Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 32: Trigger

"Oh, sorry! Did I hit you too hard?" Bradley asked. "Does it hur—"

His words stopped in his mouth when he noticed that his brother wasn't paying attention to him at all. He wasn't paying attention to anything.

Stanley's eyes were moving everywhere, unfocused at anything. His body shook while his left arm trembled far more than anything else.

"Stanley? Stanley!" Bradley quickly grabbed his brother. "What is it? Did the feeling come up?"

Up close, he noticed that Stanley's breathing was unstable as well. He was short on breath and was sucking in air through his half-opened mouth.

Stanley remembered the moment once again, the moment when his mother had died. His left arm was stretched toward her and yet he couldn't reach her.

He was quite aware of his surroundings and even knew his brother was calling out to him, but the fear and pain from that time seemed to emerge in him once again that made it impossible for him to respond.

"Stanley, you can do it. Take deep breaths," Bradley started saying. "Take long and deep breaths."

Stanley's eyes finally focused on his brother and he did as he was told. He started taking deep breaths and started telling himself that it was fine. Everything was fine.

The pain and fear slowly faded away, leaving him with an emotionally drained body. He slumped to the ground while continuing to take deep breaths.

"Did it finally happen?" Bradley asked. He had only ever heard about his brother's trauma before this. This was the first time seeing how bad it was.

Stanley was completely frozen from fear and barely responded to his words when the thing had happened.

Stanley slowly nodded. "It did, for a brief moment," he said while still taking in long breaths. "But that was all it really needs."

He felt a little down. Just the other day, he had taken control of his fear, taming it just enough so it didn't falter him. However, it seemed it didn't work in the midst of battle. He needed complete focus on himself to maintain level-headedness before he could try and face the trauma he suffered.

"Hmm, weird…" Bradley said as he thought a bit.

"Huh? What's weird?" Stanley asked. "Me?"

"No, not you," Bradley quickly explained. "It's weird that we've been training for so many days and today is the only day you've had that feeling come to you."

"How is that weird?" Stanley asked. "It was bound to happen at some point anyway."

"Yeah, but it's still weird that it just so happened to happen today," Bradley said. "Because as far as I remember, today is the first time during our training that I have used my powers."

Stanley paused for a bit and looked at his brother. "Your powers?" he asked. "Are you saying that I got that feeling today because you used your powers?"

"Yes!" Bradley said. "It makes sense, doesn't it? Think about all the times you've had that feeling. Was someone not using a power around you?"

Stanley thought for a bit. Yesterday during the fight, the other man was clearly using his powers. During the training fights, people used their powers as well.

'Can it really be?' he wondered. It would be massive if he actually found out the reason behind why he got those feelings.

"Wait, that can't be," Bradley said himself, pulling Stanley out of his thoughts.

"What's wrong?" Stanley asked.

"It doesn't make sense that you can only get the feeling when someone used their powers. Otherwise, you would be feeling it all day long, which hasn't happened, has it?" Bradley asked.

"Uh… no," Stanley said. "Actually, now that I think about it, the first time I got the feeling was when I was alone with Mother. There is no way someone's power should trigger it."

"Right," Bradley said. "Then there must be another reason."

The two brothers thought for a while before Bradley came up with an idea. "Maybe…" he thought. "Does your chest hurt? I hit you quite hard."

"Hmm? It stings a bit, but I wouldn't call it hurt," Stanley replied.

"Good, then close your eyes," Bradley ordered.

Stanley trusted his brother, so he closed his eyes, wondering what was going to happen. As he waited, the feeling popped up in his once again.

Before he could tell what the feeling was about, a sharp pain appeared out of nowhere on the left side of his arm. He quickly opened his eyes to see that his brother had hit him.

Immediately, he took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself down. He had just gone through the same things, so he was still a bit too drained emotionally to feel anything from some leftover feeling.

Still, he needed to calm down a little before talking. "Why did you hit me?" he asked.

"It worked, didn't it?" Bradley asked with shining eyes that seemed to be filled with childlike wonder. "I did it, didn't I?"

"Yes," Stanley answered. "I did get the feeling again. How did you know?"

"Because I was trying to get you to feel it again," Bradley said.

"Oh," Stanley was surprised. He thought for a second and asked, "Then… does pain bring forth these feelings?"

"Most likely," Bradley said. "It has to be a pain, doesn't it? That's the only thing that makes sense now."

"Actually, no. That doesn't make sense," Stanley said. Unlike his brother, he knew when the feelings came and they didn't necessarily come when he was in pain.

He was clearly never in any great pain during the fight yesterday. Even just now, the feeling came before the pain. It was the pain that distracted him from the feeling really.

It did mostly come during fights, but not always. In fact, the first time he got it was when he was with his mother, and he wasn't fighting at that time.

"Actually," Stanley spoke. "I… I think I know what triggers these feelings."

"Hmm? What?" Bradley asked curiously.

"Danger," Stanley said. "This feeling always comes right before I'm in some sort of danger."