Angel Monarch

The next day Sera woke up in her large bed alone. Yesterday after she had sex with Hector for a few hours, she sent him away. It was always like that with every single one of her nightly partners. They could have sex with her, but not sleep next to her.

While slowly trying to get up, she hissed a bit and looked down on her bruised body. Her wrists were purple, the bone a bit brittle, same went for her chest and ribs. But only when she walked to the large mirror on her wardrobe, did she see the full extent of it. The worst looking part was her neck which got nearly crushed during the night.

It was always like that with Hector, same amount of pain and pleasure. They at least made her feel something. Gingerly she touched the large bruise right on her throat, then with a small grimace she went to take a shower.

Still dripping wet, Sera went and opened her wardrobe. It was full of the same kinds of clothing, leather jackets ranging from light brown to black in colors. Pants that were made of a stretchable material so it wouldn't impede her movement. Military boots, all of them black. And short sleeved shirts, in darker colors of course.

Quickly she picked out her clothes, including a leather jacket with the largest collar. It hid her neck bruise quite well. With that done, she stood in front of the mirror and summoned an item.

It was a small earing with pained faces on it. This was an item she commissioned from one of her subordinates. It had one ability, being able to edit her appearance to a small degree.

As she put it on her waist long hair shortened and only reached her shoulder blades, it also changed the color from its magnificent golden into a bit lustrous, but still ordinary black. Her eye color changed as well, from its golden color into a nice hazel. Sadly this was the extent that the item could change her looks, but it was good enough.

After being done with that, Sera spent the next half an hour making facial expressions. This was the only way she could at least try to mimic regular humans who still had their emotions.

Eventually after trying on every expression she knew, Sera made a small nod to her mirror self. She then proceeded to walk out of her room.

The building she lived in was a small mansion. It had at least five bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, multiple living rooms and recreational spaces, a large kitchen and a connected dining room. Sadly this whole building was filled with emptiness.

Every large room, every bedroom, every living space was missing something vital... Life...

This whole large building, and Sera lived alone. Every day people came and cleaned every room in the house, but that was the only traffic it got.

As Sera walked down the silent hallway, her steps echoed throughout the building. Since it was currently 6 in the morning even the gunshots and explosions which usually sounded in a military encampment, were silent.

It shouldn't have minded her, since she literally couldn't feel either loneliness or sadness, but it increased her hollowness a bit. This was one of the reason why she never ate at her house.

There was one true way she found that let her elevate the hollowness a bit, and that was to be around regular people more. This task in and of itself wasn't easy because of her status as the city's leader, but that was the earing's job. She could mingle with her citizen's without them knowing her actual identity.

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She preferred to have breakfast in a small restaurant, then just walk around the city for a while. As a leader she should've had loads of work to do each day, ranging from reading reports about her military, economy, citizen welfare, etc. Luckily for her, Bran and Melinda took care of the mundane part of her job.

It gave her a lot more time to contemplate and plan, which she spent most of her time with.

Eventually she made her way out of the house, then out of the encampment. Nobody questioned or stopped her, since her evolved beauty still remained. Even the earing couldn't remove that.

Walking through the streets of New Athens people still stared at her, but it was because of her looks instead of status. It always felt a bit liberating, like she could breath more easily.

Sera made her way to the small restaurant she liked and sat down at one of the empty tables near a window. The waitress quickly appeared. She was a young girl, who shouldn't be working, but be in school.

Her name was Adeline, the daughter of the owner of this restaurant. She only worked here on the weekends, since as a 16 year old she was obligated to attend school. But when she had free time, she helped with her father's business.

It might seem strange that Sera knew so much about this small establishment. She even knew Adeline's mother, since Sera was the reason she was dead. Caroline was her name, she was an evolved who worked near Sera's house... She was there when the explosion happened...

One of the few thousand person who Sera had accidently killed with her first resurrection in New Athens.

The first time Sera came here was to just give the family money and tell them how sorry she was. It was a blatant lie, but the people believed it anyway. Back then they offered her some food, which she enjoyed greatly.

Since that day she had came here for breakfast every time her schedule allowed it. The short, brown haired girl, with hidden sad eyes approached her table. As always she was very nervous. Even though Sera pretended to not be the city's leader, she was still an evolved.

Sera forced out her warmest smile, which seemed to calm Adeline down. "Hey Adeline. How are you doing?" She said while trying to mimic a normal person's tone and voice. There must have been some small mistake, since the young waitress looked at her strangely.

After a few moments she let it drop and answered Sera's question. "I'm doing great, ma'am. Thank you for asking..." She stayed silent for a while longer, then seemed to remember her purpose as a waiter. "Uhm... What can I bring the lady today?"

Sera made a small well placed giggle, then just said. "I think the usual will be fine."

Adeline quickly wrote down Sera's order, then just to be safe read it back to her. "So... One coffee black, a serving of scrambled eggs with bacon, and one serving of waffles with whipped cream... Is that correct, ma'am?"

Sera smiled a little, then said "It certainly is."

Adeline quickly went away and while waiting, Sera stared out the window watching the cityscape.

New Athens was truly a city of wonders. The buildings were modern, but with a classical, almost ancient architecture to them. It was a perfect blend between the past and the present.

It is said that the Athens that stood here before the Apocalypse, was the heart of some civilization once. They say this was the place where democracy was born. The ideology was a bit confusing for Sera.

Why would some random person that the most people liked, lead a society? If democracy would still be alive, they could replace Sera with someone who wasn't even an evolved! It sounded utterly ridiculous to her, but of course she was born in a society where democracy was eradicated more than a hundred years ago.

It proved to be really ineffective when multiple planets could vote for leaders on other planets. They then tried a decentralized government structure, which nearly immediately lead to civil war. In the end democracy failed as a government structure and they went back to some form of monarchy.

Sera knew all about these things, for reason's she had no idea about. But these information about the past's failed societies and broken empires, gave her the opportunity to not make the same mistakes.

There was a saying she liked, 'A normal person learns from their own mistakes. A smart one learns from other people's mistakes.'

This was a quote she tried to live by, but it didn't work most times. There were a lot of cases where she had done something nobody else before her did, which meant she couldn't learn from others and made mistakes of her own.

She continued to stare outside. Slowly the Sun rose on the horizon and the magical city came to life. Cars began rolling down the streets, the people were in a hurry to either get to their workplace, or somewhere else.

The streets were emptier than on most days since it was saturday, but not everyone got free weekends. Some people worked mostly on weekends, like entertainment workers. They made their largest profits on days like this, when people had time to bring their children to watch a play, or go to the zoo.

Yeah, New Athens even had a zoo and there weren't only normal animals kept inside, but even a few smaller and harmless monsters. The revenues the brought in, when their monster section opened was on a whole different level.

But of course not every person would go to these places. Some of them spent their time within the Angelic Order's weekly mass, which happened on every saturday at 9 am.

After waiting for fifteen minutes, her ordered food arrived, which she consumed very leisurely.

First she drank from the coffee with no sugar or milk. It had a horrible bitter taste, which suited her just fine. In her opinion every feeling was better than emptiness. It also made the actual food's taste much better.

While eating she overheard a few conversations about yesterday's events. People mostly talked about the assassination, which made sense. They were quite angry about the perpetrator, but also proud of their leader.

Sera didn't particularly care and after eating and drinking herself full. She left her table with a very generous tip of a few thousand credits. Just for perspective, her whole meal had the cost of about thirty.

After walking out of the restaurant, she looked around and began walking around the city without any target in mind.

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