Nova stared at the two, cluelessly.
The sight in front of her was normal. There was no arm blood-fountain and Buster's hands were still attached to his body, so she didn't understand why they reacted in such a way.
"Ashie, what did you do?!" Yenn's voice sounded from behind the trees on the side of the road.
"All that matters is that they're alive isn't it?" Asher shrugged as he walked out onto the road with his hands in his pockets.
"Ugh, whatever. That boy did try to mess with your little sis." Yenn cracked her knuckles.
"Yenn, brother Asher. What are you doing here?" Nova's eyes brightened up.
"Oh, Yenn makes me follow you home every day to— Oof."
In the middle of him exposing their secret, Yenn hit Asher hard in the ribs.
He immediately fell on his knees as he held his chest in pain. "Why?"
Asher was a bit on the oblivious side when concerned with matters of human feelings, so he didn't understand why Yenn was hiding the fact that they were protecting her from the shadows.
"Ah, haha!" Yenn laughed nervously. "We just happened to pass by and saw those kids bullying you."
Nova stared at the sweat sliding down Yenn's face suspiciously. "Hmm."
"B... By the way, why did you let those kids do that to you?"
Yenn quickly changed the subject.
"Oh, I don't want to attract too much attention to myself, so I'm keeping dad's identity a secret." Nova answered.
"What? I'm not talking about that." Yenn shook her head.
"It doesn't matter what your dad's status is, you should never let anybody treat you like that."
Nova's head slumped as she felt Yenn's disappointment.
"I know Asher personally teaches you martial arts, so why didn't you use that to mess them up instead?"
"Umm... Brother Asher told me to only use his techniques on things I want to... Kkh!" Nova made a neck slicing gesture with her thumb.
Yenn looked at Nova in surprise before turning to the root of the problem. "What have you been teaching the little girl?"
It was no wonder why Yenn always saw Nova using normal martial arts to fight in tests and not Asher's cool styles, he only taught her the art of 'finishing off' people.
When Yenn turned down to where Asher was supposed to be, she discovered that he had disappeared.
"Where'd he go?"
Nova pointed to the sky to answer Yenn's question.
"Ahem, I'll meet you guys at home, it's almost time for dinner." Asher coughed dryly as he floated safely, hundreds of feet away from Yenn.
"No you don't!" Yenn stretched one hand to the sky and tried to grab Asher with her powers.
She pulled her hand down, but to her surprise, Asher just poofed into a cloud of smoke.
'An illusion? Dang ability!'
Yenn turned to look back at the cute eleven year old girl.
"I'll teach you some safe fighting skills you can use for protection.
But first, let's go home to teach your big brother a lesson and then eat dinner." She grabbed Nova's hand and led the way.
"Is mom cooking tonight?" Nova asked sounding strangely worried.
"No... Dad is!"
"Yay!!!!"
At Yenn's reply, her face beamed with joy.
———
When Nova and Yenn got home, they found Asher with their mother, helping her to groom the garden behind their house.
Their home was a beautiful white mansion built in the middle of the forest. There was a garden and a pond in the back that Nova's mom planted rare flower in.
Rare flowers like, Still-red-roses, bush violets, daisies and other regular plants.
Taking care of such plants and trying to prevent their genetic code from changing in the new Earth's soil was incredibly hard, but she had her ways.
"What's the use of growing them to be so weak and defenseless." Asher questioned.
He couldn't understand why his mother was trying to maintain the useless sides of these plants.
What was the use of taking care of things she knew wouldn't grow up to be able to take care of themselves.
Nova's mother sat on the grass in her gardening overalls and folded her legs in a lotus pose. It seemed she wanted to explain something as she tapped one of her legs, signalling for Asher to sit on it.
Asher walked towards her, but as he got close enough, he suddenly stopped.
"I'm... I'm a grownup now, so I don't need to be pampered... like these plants." He turned his head away to avoid making eye contact with her.
The woman laughed. "Oh my, I guess you are a man now that you're fourteen."
"I guess, I'll keep my mommy hands away from you from now on." She shrugged and was about to unknot her legs when Asher suddenly bent over to hold it down.
"Hmm?" The woman looked at him and then asked sarcastically.
"What might you be doing fine sir?"
Asher sat on her leg with an unnoticeable pink in his cheeks.
"Just because I'm grownup, it doesn't mean you should keep yourself away." He was still avoiding looking her in the eyes.
"I guess I'll do as you say sir. It's my duty after all!" The mother yelled out with a smile and pulled Asher into her embrace.
After getting into a comfortable position, Asher heard his mother's angelic voice again.
"The things you do don't have to make practical sense my little man.
Sometimes people do things just to feel the sense of accomplishment, or to bring them joy. And I guess I find joy in preserving precious little lives like these.
It's human nature, and I guess even I am subjected to that particular nature."
"You're saying it like you're not also a human being." Asher murmured in comfort.
"Well I'm not." She answered unexpectedly, getting Asher's full attention.
"And that's because when it comes to the my babies, I'm the strongest being in the universe! Roar!"
She suddenly jumped and threw Asher into the sky.
"Woah." Asher smiled, as he fell back into her arms.
He was big, about 170cm tall, but to his mother who was a 193, he was still a kid.
The woman took a spin and then winked at the two girls peeping from behind a wall.
"Eek, she's seen us!" Nova shrieked as she ran back. Yenn also followed, but they hadn't taken more than two scrambling steps when they bumped into somebody behind them.
"And where do you think you're going?"
Soon Nova and Yenn were brought to the garden. They were being carried, under each of the arms of a tall man.
"Hello soul keeper, I found these two spies in the back. What should we do with them?" The man asked, tickling the girls in his arms.
"How about we take them to..."
"No!" The three children yelled at the same time as their mother finished her sentence,
"Tickle Town!"
"No! I'm thirteen!"
"Come here you little girl."
"Hahaha! My dignity!"
"I have a surprise everyone!"
They had a happy home, lived good lives, carefree and getting all the love each of them wanted.
But, even good things couldn't last forever. In fact those were the things that felt like they didn't last long enough.
———
"Your ability is dangerous, but I'm all the more." Asher said as he stared at Nova who was about to attack.
"I don't care!" Nova turned into a beam of light and burst through the wind.
BOOM!
With ease, Asher dodged the incoming attack from her white greatsword.
As he bent backwards, he suddenly felt heat under his head.
A purple glow covered his silhouette and the spear made of light passed right through his head.
But when Asher raised back his body, it was in perfect condition. In fact, his body looked a bit translucent.
"I know how that ability works!" Nova yelled.
As she floated with the color yellow dancing around her body, a hundred spears made of light appeared in the sky.
"Rah!" As she threw both of her hands forward, the spears all rushed at Asher at the same time.
Asher flew higher to avoid the spears, but they just followed him.
One after the other, they were coming straight at him, but he skilfully dodged every last spear.
Reaching his back, Nova struck her sword down at him again, but it just bounced back before even touching his body.
BOOM!
Asher turned around and stopped the sword's second attack with only two fingers.
"I don't want to hurt you, Nova."
"Liar!" She pulled back her sword and summoned a much bigger version of it made out of her light ability, higher in the sky.
As big as a small house, the light sword fell right for Asher's head.
Asher rose his other hand up to catch the sword, but when his hand met the tip, the sword suddenly broke like fragile glass.
"Oh?" It seems he wasn't the only one who could make illusions.
Nova pulled out her sword and then struck at his neck again.
BOOM!
Asher clapped, with the sword in the middle of his hands.
"I let you do it the first time." Asher shook his head.
Nova pointed her hand at his head and was about to activate her ability, when an annoying notification popped up from her ECS(Earth Core System).
[You have lost contact with direct sunlight. Your ability is deactivating.]
Nova could only shoot out a small light stick which Asher dodged with ease.
"Tch!" She struck his head with her armor covered fist, repeatedly.
BOOM!
BOOM!!
BOOM!!!
"The sun is down. Now you have an even lesser chance of beating me—"
"Who cares! You selfish idiot!... Who cares."
Asher was taken aback by the tears that suddenly started dripping out of Nova's eyes.
"You should have stayed with us when mom..." She couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence.
"But instead, you left! You left us alone to bear all that pain! I know how you felt about mom, but she wasn't the only one who cared about you!
How do you think I felt when you just tossed us aside and disregarded us like you did? How... Do you think Yenn felt? Huh!"
At this point, Asher couldn't even recognize Nova's face from all the sticky liquid covering it.
"Were you never planning on coming back home?" She punched him weakly before her head fell tiredly on his shoulder.
Asher held her in his arms as he felt that she was about to fall down from the sky. Her ability only worked when the sun was out, and right now, it was night.
"I didn't know how long it was going to take. I just wanted to get more power so I'd never have to worry about losing anybody I cared about to this world."
He said, but Nova was already unconscious on his shoulder.
"But is it really worth causing them all this suffering?" A voice, sometimes like his guardian angel, and other times like his demons, asked in his head.
Asher was really considering going back with her, but he had a set mind. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made.
"I still need to find those shards. If I get just one more, I'll come back, I promise." He whispered and held onto Nova, just a little tighter.
———
"You better fulfill that promise then."
Spying at the scene from ten thousand kilometers away, with a special set of binoculars, a man said into the wind.
This man looked like an angel without the halo or the wings.
He had shiny white skin, silver and gold stripped haired tied into a bun, at the back of his head and a smile that could charm any who looked at it, regardless of the gender.
This man was floating in the air, with a 3D holographic woman beside him.
"Katie." The man called.
"Do it.
Do the thing."
With how dramatic this man had said that, one could easily tell, he was a joker.