Aftershock

New Beginnings

A/N: Hi!!! I can't believe I'm actually doing this!!! I finished Supernova and I have no words.

Just kidding! I'm writing this, aren't I?

And who am I to miss out on the perfect opportunity to continue with the plot line?

Soooo...here goes!

Btw, I strongly recommend you read the epilogue because that's where I got the idea from. And on that note...

Chapter 1: New Beginnings

Nova still had trouble believing it was real. That she could truly be free of the revenge that had corrupted her mind from such a young age.

She still couldn't believe Ace Anarchy was dead. A visionary unlike that which the world had ever known. A man that she had once seen as family, dead because of her betrayal. Her choices.

And she had not one ounce of regret in her.

No, what she really had trouble believing was the fact that she didn't have to suffer the consequences. When she was first outed as Nightmare, things couldn't have been worse. Her whole team hated her, Adrian most of all.

She owed her second chance to Genissa Cronin, the Mirror Walker who had posed as her to get her out of Cragmoor.

But she also owed the second chance to Adrian. Adrian. Nova couldn't think of a better reason for turning sides in a battle than for the boy she loved.

Love. It was funny, really. She loved the boy who was sworn to be her archenemy for all time. She destroyed, he created. She broke, he built. For the longest time, they were stuck in that endless cycle. Before she even met him.

But maybe that was the miracle the world was continuing to witness. Not just that prodigies were no longer feared, but that they no longer destroyed.

She, a former Anarchist, could have dinner with two members of the Council without them being remotely worried. She could watch a movie with her boyfriend without him thinking she had an underlying reason to be in his house.

It only took the rise of Ace Anarchy and his defeat by a ten-year-old boy who set the world right again.

And yes, there were people who still didn't trust her. People who were waiting for her return to villainy. But the truth was, she'd changed. Not because of the Renegades' false promises, but because of her uncle's.

She'd wasted ten years to get revenge on the wrong people. She wasn't going to waste any more time.

And that's why, at one in the morning, she was standing at the door of the vault, watching Snapshot walk around, completely oblivious to Nova's watchful eyes.

Nova wasn't there to talk to Snapshot. She wasn't there to catalog artifacts or sort through paperwork. Rather, she was there because, of all nights, tonight she absolutely could not stand to be anywhere that reminded her of Callum.

And so she had come to the one place that would. Walking past the two desks at the front of the room, one absolute chaos and the other completely barren except for a pen, Nova made her way into the elevator that she had thought so often of as a trap.

For her beginning months as a Renegade, she had feared that she would be discovered. That every time people brought her to a confined space, it was so that the could capture her where she couldn't run. But tonight, she pressed the button with the letter R and sat down on the floor, watching the numbers tick by, completely at ease.

37...38...39...42...43...47...

At last, she made it onto the roof, walking over to the edge where she and Callum had once stood. Where he had introduced her to what the world could be, and how amazing it had become.