Sheila found herself out of the sticky situation as she landed on the hard ground on top of her broken arm, aggravating the wound even further. The bleeding that she had barely stopped had restarted, but that was the least of her worried at the moment.

She quickly looked up and saw a bit of shock in Raven’s eyes. Raven couldn’t believe that she had managed to go past the shield somehow.

"How did you do it?" Raven asked with a surprised look. Her eyes fluttered before she looked below at Freddy. "Was it you?"

Freddy couldn’t move, but he saw her looking right at him. He tried to look for Stanley, but he was further away than he thought. He couldn’t reach him while trapped like this.

"You... bitch!" Stanley pushed himself up, breaking out of the black net that covered them. The strands still stuck to him, but they no longer stopped him.

"You... you’re strong," Raven realized. "Fast and strong. I don’t remember hearing about you. My brother loved talking about new gems he found."

"You... killed my brother," Stanley groaned in between his breaths.

"Yeah, I still don’t remember who your brother was. I told you, didn’t I? I killed many people," she said.

"Then I’ll make you remember!"

He jumped back in again, time slowing around him as he tried to fight against Raven. He swung his sword at her, however, each time the sword was stopped mere inches away by some black tendrils that shot out of her.

It was the exact same as the last time he tried this. He tried to move around her quickly, attacking her at locations she couldn’t possibly see, but his swords were still stopped.

Stanley started getting out of breath and thought of moving back toward the Shield, but when he tried to, he struck a small, thin black string that went to either side of the cave.

Raven had created it while Stanley was attacking her.

The string was so thin that there was no way Stanley could see it at all. And with him focusing all on the attack, when he did get warned about himself falling, it was already too late.

He stumbled across the cave floor, sliding down the path until he slid half of the way through the cave. His body hurt, not just from falling but also from overexerting it with such a small window in between where he didn’t rest at all.

Even if his body was strong, it wasn’t strong enough to handle the fatigue that had piled over for so long.

He wanted to stand up and fight back against her, but he could only force his body to get back up so quickly. He kneeled on his way back up, breathing some more.

Suddenly, he saw something sharp and black cut him down the middle. Without hesitation, he brought out everything he had and jumped to the side, dodging it.

The black blade flew unstopped until it hit the Shield which stopped it. Sheila flinched back because of the scare, while Raven was just surprised that Stanley managed to dodge it at all.

She looked at him trying to get back up and threw another attack. Stanley hadn’t even realized when he had jumped to the side after seeing the future happen.

The side wall of the cave cracked a little under Raven’s attack, but not by much. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Raven stared at him with awe on her face. "Are you... a Nova?" she asked him.

Stanley finally got back up, a little less tired than before, but that did not stop him from being confused regarding the situation.

"Wh-what?" he asked. "You are the Nova."

"Yes, I am," Raven said. "But you... you seem to have multiple powers as well. Tell me, did you always have those powers, or did they come to fruition slowly, with people dying around you?"

"That..." Stanley paused. A Nova? Him? It couldn’t be.

However, hearing Nova herself say that, he couldn’t find any argument against the claim.

A Nova was supposed to grow strong by feeding off of the death of those around him. Had his powers come with people dying around him?

Stanley remembered the first time he had any semblance of power in him. It was back when he first got the peculiar feeling that he later associated with his mother’s death.

It was on the day that his mother had died after all.

The first time he felt that feeling was just moments before the sirens had gone off. With 10 crawlers entering through the veil together, with Sheila dragging them along with her, they had certainly managed to kill Defenders that were caught off guard.

Was that what triggered it? Were the deaths that day what gave him his power?

Now that he thought about it, each time there had been some sort of death, he had improved quite a bit. Even the smaller deaths had improved it a bit, but it was the major deaths that gave him something.

The tragedy in the 4th Quadrant 10 days ago was when his danger sense improved a bit to become more understandable. Then, this morning, it had become even stronger and had fully awakened when he had fought the Crawlers.

When... the defenders had died fighting the Crawlers.

Then, his ability to slow down time improved when people started getting killed today. Even his body had gotten way too stronger than it normally was. Was that from the people dying around him as well?

As it all started making sense one by one, a feeling of guilt and horror fell through Stanley as he made the realization that he had benefited from the death of many.

Even his own brother had died and it had benefited him.

He did not want that. He did not want to be strong at the cost of others’ lives. However, there was nothing he could do about it.

After all, he couldn’t stop that from happening given that now knew that he too was a Nova.