"Stanley! STANLEY!" Sheila cried into the earpiece after not hearing from him for a long time.

"Huh?" Stanley got out of his stupor after hearing Sheila’s words and quickly got back up. "Sorry, I got distracted."

"Are you okay?" she asked. "What happened? You stopped right in the middle of speaking."

"I’m sorry. That young man came again," Stanley said.

"Are you okay? Is he still there?" she asked.

"I’m okay. A little hurt, but I’m out of danger," Stanley said. "The young man left already."

"Good," Sheila said, sighing on the other side. "Can you come back? Or should I come get you?"

"How’s the situation on the gang’s side? Is everything there alright? Did anyone escape?" Stanley asked.

"Wait a second," Sheila said and checked something. "It seems everything is going well. The corpses are being moved and the unconscious ones are being apprehended."

"So our mission is done?" Stanley asked.

"Yes, it is done," Sheila said.

"Good," he said and slumped back onto the ground. "Can you come pick me up the? I want to go back." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

He laid there for 15 minutes before a car flew upto where he was in the sparse forest and landed. Sheila quickly walked out of the car and ran upto him.

She turned on to the flashlight and looked at him. "Wow! You look bad," she said. "Dear god! Look at all that blood."

Stanley looked at himself with a confused look. He touched his body to feel for the wounds, but found none. "Oh, not my blood," he said. "Probably from all the people I cut."

It was a surprise to him how easily he could say these words now. Just a few months ago, he was devastated by seeing all the deaths, and now he was the cause of it.

Was that growth? Or was that decline?

"I guess that’s change," he said softly.

"What did you say?" Sheila asked.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing," Stanley said before trying to get up.

"Argh!" he grunted a little when he felt a sharp pain from his left arm, up to his upper shoulders. "I think something’s broken."

"Show me," Sheila said and quickly pulled out something. She shined a light on his left arm for a few seconds before looking at her watch.

"Oh, I think your left arm is completely shattered," she said, looking at the image. "Fragments of it seems to have lodged themselves into your muscles too."

"What do we do now?" Stanley asked.

"I don’t think we have much of a choice on what we can do at all," Sheila said. While bringing out some sort of spray. She sprayed it on his open skin and soon enough, he started feeling numb where the pain was.

He couldn’t feel any discomfort anymore.

"We will have to take you to Amy as quickly as we can," Sheila said.

Stanley nodded. "Let’s go then," he said and went upto the car. He put his sword onto the back and then flew away with Sheila.

"We’ll have to go to Freenox city first," Sheila said. "You aren’t in too much of a danger, so we will have to take care of the report first."

Stanley sighed and nodded. "Fine, let’s do that first," he said.

They flew away in the car and Stanley relaxed a little.

"Who was that?" Sheila asked. "The guy that beat you up so badly."

"Some Nova," Stanley said. "He had a strong body, very fast reflexes and a could create some sort of holographic attacks that was somehow physical."

"Holographic attacks that were visible?" Sheila looked at him. "Are you sure it wasn’t just some plain plasma attacks?"

"No, it had proper shape and texture."

"Hmm," Sheila thought for a bit. "I can’t think of any Nova like that at all. Maybe a new one came while I was missing and somehow missed about hi?"

Stanley shrugged. He truly didn’t know much about these stuff, so he said nothing.

"Oh, right," Stanley said. "He said his name, Max. Does that ring any bell?"

"Max?" Sheila thought for a bit.

"He said he was a friend of AAA too and had a sister that worked there," Stanley said.

"Can’t think of more at the moment," Sheila said. "There are way too many girls in the AAA."

From Triglow city to the Freenox city, it took them no more than 3 hours at all. In that short time, they made it all the way back to the branch headquarters and met up with the director.

The people that were in the building gulped at the sight of the bloody Stanley. They saw people come in after killing a lot before but never was someone so bloody.

Never was someone’s fighting style this messy.

The director looked at Stanley and Sheila and frowned a little. "Do you maybe wanna take a bath first?" she asked.

"No," Stanley said. "If possible, I would love to take care of this right now, director. My shoulder and arm are broken, so I will need to take care of them as soon as possible."

"Oh," Director Nona said with a surprised look. "Certainly, let’s get this over with."

The director let Sheila tell her everything that had happened there and more. She documented everything that was told, along with Stanley’s own experience thrown in there and was done.

"Congratulations on the successful mission," Nona said. "I’ll get you two your deserved Repentance points."

She looked toward Stanely. "Why don’t you go and take a shower before leaving? You need to change too," the director said.

Stanley paused and looked at himself in the bright light and nodded. "I’ll do that, thank you," he said before leaving.

He went to his room where he got into the shower. As the warm water washed away the dirt and blood from his body, he took the time to process the feelings he felt.

Finally, he could tell clearly that he was in fact feeling the bliss that one felt when a Nova absorbed a soul. Only, he wasn’t controlled much by the feeling and could ignore it if he wanted.

He had felt over thousands of souls at once and had survived through that, so this was nothing to him. Still, he wondered if these few hundred souls were enough to give him some sort of new powers.

He didn’t expect to get any, but he remained hopeful.

Once he was done bathing, he changed into some casual clothes and walked out of his room. The 3 uniforms he had received had all torn up by now, so he had nothing else but casual wear to wear.

He walked out of his room with his clothes and sword and went to the front of the building where Sheila was waiting for him.

"Took you some time," she said.

"I had to debate whether to wear that torn-up piece of uniform or something new," he said.

"Why was that even a debate?" Sheila asked with a bit of a chuckle.

"Hmm? Don’t we have to wear our uniforms at all times?" Stanley asked.

"You don’t have a uniform anymore. There’s only a certain extent to which a rule must be followed closely," she said. "Make your own judgment past that point."

Stanley nodded. "I suppose," he said, looking at himself through the mirror. "It’s not a bad shirt though."

"Alright, stop looking at yourself so much," Sheila said. "You remind me of Gray."

"Do I?" Stanley asked. "Maybe he rubbed off on me."

"I don’t think you want that," Sheila said and turned to the front where a car came in from. It landed in front of them and a bald man walked out from it.

"Hmm?" Sheila’s eyes narrowed when she saw the man. "That’s Droon."

"Droon? Of the 5?" Stanley asked.

"Yep," Sheila said. "And most likely the strongest of all."

"Oh!" Stanley said unexpectedly. "Do we go out and say hi?"

"No need," Sheila said. "I hear he doesn’t like being disturbed by others."

"I see," Stanley said and remained seated. "Then let’s not talk to him."

Sheila chuckled and started the car before they flew away.

"I wonder why Gray isn’t here yet," Stanley said. "As far as I know, he doesn’t have any interest in staying in a city after the mission is done."

"I’m pretty sure he’s already on his way to another mission," Sheila said.

"Oh, he works that much?" Stanley asked with a surprised look. As far as he could tell, Gray was quite strong and would mostly refuse to work hard. So it was a surprise to see him go from one mission to another so quickly.

"He’s like that, you know," Sheila said. "He’s the strongest, so he gets called everywhere and has to deal with stuff that even a teenager could deal with if he had the chance.

The car flew through the night sky as they moved toward the Starhall city, or more precisely the Jujutsu hen. The morning light slowly crept toward the two of them, while they tried to avoid it.

A few hours later, they arrived at the headquarters before it was daylight. Stanley quickly left the car and walked away.

"I’ll deal with my sword later," he said as he walked away. "I’ll go get healed for now."

He walked into the building and quickly made his way up the headquarters, making his way toward the medical section.

He asked for Amy’s room and quickly went to it.

He walked inside the room and immediately paused when he saw who was there.

"Yo!" the blond-haired young man said. "Long time no see."

For some reason, Max was here.