Festering Evil: Shattered Past Book 4

Unfurling Schemes

Nova was sitting on the couch reading one of the books that Molly gave her for her birthday; she was starting to grow attached to this whole anime thing like her sister was. She flipped the page to another chapter before she heard a knock on her door. Nova put a bookmark that her son made for her when he was little in the book before she walked over to the door. She slowly opened it to see Lord Saladin standing there with a worried look plastered on his face.

"Lord Saladin?" Nova asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Listen, we don't have much time, your parents are in grave danger." He said seriously.

"What? What happened?" She asked quickly with worry soon transferring to her from him.

"Upgrade captured them." He said to her.

"No.....please, tell me you're joking."

"I don't joke, Nova, you know that." He replied. Nova walked back for a moment before her gear got transferred to her body.

"Then we don't have much time; we need to move and now." She replied with her invictus transformation taking hold and with her taking off into the midday sky. Saladin followed behind her inside of his ship as they flew off towards the Cosmodrome, hopefully with two of them here they would stand a chance.

"What happened to them, Saladin?" Nova asked sounding rather angry.

"I'm not sure, I called James for a mission that he needed to take care of, and I didn't hear back from him. That is until I noticed the distress beacon that belonged to him that was deployed close by, I knew something was wrong. Cameron went after it anyway." He replied.

"You tried to warn them right?" Nova asked him.

"Of course I did. I know how dangerous SIVA is, and how many lives of my friends and loved ones it claimed." He replied solemnly.

"Yeah, I know that too," Nova replied. "It was your fault you didn't listen to him." Saladin started to grow upset; he didn't need to hear this right now.

"Now isn't the time to discuss this."

"What, you could have just left it alone you know, and just lived out from the city."

"I don't want to hear this right now Nova; we have a more important matter ahead of us,"

"I'm just saying that it's your fault that all of your friends died."

"Shut your damn mouth." He replied coldly. Nova fell quiet for a moment, waiting for what he had to say. "Listen, not a single day has passed that I have forgotten about that tragedy alright?" He said with his voice being more caustic. "I lost my girlfriend, my family, and my unborn child." He replied still flying his ship. Nova's eyes widened, he had a child? She never heard that, not even from her father.

"You had a child?"

"It was too early for the signs of her pregnancy to show; we didn't even know what the gender of the child was. I would have loved that child more than anything Nova." He replied grimly. "So if you thought that I have at all forgotten or forgiven myself for my greatest mistake you're horribly mistaken." He replied as the pair touched down on the ground to the mouth of the cavern that Nova's step parents had disappeared into earlier.

Nova drew her sword and held it out in front of her as the pair walked into the dark entryway. "Saladin, I....I had no idea that you were going to have a baby." Nova said to him as they walked.

"Not a lot of people did Nova; it was only me and Jolder who knew," Saladin replied activating his invictus transformation and drawing the Iron Lord's ax from his back. Nova looked at him shocked for a moment. "Him too?" She thought.