More Nova Than Human

Chapter 3

Adrian swore silently to himself as he pushed himself to his knees. He grit his teeth in concentration as he reached up and grabbed a hold of the half foot chunk of wood jutting from his carotid artery as he inhaled sharply before pulling it from his neck with a hiss.

"Well, that was careless of me. Good thing Galiana isn't here. That would've earned me a nice, long lecture." he remarked as he tossed the bloody spar away into some nearby brush before taking off once more for the remainder of his squad. Hopefully Marin had been smart enough to evac the new recruits to a safe distance from the Type-S Nova that had materialized a few minutes ago during their training exercise.

He took off at a sprint for the last location he'd seen Marin and Ingrid when Galiana's distorted voice came on over the earpiece he'd materialized for the exercise.

"Adrian, where are you?! Get back to the group, we need to act quickly if we're gonna defeat the Type-S with minimal casualties."

"On my way, hold your horses." Adrian said as he materialized Wailing Dark underneath his feet before compressing the graphene powder together so it could hold his weight before lifting himself off the ground as he shaped Wailing Dark into something resembling a surfboard shape as he took off for the Nova. Adrian made sure to keep plenty more of Wailing Dark's sand particles close to him to help with his offense, defense, and reflexes(each sand particle acts as a small sensor letting him essentially extend his, auditory, taste, smell and touch sensory range.)

Adrian shot through the forest as fast as his Volt Weapon could carry him, before bursting through the edge of the forest to find Marin, Ingrid, and Galiana standing in a clearing, about half a click from the S-Type Nova.

"Where's everyone else?" Adrian asked a he hopped off the sand cloud onto the ground before Marin jogged over to him. Marin Maxwell was young woman of medium build with short, white-blonde hair and the seventh ranked second-year at the academy, and currently his platoon commander.

"They've retreated to a safe distance. Your sister however, insisted on remaining behind. She seems to think you two could be of some help against the Nova. Now, normally I wouldn't let her stay without a Limiter to back her up. But, I know you can cast a Freezing without one, and she's demonstrated she can do the same. So, I gotta ask. Will you two help us fight the S-Class? Neither Ingrid nor I have found a Limiter yet, so you two are the best we got."

"Yeah we will. Count us in." Adrian replied before he turned to Galiana."Hey sis, quick question. What was our best time on the Type-S sim back at Mount Orthrys?" he asked with a cocky grin.

"Two and a half minutes solo, and one forty seven together." Galiana replied.

Good, well then, how about we show these second years how it's done. I think this qualifies as an emergency enough to warrant unlocking our limiters, at least the N0 limiter." Adrian replied, Galiana nodding in agreement.

"Agreed. Let's do it." Galiana replied before both Kaiser twins turned to face the rapidly approaching Nova.

""Volt Texture, dismiss"" the twins said as the the blue hexagons spiraled out of their stigmata before the sclerae turned black and their pupil resumed their normal slit-like appearance before the two continued,

""Titan Volt Texture: equip!""

The shared looks of bewilderment on the second-years turned to astonishment as the twins quickly became covered in black, molded armor like those worn by paintballers or airsoft players, complete with face masks. (Sportsmaster's getup from Young Justice or Katniss' armor from the Mockingjay movie is a good reference)

"I got the whips if you got the core." Adrian said, apparently having forgotten the two second year's behind them.

"Deal. Deploy Volt Weapon: Phantom Hive." Galiana said as the air around her filled with what looked like rose petals but were actually micro-serrated titanium razor blades.

"Last one there gets to explain this to Konrad!" Adrian said as he took off at a sprint that made Usain Bolt look absolutely sluggish, Galiana right behind him.

Adrian dashed toward the Nova, closing to within a hundred meters before the Nova's blue Freezing field shot out to greet him before he and Galiana pushed it back with their own crimson Freezing before the Nova's blade whips swarmed out to stop the twin attackers.

"I got this." Adrian said as he turned Wailing Dark into a horde of spikes before gesturing towards the incoming whips, spearing most of them to the ground with the thick black spikes. Before the rest turned their attention to Adrian as he shaped the remainder of his Volt Weapon into it's most powerful form, a large nodachi with a white ray-skin wrap.

As soon as the next blade whip shot forward to impale him he leaped into the air, alighting atop the whip and extending the blade's length to slice clean through the rest of its untouched brethren severing all of them in three deft, graceful swings.

While Adrian busied himself distracting the Nova, Galiana leaped thirty feet into the air, sailing towards the Nova's armored mid section as she shot three streams of her Volt Weapon's razors spiraling toward the Nova's core before the razor streams slammed into the external armor, shredding it like tissue with a terrible shrieking sound of metal on ceramic.

Before she could trike the finishing blow though, the Nova yanked several of it's blade whips free, sending them veering right towards her. Before they could reach her, she back flipped off what remained of the Nova's armor, gracefully spinning through the air like a dancer to avoid the whips by a margin of millimeters as she fell towards the ground.

"Adrian, Rose Arrow!" she called as she fell towards her brother.

"Got it!" Adrian replied as he jumped towards his sister as she extended her arms towards her approaching sibling. As soon as he was within reach Adrian seized hold of her forearms before he spun in midair, using his spiral momentum to throw Galiana and himself higher into the air. As they reached the apex of their jump Adrian completed one final rotation before he sent Galiana shooting towards the Nova's exposed core.

As soon as Adrian released his hold on her Galiana began to spin herself like a top as she gathered her razors into a large spike over her legs before she slammed into the Nova's core, her momentum drilling a hole in the core before erupting out the other side like a bullet through a target as the Nova disappeared in a shimmer of light from the dimensional compression of the siblings combined Freezing field.

No sooner had the siblings hit the ground than the siblings heard a crowd of people running to greet them, apparently their platoon had rendezvoused with Elizabeth's and Chiffon's platoons before heading after them. Both of the Titans wordlessly re-engaged their limiters, hiding their eyes behind the Volt Texture.-

"What was the time on that one Galiana?" Adrian said as he removed his face mask and brushed a lock of crimson hair behind his ear as Galiana removed her mask as well.

"Three minutes, four if you include transit time."

"Don't let Hyperion hear that, or he'll think we're slipping. That's just make his day, to hear the great Cronos and Rhea Lancelot are losing their edge."

"Adrian, we aren't supposed to discuss Project Titan or our other siblings in public, remember?" Galiana warned him as the crowd drew closer.

"Yeah yeah, I remember." Adrian said with a nonchalant wave of his hand as the crowd came to a stop around them.

"Did you two first-years take out that Nova on your own?" Ingrid asked incredulously as she came to a stop.

"Yes we did, second-year." Adrian replied, unsure as to why every Pandora he met seemed to think the fact he and his sister were first-years meant they weren't the most powerful Anti-Nova warriors the world had ever seen, minus their mother and father of course.

"How in God's name did you two manage to defeat an S-Class Nova on your own?" a second-year named Elizabeth Mably, an English heiress with a body that'd make most Victoria's Secret Angel's green with envy and long flowing locks of golden-blonde hair, asked in a tone somewhere between incredulity and envy.

Adrian was spared having to explain himself to his seniors by the sight of a black Chevalier helicopter flying over the treeline towards Galiana and himself. The expression of dismay told him that Galiana had seen it too. Which meant they were both about to get hauled in and probably given a stern lecture on debuting classified military tech without proper authorization.

"Sorry ladies, but our ride's here. Talk soon." Adrian shouted as the sound of the choppers rotors became deafening as the helicopter began it's descent into the clearing.

Without another word, the twins boarded the helicopter before it rose once more into the air and took off for West Genetics...

Several hours later...

Elise Schmitz walked down the white halls of the infirmary to her new supervisor's office. She still couldn't figure out for the life of her why Chevalier had sent this Dr. Lorenz to West Genetics, from what she'd read, he was vehemently opposed to the Pandora Project, or anything it seemed with Dr. Aoi's name on it. She stowed the stack of manilla folders under one arm as she knocked on the door to his office. She waited a few minutes with no reply before pushing the door open to reveal the utilitarian office with a desk in the corner opposite a pair of black file cabinets.

Deciding it was in her best interest to just drop off the files on the cluttered desk and leave. She set the files on the desk and turned to leave when the image displayed on the screen caught her eye. The image was of a stigmata scan of two specimens labeled Cronos L. and Rhea L. quickly checking that the office was still deserted she sat down at the desk to take a quick look at the scan results.

She scanned the screen once over as quickly as she could without overlooking or forgetting anything... Then she scanned it once, twice, thrice more.

"This can't be right. If it is, then that means-" she began when a nasally voice with a thick, German accent cut in,

"That those two particular specimens of Project Titan, are totally composed of stigmatic tissue. From their skin to their eyes, bones, muscles, blood, nerves, and organs." Konrad said as he appeared in the door way in his black suit and horn-rimmed spectacles, his lean, bird-ish figure seeming to blend in to the little shadow present there in the room.

"Sir! I'm sorry for snooping, I swear I just meant to drop of the files you requested but the computer was on and-"

"Please, Dr. Schmitz, calm yourself, fraulein. I'm not upset with you. You should never apologize for scientific curiosity. But, that data is highly classified so I suggest you don't discuss it with your other colleagues. But tell me, what can you infer from this data?" Konrad said as he strode over until he was next to his desk before beginning to methodically clean his spectacles as Elise replied,

"Well, I'm not sure. The only other Pandora with any stigmatic tissue was Kazuha Aoi. She was born with it though, meaning it's a genetic trait. And unless the subjects are related to her, I don't see where they could have gotten the trait without being genetically modified." she finished as Konrad continued to clean his spectacles for almost thirty seconds in silence before slowly replacing them on his beak-like nose as he continued,

"Is that so? No other explanation than them being related to the Aoi's? I thought it was common knowledge all Nova are composed entirely of the same tissue."

"Yes... But, to have this concentration of stigmatic tissue without enhancement.. they would have to be..." she said as her voice trailed off before Konrad continued,

"Composed of more Nova DNA than human. But, worry not, all trials for Project Titan say that those two can't be Novalized by any currently known means. Now, run along, I have important business to attend to." he said with a shooing motion as Elise nodded curtly before scurrying from the room.

"In all fairness, I probably should've mentioned that both her theories were close to the mark. The Kaiser twins were related to Kazuha, even if they were just her half-aunt and half-uncle, even if their bodies were 75% composed of Nova DNA..." Konrad thought aloud as he brought up the files on the other ten Titans...

Meanwhile...

Astrid Vintervoss sprinted down the halls of the Genetics U.K. first-year boys dorm before arriving at her destination and bursting through the door into her brother's dorm.

"Tom! Did you see the news?! Cronos and Rhea just took out an S-Class by themselves that appeared during a training exercise!" Mnemosyne(Astrid to everyone but her fellow Titans) gushed as her brother Iapetus, (aka Tom McCloud) whirled to face the intruder in his door before a frown creased her brothers feature's at the sight of his sister, dressed in her typical out-of-class attire of a tie-die tee and acid-washed bell-bottom jeans. Mnemosyne has long hair that went to the middle of her back, her hair started out blonde at the roots but somehow naturally darkened to black at the tips.

Iapetus was still in his school uniform, the fabric struggling to contain the 6'6", 225lbs Titan man. Iapetus boasted a muscular physique that put most bodybuilders to shame with shoulder-length black hair that was grass-green with bangs covering his left eye. Iapetus gave an unintelligible grunt before turning the TV on and flopped onto the couch as Mnemosyne sighed and left.

"Dammit, I wish they hadn't dropped me in here with a sibling who talks less than Stephen Hawking." she said as she made her way back to her room...

Meanwhile, over at Genetics China...

Hyperion let out a feral bellow as he leaped of the wall of the combat sim room as he leaped toward his last Level-10 Pandora wire frame, his Volt Weapon, the guandao named Dragon Fang, raised high above his head as he shoved the bottom spike through the wire frame's shoulder before removing it and severing the simulated head from it's body in one grand swing that send his corn rows swinging about his face.

"Geez big bro, do you have to decapitate them? The headmaster is getting a little angry that you keep killing your Carnival opponents. We aren't supposed to be drawing attention to ourselves, especially after Cronos and Rhea killed that S-Class Nova a few hours ago." Theia said as she stopped leaning against the wall and skipped toward her fellow Titan.

Both Hyperion and Theia boasted attractive Chinese features, and that was about where the similarities ended. Hyperion was 5'10" and a wiry build with shoulder-length corn rows and piercing red eyes and a voice like a razor on stone and always wore a permanent scowl.

Theia was lean with defined muscles,black hair warn in long twin-tails, and at 5'8" was the shortest of any Titan, which was especially odd considering her large bust that always seemed to be almost too large for a girl her size. Theia, unlike her brother was almost always smiling and bursting with positive energy.

"When one draws a weapon, one must be prepared to slay or be slain. Weapons are not too useful as half-measures. Computer, Reset simulation, level 10, 25 enemies." Hyperion said as Theia sighedin defeat as she settled in to watch Hyperion train.

At Genetics America...

Themis put down her tablet as she closed the news article on the recent Nova Clash before exiting her room to walk across the hall to her sister Phoebe's door and twisted it as she pushed it open she heard a high-pitched sound somewhere between a moan and a shriek,

"Oh God, Phoebe! Right there! Faster, I'm almost there!"

Themis face-palmed as she caught sight of Phoebe's bed, obviously occupied judging by the flurry of activity and assorted moans coming from beneath the comforter.

"Jesus Phoebe! Really, right now?" Themis asked exasperatedly as the comforter stopped writhing,

"Hold that thought, Roxie. I'll be right back." Phoebe said as a pair of tan, shapely legs slid out from under the covers before followed by a shapely waist and hips barely covered by a silk thong as the rest of her sister's seductive body slid out with out a shred of additional clothing.

"Our brother and sister just slew a Nova, and you're here playing strumpet to our classmates!" Themis fumed as she frustratedly ran a hand through her short, brown hair as she did her best to look imposing despite her lithe form. Phoebe on the other hand was easily three inches taller with a much more toned and muscular body with shoulder-length black hair and beautiful Middle Eastern skin and features. Needless to say, Themis did not present a very intimidating figure.

"What can I say? I'm celebrating." Phoebe said as she stretched her tired muscles, the light from the ceiling glinting off her seductive, athletic body.

"Fine, continue you celebration. But if you keep this up, no man is gonna wanna be your Limiter if you keep this up."

"That's fine. I like girls better anyways."

Themis huffed a sigh of defeat as she threw her hands up in frustration before turning and making her way back to her room as Phoebe returned to her bed to resume her little exercise session.

"Why did I, the well-behaved one, have to be dropped here with that unruly party animal?" Themis wondered aloud to herself as she slammed her bedroom door behind her. It could be worse, she could be stuck with Hyperion or Cronos...

That night, West Genetics, Adrian's Dorm...

Adrian yawned as he shut off the TV and prepared to turn in for the night. It'd been a long day. What with the Nova, the interview with the school news, and the lecture from Konrad, he was beat. It was approaching four in the morning and he was halfway to his dorm when he heard a key being put into the deadbolt on his dorm room door.

Reflex kicked in as he leaped backwards before using the couch as a spring board as he managed to soundlessly wedge himself into the entry hallway about seven feet of the ground as he braced himself between the walls like a ninja from a bad Kung Fu movie as he flicked the lights off with a well thrown fifty yen piece.

Adrian waited patiently as he heard the door unlock and a shaft of light appear on the floor as it opened just a crack. He waited patiently as the door opened and a lone figure stepped through the door. As soon as the figure passed beneath him, he let himself drop directly onto the intruder's back as he wrapped her (Unless his visitor was a particularly bodacious man) in a Muay Thai clinch hold, as he pulled he down by the neck so he could bring a knee into her face if need be, all in under a second as he slammed the intruder into the wall. His grunted and struggled against his iron hold as he slammed her against the wall before flicking on the light to get a better look at his intruder.

"You! What the hell are you doing in my dorm at four in the morning?!" he exclaimed as he found himself staring straight into the red and panting face of his foster sister, Stella Lorenz, who until five years ago had gone by the name, Satellizer L. Bridget.

Author's Note: Alrighty guys and gals, here it is. I'll add more info on the rest of the Titans later on, I just figured you guys deserved a sneak peek at some of the other Titans. Yes, they are all related to each other and the Aoi family. I'll definitely do a better description and info when I introduce them after the 10th Nova Clash Arc. This is The 19th Angel, signing off...