A gloomy atmosphere took over the meeting hall of the AAA Headquarters.

The Director sat toward the front of the room, with a grim look on his face, staring at the numbers that slowly counted up every second.

284,857

284,923

285,239

The numbers rapidly moved up.

Those were the number of dead people that had been confirmed in East Vanli, a day after the terrible terrorist attack. There were scenes of explosions replaying all around the different screens.

The numerous people in the room couldn’t help but feel angry at the sight of what lay in front of them.

Hundreds of dead bodies lay sprawled on the floor at every scene. Some were dead after being thrown into a building. Some had buildings thrown into them. Some died from stampedes. Some died from the Novas that fought back the horde of fleeing people.

A torn hand lay in one picture. A broken face in another. Blood splatters on the wall, and a leg showing from beneath a mountain of rubble.

An old woman dead with her head crushed in. A child dead from from an iron rod that went through her neck. A man dead by being cut into 3 parts.

A father dead on the floor, burned to a char with his child burned in his embrace as well. A couple dead from a car falling on top of them.

A group of people dead with building collapsing on top of them.

3 hospitals collapsed. 8 malls destroyed. 5 schools fallen, with 2 decimated.

And those were just the ones that weren’t in the blast.

The people and objects caught in the blast radius had all but vaporized from the explosion. This was truly one of the darkest times since the war that ended 90 years ago.

"Any new report?" Director Hobb asked, not moving his eyes away from the news that was on screen. The death count continued increasing.

"We’ve had estimates on the death count, director," one of the men in the room spoke. "It looks like the UV government expects it to at least reach a million if not more. They’re hoping no more than 1.2 Million deaths."

Sounds of subtle gasps went around the room.

"Dammit!" the director frowned.

"The blast originated in the densest part of the city and covered an area of nearly 1.5 kilometers. It is suspected that nearly 200 thousand are dead without leaving anybody behind."

Even the man who spoke the numbers shuddered as he did so.

"Any radiation signatures?" the director asked.

"None significant enough to report," the man said. "This wasn’t a nuclear weapon. But some sort of weapon was created using Plasmium. But to create that type of explosion, the size of it would have to be..."

The director frowned. It had been common knowledge for him and many higher-ups for a while that plasmium was being shared through the black market, bought from somewhere that wasn’t Starhall City.

The ones sent out from the Starhall city were carefully accounted for, so it being missing was impossible. He feared that his enemies had found another mine of plasmium.

"Has our aid been requested yet?" the director asked.

"Not yet," the man answered. "The other countries have already sent aid and those still living are being saved. Nearly 3.2 Million people were wounded in one way or another, with a little more than 300 thousand being majorly wounded."

The director looked at the image on the screen again. The image of destruction.

"Have you discovered all the Novas present?" the director asked.

"We’ve recognized the Flame Empress, but we’re still looking into the identity of more of them. We do believe the 2nd one to be the new Nova that appeared around 6 years ago. The one established in Wuglos.

"That bastard. What is he doing up there?" the director frowned.

"What about the other girl?" the director asked, nodding to the image of the black-haired girl on the screen. He thought he knew her from somewhere but couldn’t remember at all.

"We’re looking into it," the man said. "But it’s hard to find anything about her. She’s not in the databa—"

"Aaah!" a sudden scream from the room drew everyone’s attention. The director quickly turned around, his metal arm buzzing and glowing as if suddenly alive.

When he saw who had screamed, he got angry.

"Shiela! What are you doing here? This is a confidential meeting. Get out!" he shouted at her.

Sheila ignored the director and pointed at the screen. "Raven! That’s Raven Darkwing," she said.

The director’s eyes went wide as he turned around. "The fucking Shadow Nova herself?" he asked.

"Yes," Sheila said.

The director didn’t know what to say.

"Sir!" a voice drew his attention.

Caleb walked in behind Shiela, pushing her aside, and quickly rushing down the room toward the director. The young man arrived near the director in the dark room, being watched by many others.

"You’ll want to see this, director," he said, quickly pulling up an image and placing it on the screen.

When the director looked at it, his eyes widened. "That’s... isn’t that Stanley?"

"It is," Caleb said. "He was in the city too. Along with those gangsters."

"Why?" the director asked with a terrified look. The thought of yet another Nova being involved was a nightmare to him.

"We don’t know," Sheila said. "We came to report this urgently."

"There’s more," Caleb said. "I scoured through the city’s feed to find this."

There was a small video of a blue-haired man suddenly getting his head blown off out of nowhere just moments before the explosion destroyed the feed.

"That blur is that..." the director looked. "We can’t see his face even in frames, but I do believe it was him. If I hadn’t noticed him going into the city, I would have never found him."

Another video was pulled up of someone crashing into a building a long distance away. The two videos seemed unrelated at first, but anyone who knew about Stanely knew this was him.

The director thought for a bit. "Find out more. Find out why he was there, who he killed, and if he’s alive," he ordered. "Does anyone have images of that portion of the city?"

The people got into scouring through the media they had, searching for more information. The computers weren’t of much use in this case as they weren’t able to match the before and after videos to search for the locations.

Finally, someone found a video and put it up. In the video, they saw an unconscious Stanley being pulled out of the rubble, most of his body burnt and hurt. That was all the video showed before moving into other people being rescued. It was small, but it was what they needed right now.

"We got that video just hours ago," one of the men said. "We don’t know if he’s dead or not yet. We would have to inquire."

"Caleb, go find out Stanley’s current status. Do you know his current name?" the director asked.

"He’s under John Larkens. He has a chip with that information embedded," Caleb said before searching through the information. "Just one... second. There."

A small piece of information came up on the screen for everyone to see.

-Medical Report-

Name: John Larkens

Age: 18

Nationality: Franoss

Status: Dead

[End of Book 3: In The Blue Oasis]