voice continued to bounce all around him like a fading echo. “Are you ready to die?”
Alex peered behind him. The water’s surface looked so calm, relaxing almost. It was a shame he’d have to destroy it.
“Just tell me one thing before I kick your ass.” Alex ignored the taunting. “You’re one of Gabrielle’s suitors, right?”
“That’s right. My name is Prince Ibn-Al Kalbi, and I’m going to be the one who marries Princess Gabrielle.”
“Right. Just like I thought. You’re another—wait.” His face scrunched up. “Prince?”
“Time to die!”
All three puppets raised their hands, heat sizzling from their palms as beams of superheated sand were prepared to fire. Alex waited one, two, three seconds, and then leapt into the air. The beams passed underneath him. Despite getting almost two meters in height, they still singed his leg hairs as they whizzed by. Then they struck the canal.
Plumes of steam billowed out as water sprayed into the air like geysers of fire exploding from the surface of a star. The steam rolled over him and the puppets, covering everything in a thick layer of gray that made it impossible to see more than half a meter in any direction.
Sweat trickled down Alex’s skin as water coagulated on him. He wished that he was wearing his crisis suit. It had an built-in habitation system that regulated his body temperature.
That does it. I don’t care how much it hurts, I’m putting that suit on every single day.
Ignoring how his clothes stuck to his skin, Alex rushed toward where he remembered the first puppet being. It wasn’t there, of course. Any good puppeteer would have moved their puppets the moment the steam appeared, but he was prepared. His whip was already out, and he swung it to his left. The puppeteer he’d been fighting against had a tendency to make his puppets move opposite of each other, and he’d targeted the one on the left.
He felt his whip coil around something and yanked on it as hard as he could. Something shot past his head, blowing his hair out of his face. Seconds later, he heard a loud splash! as the automaton hit the water.
One down.
Flipping a switch, Alex turned his weapon on high. Movement to his left, the sound of footsteps, made his ears prick. He lashed out, striking something hard. Whatever it was stumbled, and Alex used that moment to wrap his whip around its legs and pull its feet out from under it. Then he ran and leapt into the air, stomping on it with his heels.
Just as he’d expected, the puppet’s chest cracked. With the moisture in the air cooling their outer shell while the internal component that melted sand generated heat, it had caused the alloy to become brittle.
Leaping off the puppet, Alex avoided being caught in the following explosion. Molten sand and broken fragments pelted the grass as the steam was blown away.
The last puppet was standing above him, on top of the hill that led to the canal. The puppeteer was still nowhere in sight, but his swearing reached Alex easily enough.
“I can’t believe it! You fucking bastard! You destroyed my puppets! Do you know how long those take to make?!”
“No,” Alex breathed heavily. “And I don’t really care either. If you weren’t prepared to have them destroyed, then you shouldn’t have sent them to attack me.”
“Tch! Whatever. After I kill you and marry Gabrielle, I’ll become the Emperor of the Galaxy, and then I’ll be able to make as many puppets as I like.”
“The only way you or any of the other suitors are getting within ten meters of Gabrielle is over my corpse!”
“That’s the plan!”
Alex readied himself to renew the fight. He was exhausted, his legs were shaking, and his vision was dancing. In truth, he didn’t know if he could
win this… but still, he had to try. Gabrielle deserved to live how she wanted, and he would be damned if he let some douchenozzle try to force her into a life that she hadn’t chosen.
“Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk…”
Alex cocked his head. “Do you hear that?”
“I do,” the puppeteer answered, sounding as confused as Alex felt. “What is that strange noise?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like… screaming?”
“YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”
The screaming grew louder. Alex looked up just as a figure slammed into the puppet like a meteor. Whatever it was hit the puppet in the back, which sent it flying, literally soaring across the sky like a discharge from an ion cannon. Alex watched as it disappeared, and then he turned to the object that had rammed into it.
It was Gabrielle and a beyond frazzled Jasmine. While Gabrielle looked brighter than starlight, Jasmine needed to see her stylist. Her hair was frizzy, her eyes were rolled up in the back of her head, and she appeared to be mumbling under her breath.
“My puppets!” A shrill voice cried.
Gabrielle ignored it. “Alex! I’m so glad I found you!”
Alex was nonplussed. “What are you doing here, Gabby?”
“I was looking for you, silly. Come on. We’re all waiting for you to make dinner.”
“Dinner?”
That’s right. He’d been going to make dinner, hadn’t he? Where were his groceries? He couldn’t… couldn’t, um, what was he supposed to do?
Alex took a step forward, stumbled, and then fell flat on his face. Oddly enough, he didn’t feel it. In fact, he couldn’t feel much of anything. His legs were numb. Why were they numb? What was going on? Why was he so tired?
“Alex!”
Sleep. Yes, that’s what he needed. A nice, good… long…
4
Alex’s tongue felt swollen and thick as his consciousness returned. He opened his eyes but didn’t see anything at first, though not for lack of trying. Lines covered his vision, crisscrossing strands of brown and silver. They made it difficult to see anything. It was only after blinking several times that he realized they weren’t lines; they were strands of hair.
His neck felt stiff, but he looked down anyway. Gabrielle and Alice were sitting in chairs next to his bed, leaning over and resting their heads on his chest. Their eyes were closed, mouths slightly parted as they rhythmically breathed in and out. They looked peaceful.
“So, the sleeping prince finally wakes up,” someone said. “Too bad. I was hoping to see if you’d wake up upon receiving a kiss from your princess—though I’m not sure which girl would fit the bill more; the blonde, Gabrielle, or your sister. They all fit that mold pretty nicely. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s just too bad we had to send the cute blonde girl home.”
As the voice spoke in a teasing manner, Alex turned his head again. His neck protested the action. Standing away from the bed, her arms crossed and a grin on her face, Caridna Tepes held the appearance of someone who’d just finished watching a good holodrama.
“You’re… Ms. Tepes?” Alex mumbled. Why did his mouth feel so numb? “Where am I?”
“You’re in the school nurse’s office,” she said. “We would’ve brought you to a regular hospital, but we’re trying to keep what happened to you under wraps. If word got out that aliens exist and have infiltrated Mars City, there’d be a massive panic.”
Humanity did not know that aliens existed. It made sense. Humans, at least, the humans of this solar system, hadn’t even gone past Pluto. The next solar system over was too far for their vessels, incapable of light speed, to reach in less than 150 years. Just going from Mars to Pluto took over two weeks.
Of course, Gabrielle had mentioned that humans, or near human races, existed outside of their solar system. Even Angelisians were a close match for humans, albeit, they had those long, pointed ears, and those wings. Biologically speaking, however, there was a 75% match.
Alex could see why people would panic if they learned about the existence of aliens. While there were numerous holodramas about aliens, it was another matter entirely to discover that they weren’t fictional.
“I see. Why are you here?”
“That’s a pretty harsh thing to say to the person who saved you.” Despite her words, Caridna didn’t appear bothered. “Actually, I’m here both as a security detail and because I’d like a recounting of what happened.”
A debriefing, then…
Despite not being a cadet anymore, Alex still had many of the habits that he’d built during his time in training hardwired into him. Giving after action reports, or AARs, was one of those things. He kept his recounting brief and concise, describing exactly what happened and what he had done, along with the battle’s conclusion.
“Puppets, huh?” Caridna rubbed her chin. “I don’t know what species that would be. Unfortunately, while I know a little about extraterrestrial life, I’ve never heard of aliens who fought using puppets.”
“I don’t know how much this will help, but I believe that whoever this person is, he came from a desert planet. When I bit his puppet’s fingers off, I tasted sand. It seems that his puppets use sand as a weapon by superheating it until it becomes molten and firing a beam out of a nozzle in the hands.”
“That sounds like a jāhilīyahn,” a voice said. It was male, and Alex thought it sounded familiar.
Footsteps echoed from beyond the room, getting inexorably closer as the seconds passed. Caspian frowned. For whatever reason, those footsteps sounded over-dramatically long, as though the one walking was being purposefully slow.
Caridna turned around as the door slid open. “Gideon. I didn’t know you were still here. Didn’t you say something about a hot date?”
The man who walked in shrugged. “I did, but I decided that this would be more interesting. I can always apologize later.”
“Hmph!”
Dr. Gideon Fletcher swam into Alex’s vision. Bags hung under his eyes, his messy hair reminded Alex of an Undercity rat’s nest, and his lab coat was covered in yellow stains. The scent of antiseptics mixed with alcohol, and not the kind used by doctors. It wafted from the man’s breath. Alex wondered how much this doctor had been drinking.
He was grinning. “Looks like you’ve gotten into some trouble. I’m surprised a human like you managed to fight off a jāhilīyahn.”
“A ja-whatian?” Alex asked.
“Jāhilīyahn,” Dr. Gideon repeated. “They’re a bipedal insectoid race who store liquid inside of a hardened exo-skeleton to help them survive on their world—a harsh desert planet known as Sahra.”
Alex tried to fathom bipedal insects. He couldn’t, so he changed the topic. “And how do you know all this?”
Dr. Gideon grinned as he leaned over, grabbed his skin underneath his cheeks, and pulled. The skin of Dr. Gideon’s cheeks stretched obscenely, revealing that it wasn’t real skin at all, but fake skin more reminiscent of rubber. Beneath the skin lay hardened scales and ridged cheek bones.
“Because even though the humans in this solar system don’t know that aliens exist, it doesn’t mean that we don’t live near you.”
Alex felt strangely calm at the sight and words. Maybe it was because he was still tired. “You’re an alien.”
“Yep.”
Alex looked at Caridna, who waved her hands in front of her face. “Don’t look at me. I’m completely human.”
“How many people know about this?” asked Alex.
“What? That aliens live among us?” Caridna shrugged. “Not many. The top brass in the GDF know, and my sister-in-law plus a few other officials in the IPF also know. There might be a few civilians who’ve found out by accident, but we do our best to keep the knowledge from being leaked.”
Caridna stood up and stretched. Alex realized that she was wearing a pair of cute pink pajamas. He frowned. Those clothes really did make her look like a child. Shouldn’t she be doing her best to present a more adult image? She was well past 30 years old, de
spite looking like she was 10.
“Anyways…” she continued, “you should get some rest. It’s not much of a consolation, but I’ll be staying here for the night to make sure nothing happens to you.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“You can stay here if you want,” Dr. Gideon said. “I’m going home.”
“You do that,” Caridna snarked.
As Dr. Gideon left the room, Alex asked the question that had been burning in his mind since they’d first met. “Ms. Tepes, would you mind telling me some stories about your time with my dad?”
She must not have been expecting the question. Her eyes bulged, and her mouth parted in surprise. However, a grin eventually worked its way onto her face. “Sure, why not.”
Sitting back down, Caridna regaled Alex with tales of her misadventures with his dad and a woman named Lilith.
5
It was a new day, though Alex wasn’t so sure if that was a good thing. After what happened yesterday, he was kind of hoping the world would come to a standstill. He could use a break.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Alex?” Gabrielle asked. The genuine concern in her voice caused warmth to spread through his chest.
They were on their way to school… well, he and Gabrielle were walking Alice to school. While the dome overhead made certain that everyone knew this place was artificially created, the walkways and canals gave off a natural feel despite being synthetic. Plants lined the streets. Bonterra trees designed to reduce carbon monoxide emissions were everywhere.
They walked past a number of students who were also on their way to school, all of them dressed in the Atreyu Academy uniform. Many of those students stopped to watch them. Most of them, Alex noticed, were staring at Gabrielle. He didn’t know if they were staring at her bouncing breasts, flapping wings, or wiggling ears, but either way, he had to resist the urge to deck each person in the face for drooling.
A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol. 2 Page 14
