"Gray!" Sheila said in an excited voice. "Come here."

"Okay," Gray said and quickly walked up close to Sheila. "Do you want a hug?"

"No," Sheila said and her eyes moved toward Stanley. "Stanley, come here."

Stanley wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, but he walked up to her. "What is it?" he asked her.

Sheila then looked toward Gray and said, "Protect him."

Both of the men were confused all of a sudden, making them look at each other to try and figure out what was going on. The director and the other men and women were confused as well. Asking Gray to protect someone was a rather odd request, even for Sheila.

"Protect me? From what?" Stanley asked.

Sheila ignored him for now. Instead, she looked at Gray. "Please, protect him," she said.

Gray’s face turned serious. "What’s going on?" he asked her. "Who is he?"

"My 50%," Sheila said.

Gray’s eyes narrowed all of a sudden, turning to look at Stanley. He looked at him for a while, not understanding what it was about him that made him her 50%.

"What did he do? There hasn’t been anything on the news," Gray said, looking at the others around him. "Has there?"

"We have received nothing no news of any crime involving that man," a girl in the back spoke. "He’s a blank slate for now."

Gray turned back to Sheila. "What did he do that makes you think he’s 50%?" he asked.

"It’s not what he did," she said. "It’s who he is."

"Hmm?" Gray got curious.

"He..." Sheila took a deep breath and spoke, "Is a Nova."

Stanley was surprised to hear Sheila revealing his identity so easily. He had assumed that he wasn’t supposed to do anything of that sort.

He heard a lot of metal clicking and clanging from all around him, taking his attention away.

When he turned around to see what the noise was, he saw that every single person around them had their guns pointed at them. The director even had a long, burning red sword coming out from his arm.

"What the fuck do you think you are doing, Sheila?" Ulia shouted from behind them. "What the fuck is wrong with you, bringing an unknown Nova into our base?"

Stanley turned around to see her horrified face while she too had her gun pointed at him. All the guns were pointing at him.

’Are they... going to kill me?’ Stanley thought and got ready to fight back. His future sight activated as a vision from 2 seconds into the future stacked on top of his present vision.

He reached for his sword, but he remembered that he hadn’t brought it back with him from the police. He panicked a little, wondering if he was going to have to fight all these people that he had never seen before.

"I see," Gray finally spoke. "No wonder you called for me. That was smart."

Gray turned around toward Stanley. "What’s your name?" he asked.

Stanley looked at him. "Stanley Reed," he said.

"Stanley, how old are you?" he asked.

"17, close to 18," Stanley said, finding it weird that he was having such a casual conversation in the midst of all of this.

"Oh, you’re young. Okay, then Stanley, do you realize what is happening? Has Sheila told you what you are doing here?" Gray asked.

"No..." Stanley said meekly.

"I see. As of right now, you have been officially recruited into the AAA," Gray said. "What that means is that you are now a prisoner of the association, who you will have to work for it until you do enough good deeds to overcome all the crimes you have committed."

Stanley was a little confused. "But... I haven’t committed any crime," he said.

"You are a Nova. As a Nova, being born in itself is a crime," Gray said. "Now, you will have to spend your time, working to overcome the crime."

"Gray, move away from him," the director said. "I will not accept a random Nova to become part of the association."

"Too late, director. Sheila brought him, and he is under my care now," Gray said. "So, please put down the gun before I get agitated."

Many of the people in the crowd instinctively put down their guns at Gray’s command. They did not want to get him angry at all.

Gray stood still, slowly eying the ones that still had their guns up, and they too started pointing them down.

The director was the only one that still had his burning sword pointed at the group, but Gray simply stared at him, doing nothing. After a while, the director retracted his sword into his arm, which turned into a metal arm again.

"Anything bad happens, and it’s on you," the Director said as he turned around. "Sheila, I want a complete report of what you were doing for the past half a year in my mail within 24 hours."

"Yes, sir," Sheila said. She finally sighed in relief after realizing that Stanley wasn’t going to get killed.

"Sheila, where have you brought me? What exactly is going on?" Stanley asked. "What do they mean that it’s a crime for me to be born a Nova?"

In the town of Last Hope, being without any powers at the age of 17 was no different than a crime. Now, he had finally gotten his powers, but once again, he was being treated as a criminal.

"Sheila brought you here to recruit you into the AAA in order to work to erase her own crime," Gray said. "With you here, she is going to get rid of 50%, if not more of her crime at once. She got quite lucky."

Stanley looked toward Sheila. "You... brought me here for your own gain?" he asked. He couldn’t believe it.

"Hey, hey," Gray quickly said. "Don’t get angry at her now. If she wanted to, she could’ve let you die and she would have still gained her 50%, if not more."

"Seeing that she actually called me to protect you, she wants to keep you alive. You should thank her instead."