Chapter 87: Bestowal with Issues

“Stop. Squirming!”

Derek shot the blonde woman presently manhandling him a glare.

“I will literally have Viktoria petrify you if you don’t let me get this cufflink in,” Tanja reiterated, ignoring his protests.

Derek tried. He really did. Because, knowing his sisters, they would go through with it.

But at the same time, all it took was the slightest twitch of his body to make the cufflink all but explode from the cuff of his suit jacket, because this goddamn outfit was way too damn tight.

At least he wasn’t the only one suffering …

“Can someone please explain modern fashion to me?”

The speaker was Derek’s fourth and final sibling, the oldest and inarguably most famous of them.

Isaac was a force of nature, a man who could kick a World Boss around like a football (for a time), someone who had taught multiple of today’s legends, and could make the entire world listen when he spoke.

And in just that moment, he radiated an energy which perfectly matched that of an irate toddler who had been stuffed into an ill-fitting suit and was being dragged to a high-society ball.

“If you can’t really move your arms or legs in all the ways you’d have to in a fight, you’re proving you’re not planning on starting things.” Tanja declared.

Isaac continued to glare at her as he jabbed his finger in Viktoria’s direction. “So why does she get to wear a dress filled with enough magic to level a city block?”

Viktoria spun in place, showing off a long ballgown forged from raw magic and giving the impression of being wrapped in the depths of space, sparkling with stars … and by the time she was facing the rest of them once more, she’d stuck her tongue out.

She held that pose for a second before breaking into a grin, arms spread wide. “Because I made this with my powers, that means it’s perfectly okay.”

Isaac’s suit flickered out of existence, instantly replaced by a sleek armor made up of countless azure scales that seemed to shine with an inner light, ivory claws atop the knuckles gleaming wickedly, the black ocean abyss seeming to swirl behind the closed visor.

It was already impressive as hell without knowing just what it was. Because that thing had been made from the remains of the Leviathan, the very first World Boss humanity had ever faced, in a battle that had taken his status from “famous” to “legendary.”

Oh, and its origins had imbued the damn thing with enough innate capabilities to allow it to level large chunks of a city, and wearing it in public was inarguably a terrible idea …

“So, I earned this with my powers, equipped it with magic, and just in general, it’s about as magical as can be,” Isaac declared. “But let me guess, the guy who came up with ‘modern fashion’ was a mage, and this doesn’t count?”

“Nope,” Viktoria declared with a grin.

“I mean, isn’t fashion usually stupid?” Tanja suggested, apparently finally having decided to stop teasing as the cufflink finally slid into place and she released Derek.

“They used to have these things called a ‘hobble skirt.’ Some designer decided that a skirt that women could only take teensy weensy steps in was a great idea, some asshole decided that was fashionable, and in the end, most of New York’s public transportation had to be changed because those skirts literally made it impossible to raise one’s foot high enough to get into a regular subway car.”

“Wait, when was this?” Isaac asked.

“Early 20th century,” Tanja shrugged. “My point is, lots of fashion is idiotic and eventually, someone who can change that will realize that and then we’ll have to deal with the next idiocy.”

“And until then, I have to feel like if I move even a millimeter, my cufflink will explode off my suit and hit someone important in the eye …” Derek sighed.

It would be a one-in-a-million accident, and to his knowledge, he hadn’t pissed off any probability manipulators just yet, but that particular paranoia seemed to have firmly taken root in his mind at this point.

“If that happens, at least you’ll have a shiny new medal to hide behind,” Isaac joked.

“The medal’s why I’m stuck in this … thing,” Derek groaned, carefully gesturing down at the straightjacket-in-all-but-name he’d been stuffed into.

That drew a snigger from Isaac, and a laugh from Viktoria.

Derek just shook his head as he began to pace up and down the living room of the house they’d all grown up in.

“We do need to go soon,” Viktoria declared as she rose off the couch she’d been perching on and slashed her right hand through the air in front of her, tearing open a gateway to New York.

It was always impressive, watching her do that, but now that he was in possession of [Cosmic Awareness], he could actually see and appreciate just how much effort and control went into casual portal creation … and how far he still had to go.

Yet at the same time, didn’t that also mean he had that much further to grow, to discover, to make his own?

Derek could easily have found himself staring at the gateway for literal hours, but after a mere couple of seconds, he felt Isaac’s hand on his shoulder before a light push sent him stumbling through the gateway, emerging on the streets of New York, along the western edge of Manhattan.

Glancing northwards, it was easy to see their final destination, rising from the water of the river, a warship from ancient times.

By modern standards, she was barely the size of a light cruiser, but in her time, the USS Intrepid had been one of the greatest warships on the seas, the aircraft carrier having fought in the pivotal battles of World War II’s Pacific campaign. And upon its flight deck, someone would be pinning a shiny piece of metal to his chest over a battle long past.

Well, “long past” for him. Not even two hundred years overall, though.

What was weird, however, was how ancient their reason for being here felt, despite the fact that it had been less than a year ago.

It should have felt like it had just been yesterday that he’d picked a fight with an automated starship programmed for genocide by a people who had long since gone extinct … but so much shit had happened between then and now.

World Bosses fought and new planets discovered, people met and clusterfucks resolved.

And in the end, this had still been waiting for him. Along with several other medals from countries that had been eager to get in on what had, at the time, been one hell of a news story. Thankfully, as the story dropped out of the news, so did most of the desire to turn him into a show pony, but retracting promises that had already been publicly made was never going to fly, so he still had to come to several of these … he just hoped all those horror scenarios he’d imagined remained confined solely to the realm of imagination. It was certainly too late to make a run for it …

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

***

After ten minutes of people making sure he and his siblings were who they claimed to be, an “aren’t you glad you don’t have to be checked for weapons nowadays” conversation that was likely several times the length of an actual weapons check, and a convoluted route up through the ship, Derek’s mood was at an all-time low while his internal need to avoid showing that fact was swiftly closing in on the boiling point, before they finally stepped out upon the Intrepid’s top deck, being greeted by a reasonably sized crowd, a low stage, a velvet rope to hold back a crowd that looked to be ninety percent reporters.

Quick instructions were given, and he was sent walking towards the stage while his siblings joined the crowd.

The man waiting there was Avery Thompson, the United States’ representative to the UN, and apparently, the man had drawn the short straw. Or he’d had to do it, seeing as the colony whose salvation this was all about had been mostly populated by Americans.

Either way, time to pray this would go off with a bare minimum of pratfalls.

Two low steps took him off the deck and onto the stage; cameras went off with entirely perfunctory flashes, taking up position in front of Thompson, a meter separating them, both of them half-turned towards the crowd.

“Captain Thoma, for your courageous efforts in saving humanity in the Horizon system, you are hereby awarded the United Nations Special Service Medal. You are a credit to your generation.”

Derek took the proffered box, open to grant both him and everyone else a good view of the medal inside with his right hand, then tucked it under his left arm to free up his main hand.

Cameras flashed; the performative handshake while looking at said cameras went off without a hitch, and that was that.

Well, that was swift and painless … Derek thought. And then, he realized the microphones were coming closer. Not because anyone actually needed the damn things anymore, mind you, just because, for whatever reason, sticking them in people’s faces was a fashion that had outright refused to die.

He picked someone from the crowd mostly at random, pointing at a man whose advanced age made it clear he’d been alive for a good while before the [System].

This was either going to prove to have been his best idea all day … or a catalyst for total disaster.

“Captain Thoma, you likely know your generation of your family has a habit of heroics. Would you say you deliberately carry on the tradition, or is that something that … just happened?”

Of course that’s the first thing we start with …

Once he was done internally cursing, Derek thought about that for a second, then shrugged.

“To quote my [Class] description, ‘’may you live in interesting times’ is a curse for a reason,’” he announced. “I don’t go out looking for trouble, but it seems to find me. And when there are other people at risk of dying …”

He spread his arms in a helpless “what can you do” gesture he knew was overdone the instant it was complete.

“… I don’t think I have it in me to just walk away.”

Which was only something of a lie. He probably wouldn’t commit suicide on behalf of total strangers, but as long as there was a chance, throwing the dice was an option even when it really, really, shouldn’t have been.

“That is a very quotable statement, thank you.”

The reporter’s smile made Derek’s insides twist into knots. He could only hope it was in anticipation of a good article, rather than the man having found an opportunity for a hit piece of some kind.

So he tried picking another reporter, a young woman this time who was the lowest Level of everyone here, at least as far as the people his [Skill] didn’t label as “way, way, way out of your league” were concerned. Hopefully, she’d go easier on him.

“What would you consider the greatest advantage your family has given you?”

Fucking seriously?! I mean, I should go for something trite and cliché, right? Buuuut …

“I have to be honest: for me, it’s money. Having a ship and the ability to go exploring without a clear task to follow, is how I ended up in those situations. Being able to spend literal decades doing nothing but train is how I survived them.”

Was it bad? Yes.

Worse than saying it was all natural talent? Probably not, but claiming otherwise would have made him feel like a fraud. And, to be honest … did his own reputation really matter in the grand scheme of things? As long as he wasn’t hated, did he need the general public’s support? And, all in all, was there even a good answer to give?

Now, the next question before he could spiral too much.

“Who inspires you? Who’s your professional role model?”

This time, Derek’s sense of humor nearly got away from him.

“Malcom Reynolds” as a character might be entertaining as hell to watch on TV, but even he could admit the main character of “Firefly” was not someone to emulate in real life. At least not in the relatively civilized galaxy he was currently living in. And that was assuming someone got the reference in the first place and this didn’t spiral into a manhunt for some mysterious “mentor” until the joke was uncovered.

“I …” he bit his lower lip, a display hardly appropriate to this situation. Or any public … well, thing like this. “I don’t think I have a role model. It’s more …”

He didn’t bite his lip again, nor did he try to paper over the silence with any filler words or stammering, but he wasn’t sure letting the silence hang on its own was much better.

It took him a mere second to think of an answer.

It took him ten to rephrase it into something that didn’t sound awful.

“I don’t really have a role model because I’m trying to grow to be myself, not emulate someone else.”

There. That was a hell of a lot better than “I ran off for outer space as soon as possible to escape my brother’s shadow,” right?

Here’s to hoping the next question is easier …

“All three of your siblings are S-Rankers, and you certainly seem to have the potential to reach that point yourself. What would you believe is the reason for that?”

Oh God, kill me now, Derek groaned internally. Seriously, are these people trying to torture me into giving them something they can turn into a story?

“I mean … we’re all a stubborn lot, and no one is entirely sure how we turned out that way?”

And, more importantly, how much longer would he have to do this before he could “take his leave,” aka, run like hell until New York City was nothing more than a speck in the distance?

“One last question.” He declared, then picked yet another reporter at random.

“What are your plans for the future?”

“I want to get some training done, then get back out there,” Derek said. “What happens afterwards is mostly up to chance.”

In the end, he wound up all but fleeing the instant he could.

But after all that, there was just one thing on Derek’s mind, one burning question he just had to ask his older brother.

“Your wedding is going to have a more normal dress code, right?”

***

The next morning, Derek was woken by a rolled-up magazine getting thrown at his head, which was promptly followed by a startled leap, a collision with the ceiling, and finally a highly uncomfortable bellyflop down onto the edge of his bed.

“Really?” he glared up at Isaac.

“You slept with your door open,” his older brother deadpanned. “That was never not going to happen. Also, you really need to work on not bouncing off the walls when you get startled awake.”

“Fine,” Derek growled as he snatched the magazine off the floor and froze when he saw his own face staring back at him. Along with a title that left him forced to pick his jaw up off the floor.

‘Derek Thoma denies existence of secret family training rooms’

“What. The. Fuck.”

Isaac burst out laughing. “That’s a gossip rag. Most reputable publications can’t decide whether you were too honest for your own good, were trying to play down your own achievements, or just caught so off-guard you blurted out the first thing you thought of.”

“And the less-than-reputable … rags?” Derek asked as he picked himself up off the floor and used [Phantom Armor] to swap his pajamas for a regular shirt and jeans.

“Apparently, a lot of employees were bribed to take pictures of the ‘secret training rooms.’ They immediately ran to HR, who then gave them pictures of the Akashik Academy training rooms to sell, which will be very embarrassing if those are sold as being ‘secret.’ After all, they’re open to the public. Also, this is a US-based publication; the IRS still pays bounties on someone who turns in tax evaders, and the editor has been naughty.”

“Isn’t that a bit overkill?” Derek asked. “I mean, it’s not great, but I feel like only an actual attack would warrant that?”

“Read the article,” Isaac suggested. “It’s basically the journalistic version of a kindergartener waving their hand a few centimeters in front of your face while screaming ‘I’m not touching you’ on repeat. Legally fine, morally … they left the line a few light-years behind them.”

Isaac clapped his hands.

“Anyway, I made pancakes, so come downstairs when you’re ready, and I think I found a good target for that [Skill] you wanted to try out.”

With that, he phased, dropping through the floor and down into the living room, while Derek sat down on the edge of his bed and read through the article, feeling his eyebrows climb higher and higher with every line.

Yeah. Isaac’s reaction was absolutely justified. And whoever had written this dreck should probably get a visit from CPS, with what he apparently considered to be “valid training methods, no matter what the public thinks.”