Nova's grip tightened around Happy's wrist, and without a word he stepped forward. The world warped for an instant—the air thickened, reality bending around them—metal and stone offering no resistance as they phased straight through the reinforced steel door.
On the other side, Nova slowed, his brows lifting in quiet surprise.
This was not the scene he expected. He had imagined Stark bent over scraps of metal, hammer ringing against iron, Yinsen at his side, perhaps guarded by a single man outside.
But instead, it's was chaos.
Tony Stark lay sprawled on the floor like a discarded marionette, one arm twisted beneath his torso at an unnatural angle. His chest rose and fell in shallow, irregular gasps. The arc reactor embedded in his sternum glowed a weak, unstable blue, its light pulsing erratically—like a failing heartbeat, as if the device itself struggled to keep him tethered to life.
A massive man stood in the center of the room, corded muscles coiled with unyielding strength. He held Yinsen aloft by the throat, one hand clamped so tightly that the older man's face had gone red, veins bulging as his nails clawed desperately at the iron grip. The brute didn't even tremble under Yinsen's struggles; his eyes remained flat and detached, strangling the man with the calmness of someone pouring a glass of water.
But it was the wiry figure crouched beside Tony that arrested Nova's full attention.
The man balanced on one knee, leaning casually over Stark as if inspecting a prized specimen. Sparks danced restlessly between his fingers, the air around his hand alive with sharp hisses and the acrid tang of ozone. A thin smile pulled at his lips, wolfish and cruel, as his eyes tracked the faint flicker of the arc reactor.
"Although our mission was to kill you," he drawled, voice carrying the smug ease of someone who believed himself untouchable, "you just had to be clever enough to make this." He tapped a finger against the arc reactor's casing. The faint metallic clink echoed obscenely loud in the room. "This little toy? It's going to make us rich. So why don't you save yourself the pain and give us the designs? Otherwise…"
His hand came up, thumb cocked back like a trigger. Energy swelled at his fingertip, coalescing into a bead of blue-white lightning.
The bolt cracked through the air, blinding in the dim chamber. The scent of burning ozone filled Nova's nose as electricity slammed into the arc reactor. Tony's body convulsed violently, muscles locking as a strangled scream ripped from his throat. His back arched off the ground, the reactor's glow flaring white-hot for a heartbeat before sputtering, dimming, flickering like a dying candle.
Nova's frown deepened. This timeline was spiraling far beyond its intended path. In the original flow of events, Stark and Yinsen should have been building the crude Mark I suit, biding their time until their escape. But here, with three mutants involved, everything was off-script. If he hadn't shown up, Tony would have died on this floor and history would have shattered long before it ever had the chance to take shape. Their would be no Iron Man in this timeline.
Happy couldn't take it anymore. His throat clenched, and the word burst out before he could stop it.
"Boss!"
The shout reverberated off the chamber walls.
Nova sighed inwardly. There went the quiet rescue. Still, he shook his head, lips twitching faintly. If it can't be silent, then let it be loud.
He released the veil of invisibility. Reality shimmered, peeled away—and suddenly they were visible.
The reaction was immediate.
All three mercenaries froze, startled eyes whipping toward the intruders. For a split second their faces betrayed only shock—then hardened into hostility.
"Happy…?" Tony's voice was a rasping whisper. His head lifted weakly from the floor, pupils unfocused, yet recognition broke through the haze. His lips quivered around the single word, disbelief raw in his tone.
The three mutants didn't waste any time, from the far side of the room, the third figure—lean, composed—drew a compact firearm from beneath his jacket with practiced fluidity, the metallic click loud against the shrill silence.
Then—BAM.
It slammed against the control panel on the wall.
The base erupted in chaos. Alarms blared with ear-splitting force. Sirens wailed, joined by the relentless strobe of red warning lights that bathed every surface in blood-colored pulses. The concrete seemed to quake as the sound of boots thundered closer from outside, growing louder with each second.
The alarms blared, and the three mutant mercenaries moved without hesitation. If these two intruders had managed to find the base and sneak inside, then the military couldn't be far behind.
They hadn't secured the arc reactor schematics, but that didn't matter now. The glowing device in Stark's chest would fetch more than enough on its own.
Just as the massive brute tightened his grip around Yinsen's throat, ready to snap it, Nova warped in a blur of space. His hand clamped down on the brute's wrist with crushing force. Bone cracked, and the man roared in agony, his grip loosening as Yinsen dropped to the ground, coughing and clutching his neck.
But in that split second of distraction, the wiry mutant with sparks dancing at his fingertips stepped forward. With a sneer, he drove his electrified hand into Tony Stark's neck like a dagger. Blue light flared violently as the current surged through flesh and metal alike. Tony convulsed, a strangled cry ripping from his throat, his body seizing under the overload.
Nova's eyes darkened. He twisted sharply, his boot slamming into the brute's chest with bone-jarring force. The mountain of a man flew backward, crashing into the electric mutant just as he was pulling his hand free from Stark's bleeding neck. Both men went sprawling in a heap, sparks sputtering across the floor.
In a blink, Nova was at Stark's side. Blood streamed from the fresh wound, staining Tony's shirt, while his arc reactor sputtered weakly, its glow faltering as if it might wink out any second.
Nova pulled regeneration serum, snapping an injector into place and he pressed it against Stark's arm, releasimg the serum with a hiss.
For an instant, nothing happened. Then Stark arched violently, a raw gasp tearing from his lungs as though he'd been wrenched back from the brink of death. His arc reactor blazed brighter, its failing rhythm steadied—and then, impossibly, it pulsed once more before being forced out entirely.
The metal casing shot free from his chest, clattering to the floor alongside fragments of sharpnel that had once been embedded in his heart. Flesh knit itself in real time, smooth and unbroken, until there was no trace of the wound or the reactor that had once kept him alive.
Before Tony could even process what had just happened—before he could form words around the miracle of his healed chest—Nova's hand locked around his shoulder. With a sharp twist of space, the two of them vanished in a ripple of distortion and reappeared beside Happy and Yinsen.
Happy stumbled forward instinctively, arms catching Tony before he collapsed. "Tony!" he shouted, voice breaking with raw relief. Yinsen, still coughing from his near strangulation, stared at Stark with wide eyes that brimmed with disbelief. The man who had moments ago been on the edge of death now stood alive, whole—freed even of the shrapnel that had once been his curse.
Tony's hand pressed against his chest, fingers trembling over unbroken skin where the arc reactor had been. His lips parted, but no words came. For once, the genius billionaire was speechless.
"Stay with them," Nova said flatly, his gaze sweeping over the three men to make sure they were steady. Then, without another word, he stepped forward—back into the chaos.
The brute was already rising, his roar echoing off the walls as his body swelled grotesquely. Muscles ballooned, veins bulged, and his frame surged past two meters tall, each breath rumbling like an avalanche. The ground shuddered beneath his weight as he stomped forward.
Beside him, the wiry mutant spat sparks from his fingertips, his eyes narrowed into murderous slits. Bolts of crackling blue energy licked across the floor, searing black scars into the concrete as he stalked closer, teeth bared in fury.
The third mercenary, calm and composed, stepped lightly to the flank. His lips curved into the faintest of smiles as he exhaled—and from his mouth spilled a rolling wave of pale, sickly-green mist. The fog coiled through the air, heavy and cloying, the scent oddly sweet and nauseating. Sleeping gas. It drifted low, creeping steadily toward Nova like a living thing.
Nova stopped in the center of the room, the alarms flashing blood-red light across his frame, his eyes hard as stone.
He cracked his knuckles.
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HELLO READERS, WHICH X-MEN CHARACTER SHOULD NOVA MAKE A DEAL WITH?
ALSO PER SCHEDULE NO CHAPTER WILL BE POSTED TOMMOROW UNLESS OFCOURSE YOU ALL COMPLETE THE OBJECTIVES.
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→ 30 REVIEWS= 3 BONUS CHAPTER's
→ 200 POWER STONES= 1 BONUS CHAPTER
→ 400 POWER STONES= 2 BONUS CHAPTER's
CURRENT PROGRESS:↓
– FIRST OBJECTIVE:- 24/30 REVIEWS
– SECOND OBJECTIVE- 124/200 P.S
– THIRD OBJECTIVE- /400 P.S
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CHAPTER:- [88 - NOVA'S OFFER] IS AVAILABLE ON MY P@TREON.