Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 219: Figuring Out

Stanley pulled the corpse to the mouth of the hole he had created to search for the girl and walked in. He quickly went to check on the others and met Sol coming toward him.

"What happened? I heard a big noise," he said.

"What’s going on? Who is there? Hands up or I’ll make Jondas cheese out of y’all motherf— Sol? John?" Fred asked when he came up to the two. He put down his gun and looked toward the hole.

"Someone tried to kill me while I was asleep," Stanley said. "A girl with a large knife. She failed to pierce my skin, but got away afterward."

"I followed her out that way and broke through to go find her. Instead, I found another man trying to kill me. I think they are from some gang that figured out that we were going to attack."

"Maybe," Fred said, looking around weirdly. "You went for a girl and killed a guy?"

"Yes," Stanley said. "I don’t know where she went to. There might be more as well."

"Oh, let’s go then," Fred said, quickly turning around to go to check on the others. He wanted to check on Vera, but they heard some sort of noise coming from Nova’s room.

It was some small thuds, but that was all.

Stanley quickly ran to go help her and arrived outside the door before banging it in. Inside, Nova was sitting on her bed, looking at the girl that had been tied to the ceiling above them, with threads of metal piercing through her body.

Blood dripped to the floor, a few drops at a time, while Rebecca was fully unconscious. The ball in her hand dangled, the dagger nowhere to be seen.

Nova turned toward the three. "You’re late. I had hoped you would have realized if there were intruders," she said.

"John made a bigger noise than you," Fred said. "We had to go check on you."

"Bigger noise?" Nova asked curious. "Are there more?"

"There was one, but I killed him. I don’t know if there are more," Stanley said.

"Hmm," Nova thought for a bit. "Since the three of you are here, do you mind checking on Vera? See if she is alright?"

Stanley nodded and quickly went over to the door where Vera was while constantly activating his future sight.

He tried to burst open the door, but it was already unlocked. Worried, he looked inside, only to find the sprawled body of Vera, laying on her bed.

"Vera!" he shouted in panic.

The other two quickly arrived and looked inside to find Vera in the position she was in.

"Stop!" Fred said, quickly stopping Stanley before he rushed in.

"What?" Stanley asked, looking to Fred for a reason why he was being stopped.

Fred shook his head and looked toward Vera. "Oi! Vera! Are you sleeping?" he shouted while banging on the door loudly.

Vera stirred awake. "What? What? I’m awake," she said in a drowsy sleep.

Stanley was taken aback. "She’s alive?" he asked.

"Yeah, she likes sleeping like that," Fred said.

"What’s going on? It’s... it’s midnight. Why are you waking me up?" she asked.

"Why are you sleeping at midnight? Don’t you pull all-nighters?" Sol asked.

"I sleep when I want to. Now go away. I want to sleep," Vera said, turning to the other side to go back to sleep.

Fred slapped his face in disbelief at the girl’s current attitude. "Can you pick her up and take her with you? We can’t leave her alone," Fred said.

"Let me do it," Sol said and walked in. He grabbed Vera and hoisted her up, placing her on his shoulders.

Seeing that she was only on her underwear inside all of that blanket, he quickly pulled one up and placed it around her before carrying her out.

"Let me get my sword just in case," Stanley said and walked over to his sword to get it. He went for a grab and was happy when he could touch it.

’Nova touched the girl somehow,’ he thought. ’I wonder what she did.’

He quickly returned back to where they were all gathered and looked at Nova, who was questioning the girl in the ceiling.

"I mean, come on. Just tell us what you know and I’ll ease your suffering," Nova said.

"You... you bitch!" she shouted. "You’re only going to kill me. If you’re gonna do that, just do it already."

Stanley looked at her. "She has the power to phase through stuff when coming in contact with Metal," he said. "You should be careful."

"Oh?" Nova looked toward Stanley in surprise. "How do you know that?"

"She attacked me first," Stanley said, showing the dagger mark. "She tried to stab me while I was asleep and failed."

Thinking about that sleep, Stanley remembered there was something wrong with it, but he wasn’t sure what.

"I see," Nova said. "I have already figured out her powers though. She can phase when she is in contact with an even number of metal objects while her power is activated. If she gets in contact with an even number while in the phased state, she can’t phase anymore."

"I saw her constantly dropping the metal ball and realized that was when she was phasing through. So, I just had to force the ball from not dropping at all. Something simple for me really."

She twirled her fingers and the metal threads inside Rebecca’s body moved around horribly.

The girl screamed so loud that even Vera had gotten up and stood to the side to watch what was happening.

"So, you can tell me why you are here, or you can stay there for as long as you can. Your choice," Nova said.

"You bit— AAAH!!" she cried in pain when the metals moved again.

Stanley looked up with a frown. He had no qualms about killing others, but torturing them made him feel weird.

"Hmm, Vera, can you check this and see what you can find?" Nova asked, tossing her a watch.

Vera caught it quickly and used her own watch to quickly do something to the side. While she worked, Nova asked Sol to bring the other dead man’s body.

Sol nodded and left.

Fred and Stanley were the only ones who saw blood drip from the woman in the ceiling as they waited.

"You can answer if you want, or my friend here will soon find out everything she needs on her own," Nova said.

Vera worked on her watch and after a few seconds came across something. She quickly showed it to Nova, who raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"This..." she quickly looked up. "Are you an assassin?"

The girl said nothing except grunting in pain. "Huh, you really are," Nova said.

Sol arrived with the other body and that was checked as well. "Definitely the items of a spy or an assassin. The best case scenario is definitely assassin."

"So, two assassins sent to kill us, with a lot of bounty on our head," Nova said. "What do you guys think?" she asked.

"Could it be the guys from the afternoon? They hired someone to kill us?" Fred asked.

"Do you think we were followed here?" Nova asked. "I made sure we were not. So it is impossible they knew where we were."

"They could’ve hacked into Vera’s computer while she was talking with—"

"HEY!" Vera shouted angrily. "No one breaks into my computer and finds our location. I have the location spoofed 3 different times, sending each data from dozens of other places so they don’t find us."

"So?" Fred asked. "Is it impossible that you were hacked?"

"Even if I was hacked, they can’t find our location so easily," she said.

"Then... did we accidentally buy a tracker from those guys at Vandalizers?" Nova asked. It made no sense why gun sellers would try to kill them, that too for such a high price, but that was the only thing that made sense for Nova.

"We might have to scan our weapons and see if there is any new tech—" she paused her words and suddenly turned toward Stanley.

At the same time, Fred and Sol turned toward Stanley as they realized what was going on.

"What?" Stanley asked, grabbing his sword tightly just in case.

"You were the one that brought them here," Nova said.

"No," Stanley said, slowly pulling up his sword, getting ready to fight. "I did not."

Nova shook her head. "Not you exactly. Your new watch. It’s most likely what has gotten us into trouble," she said.

"Oh," Stanley said, looking at my watch. "What sort of trouble could it cause?"

"I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that since the watch was used today, the owner or someone close to them... figured out..." Nova’s words paused.

"Vera, stop what you’re doing and look up the name Tiara Cooper," she asked.

"Sorry?" Vera asked.

"Tiara cooper," Nova said. "Look up someone with that name, but rich as well and most likely dead. More so, see if her father is someone important. I have a feeling—"

"Found it," Vera said. "Tiara Cooper, who died a year ago, is the daughter of a rich and successful... holy shit! Benjamin Cooper, that’s her father."

"He’s a senator, isn’t he?" Nova asked.

"Yes," Vera said. "How did you know?"

"I’ve seen that old man a few times," Nova said. She looked up at Rebecca and smiled. "We found who we wanted to, so we don’t need you anymore."

The metal threads came out of her body, coalesced, and then struck her through the heart, giving her the sweet release of death.