Angel Monarch

As night fell on New Athens the city was absorbed in festivities. The taverns were overflowing with people. In every amphitheater, plays were being acted out. There were some classical ones that came from the Old World. Then there were the newer ones depicting most of Sera's triumphs.

There was the Tragedy of Venice, where a family of four gets saved by Lady Seraphine while their whole city gets destroyed. Then there was the comedy named Drunken Angel. Sera didn't really remember that night. The whole premise was her getting really drunk after a celebration like this, let's just say a lot of strange and funny things happened that night.

But by far the most liked is the aptly named Night of Liberation. This was the play's name which depicted Sera killing the tyrant. It was a tragicomedy, but they also made it into a musical.

Sera did watch all of them, but all her reactions that the people saw, were faked. In reality she didn't care how they made her look, and the Angelic Order handled the censorship process.

Every new play before getting a chance at the amphitheater's, had to go through a thorough scrutinizing. They made sure that Lady Seraphine's image wasn't depicted the wrong way.

In the middle of the city, within the encampment the celebrations took on a different form. All over the large square hundreds of tables were set up, most of it occupied by nearly a dozen people. And close to these tables a few rings were made in the ground, which were the real entertainment of the evening.

On these nights people could legally fight each other. They could take out their anger because of some difference, or just simply test out their strength. It was forbidden to use your weapons, armor, or abilities. Only training weapons with blunted blades.

Nobody really took it seriously. People laughed at the losers, but after a minute everyone forgot about it and drank all the same.

Another big thing was gambling. People bet on the fights, but the more interesting part was the other games. At a few tables everyone could play either poker or dice, which were more luck based, but another big sport between the evolved was chess.

Strangely enough this game of logic and pattern recognition survived even the Apocalypse. Some rules changed, more pieces were added and the board increased in size from an 8x8 to 10x10. There were two new pieces added and an old one, the knight was removed.

One of the pieces was called healer, which could bring back two other pieces to the game, if she makes it back and forth from two sides. This was a very powerful ability, only issue is she couldn't capture pieces, and could only move forward or backward by two squares, except if her path is blocked by a pawn, then she could jump to one of the other lanes.

The other was not so creatively called the evolved. He was more of an overpowered knight, meaning he could move in any directions up to three squares and could even jump over pieces. Needless to say usually these were the pieces most hunted for at the beginning.

There was also a randomness added to it, in the form of disasters. Every tenth turn the players would roll a new modifier. For example, every piece on the 6th row dies, or both side's evolved revive.

With these new features the game quickly became popular and in this year they even held a citywide championship, with a sizeable prize pool.

Currently Sera was playing against one of the best chess players in the encampment. And like everyone would expect, she was losing. Her opponent had a nearly ten point advantage, with his healer close to arriving back on his side of the board.

Luckily Sera found the best move and by sacrificing her rook, she managed to get checkmate in just a few more moves. Her opponent looked like he wanted to surrender sooner, but that would equate to bad sportsmanship... He would've never dared to do that against Sera.

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When she won the fifty or so people who were watching the exciting match, cheered. She held out her hand and shook the man's own, firmly. She put on her warmest smile when she said, "Great game, let's play again sometime."

The man was either terrified or enamored, it was hard to tell. Without much care for it, Sera stood up and walked to another table where people played poker.

It was already a few hours since the beginning, so her steps weren't the straightest. Every single time a celebration happened she drank so much, that it was hard to remember the night.

The buzz inside her gave some resemblance of emotional sensation. This was the only way for her to actually feel something, well other than pain or pleasure of course. Two sides of the same coin, you could lose your mind to either one, which Sera did a lot.

There wasn't one single partner she had sex with. She just chooses whoever she wanted in her drunken state. One recurring person was Hector. He was very aggressive in bed as well as in life, which was perfect for Sera.

It combined her three ways of feeling anything. Being drunk or high, while feeling pleasure and pain at the same time. It was a strange life... a horrible life... But that's all she had.

Sera didn't care if people called her whore or other names. If they wanted to judge her, they could do that, even if they said it to her face, she would just walk away. That was one of the only good aspects of not feeling anything... She didn't worry about other people's opinion, or what they thought of her.

Of course there was also the Angelic Order. If they found out that someone openly talked about their Lady like that... Let's just say the individual's lifespan would decrease from a few decades to maybe one day.

Sera sat down at the table where a game was already being played. The soldiers at the table stared at her with awe, then quickly looked away to not be creeps. While waiting for the turn to be over she drank her glass full of some liquor.

In New Athens there weren't many different kinds of alcohol. There was three main products, long drinks like beer or wine, strong drinks like whiskey and vodka. The last one was forbidden to be drunk by anyone who wasn't ascended, it's name was Critter Bite.

Technically it wasn't even alcohol, but the poison of some small evolved critter. They had a farm of them in an underground facility. If you distill the poison, mix it with hundred percent alcohol and some pure fruit extract, you get a drink that taste's pretty good and with only one sip has the effect of about half a liter of vodka.

Currently Sera was drinking her fourth cup. One thing they never talk about was, how much alcohol you need to consume as an evolved to get drunk. It was a true nightmare.

It took a few rounds for the fourth cup to hit, but when it did she felt amazing. Her head was buzzing, the lights shined brighter, everything seemed perfect. Sadly this state of ecstasy only lasted for about ten minutes. After that her super strong liver processed a large portion of the Critter Bite.

She sighed a bit disheartened, then stood up and went to get another drink. Soon Sera was drinking again, but this time she only took sips. With small and very shaky steps she approached the fighting circles.

There were about fifteen fights going on at the same time, but she quickly found the most interesting one. It seemed like Hector couldn't handle himself and started a fight with another ascended whom he was currently pummeling into the ground.

It was fun to watch for a while, but Hector's each hit gotten stronger and soon he couldn't hold his excitement and transformed. Sera quickly downed her drink and before the surprised ascended could suffer any real damage, she jumped in.

Hector's transformation was nothing special. His skin would turn dark and his physical strength would greatly increase. With these powers and his impulsive nature, the soldiers gave him the nickname Dark Fiend.

His fist was currently travelling towards the other ascended's head, if it would've reached him, the skull would've burst like a watermelon. Luckily for him, Sera was much faster than either fighter.

Using her wings she gained enough speed to reach and push him out of Hector's way. Sadly she didn't account for her drunkenness and the fist hit her clean on the left clavicle. Her hollow face didn't change, like she didn't even feel the hit... or her bones breaking.

In reality she was seeing red from all the pain, but throughout the past two years, she had suffered so much under Harold's hands that this felt more like a bee sting in comparison.

Using the power within the attack she turned from the waist and with a quick wingbeat, she appeared behind Hector. It only took one well placed fist to his kidney for him to crumple. The people watching the fight cheered all around her.

While coughing Hector slowly changed back. Still on the ground he looked up at Sera with terror in his eyes. But instead of getting straight up executed in the middle of the ring, Sera just motioned for him to follow.

Gradually he rose to his feet and nearly ran after the leaving Sera. They didn't go far, only to the nearest bar counter. Here Sera ordered a drink for both of them, then she clinked her glasses with Hector's and drank the whole Critter Bite in one gulp.

She looked towards the starry sky and enjoy the feeling of weightlessness for a while longer.

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