Angel Monarch

When Sera woke up a few hours after everything went down she was quite confused and disoriented. She was perfectly fine physically, but mentally she felt dead tired.

She wanted to act lazy and stay in bed, but knew to get up and check on how everyone was doing. Luckily she didn't even have to leave the small room she slept in.

Maya ––the 14 year old girl–– was in her room, watching over her wellbeing. They spent the next hour talking and she even showed Sera a video of the speech she didn't actually make.

Before Maya could finish bringing her up to speed, Sera rushed out and went to find Cassandra.

She was sleeping in a makeshift room inside the city, it was close to the wall, and she still smelt the blood that was spilled a few hours ago. Without much care Sera moved on and began walking in some random direction.

The clothes she wore were mundane. They were different from the ones she had on in the battle, since those got burned to crisps. It was also nothing like she usually wore.

She had a pair of white running shoes, with knee-length khaki cargo shorts. The upper half of her body was covered by a size too small pink t-shirt. The whole setup looked ridiculous, but it was a great incognito.

Not a single one of her soldiers recognized her, since wearing anything like this was just impossible for someone like Sera.

While walking, she texted David and asked him where Cassandra was. He sent the coordinates and she quickly got to the location.

The area was strange. Sera needed to check multiple times if she got the location right, but there was no mistake. The whole place was a gigantic construction sight, which was busy with hundreds or even thousands of people.

She recognized this place. This was where she resurrected and killed a transcended with her explosion, but a lot had changed in the past few hours it seemed.

Sera stared at the people moving around. There were also large trucks carrying different kinds of building materials. It was clear they were about to build some structure here... Something gigantic.

With curiosity Sera moved towards David and Cassandra, but as it turned out they weren't alone... When Sera got through the crowd, who were finally starting to recognize her, she was really surprised to find a third person next to the pair.

They stood with their back's to her, but she instantly recognized the girl standing next to them. Her hair was long and golden, except at the roots where it stayed its original black color.

She wore a robe just like always. On its back a large seven pointed golden star marked her beliefs.

As Sera stepped closer they all turned around in sync. They looked at her a bit strangely, marking her weird choice of clothing, but Sera felt even more surprised.

Both David and Cassandra had small pins that looked like seven pointed stars on their clothes. With confusion Sera turned her head and looked at the working people around her. Only now did she realize that all of them had similar looking pins.

Her eyes then went to Lilith, who just shrugged with faked innocence. She tried to smile at Sera, but it wasn't genuine. There was some hidden pain beneath her usual mask. Most people couldn't see it, but Sera was always good at detecting such emotions, especially on younger girls.

Lilith noticed Sera's questioning stare too, but she just shook her head a bit, then pointed to the watch on Sera's hand. Even after the breakthrough in safe communication Lilith chose not to use the watches.

With curiosity Sera was about to bring up her messages, but at that moment David and Cassandra approached her. They were all smiles and giggles. Sera spotted their hands, which were locked together... It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened.

"Hey, Sera... Nice outfit, very chaotic!... It looks... Well, it looks like something..." Cassandra tried her hardest to compliment the weird choice of clothes, but it seemed to be against her nature to say anything nice about something so distasteful. Her face was at the edge of vomiting from disgust.

"Sera, dear... If you need advice on styles of clothes, or if you are out of things to wear, you can always ask me... I will give you my whole wardrobe just so you don't look like... That!" Cassandra looked away with a nauseas expression.

David chuckled awkwardly and quickly tried to change the subject. He also elbowed Cassandra a bit forcefully, while whispering to her to be nice.

"How you doing?" He asked with a bit of concern. With that Cassandra seemed to remember what happened a few hours ago, and she looked genuinely mortified by her earlier statement about clothes.

It suddenly dawned on her that Sera was practically naked when she handed her to Frank, since her clothes burned to cinders. They must've placed on her the closest clothes they could find. Her face quickly got absorbed by concern too.

At some point Lilith appeared next to them as well. She looked mostly curious and interested. She had absolute faith in Sera, so she felt no concern to anything small like what happened earlier.

"I'm okay. It will take a few days until my essence fully recovers, especially now that it reached its maximum potential... Honestly I just fill dead tired, like I could sleep for a year straight." She yawned to emphasize her statement.

Cassandra looked relieved hearing that, but Lilith and David didn't believe her. Sera forced out a smile and narrowed her eyes, before either could raise any issues Sera looked away from them. She stared at the large construction site.

Trucks were still constantly dumping building materials to one corner of the large square, while people actually began to take them away and start making the concrete base of the structure.

Noticing her curious look, Cassandra quickly stood next to her and began explaining with excitement.

"We are building a large cathedral for the Angelic Order! Isn't that great?" Sera looked back towards Lilith and David, both of them shrugged.

"I mean... It's fine... But why are you doing this?" Cassandra's enthusiasm didn't vain.

She smiled brightly at Sera, and embraced her in a large hug. It was very uncomfortable, and way too tight. Sera felt Cassandra's way too large breast press onto her, which made the situation even weirder.

After a few seconds she moved away and looked into Sera's eyes gratefully.

"It's a gift. You saved me at the battle, and I thought to commemorate the occasion with the largest church the Angelic Order has ever seen! It's a mark of our triumph over the Untied Front, right at the spot where you resurrected!"

Hearing that Sera didn't know what to say. It somehow felt nice to be recognized in such way, but also very strange and uncomfortable. Eventually she decided to stay silent and watch the people move about.

At this point everyone began talking between each other, while they all made subtle points towards Sera. The incognito was nice while it lasted.

Stay connected via empire

There was an area with a bunch of tables and different papers all placed around a group of individuals who were probably the engineers and architects working on the planning of the church.

Slowly Sera began walking towards them. Behind her Cassandra, David and Lilith silently followed.

The civilians noticed her a bit too late. Seeing Sera standing close by made them jump from surprise, then look at each other with confusion. They weren't sure what to say or do, but Sera didn't even glance at them.

Her eyes were on the papers with the different measurements and plans. The cathedral was going to be gigantic.

First she examined a side shot of the building, which showed its planned height of 300 hundred meters. Its gates are planned to be about the size of the actual city gates.

The next one she looked was the shot drawn from above. The building's structure will look like a seven pointed star, with seven different entrances.

There was a lot Sera didn't understand in these drawings, but when she got to the inside view she shook her head in self-deprecation.

The inner building supposed to have dozens of different floors, and the whole structure will be built around a gigantic statue of Sera, which would be visible from every point inside the building.

Seeing the architects rendition of her, made Sera burn the paper of the statue. The architects and engineer jumped from surprise. They began to cower and beg for their lives, but Sera knew exactly who was responsible for the weird statue design.

She turned to Cassandra with an exasperated expression. Lilith just shook her head while giggling to herself, she saw and approved the statue even though she knew Sera wouldn't like it... It was just simply too funny to not use it.

The statue was supposed to be a rendition of Sera standing on top of the transcended woman's bear head. Her glaive was placed with the butt down on the ground. Her eyes were fierce and her expression serious.

These were all fine. The problem was her clothing, or more like the lack of it. She was practically naked on the picture, only a few tendrils of flames hiding her breasts and other inappropriate parts.

"I don't mind the church, even though its kind of a waste of perfectly good resources. But that statue has to change. As everyone knows I don't care what happens to my image, but I won't let an undignifying statue like that be raised in a place of worship!" Cassandra didn't even look surprised, it was like she knew that Sera wouldn't approve of it.

"I understand. Then I guess you just have to pose for a picture, in selected clothes, make-up, facial expression and everything else. Yes, I do think that's a much better idea. Thank you for suggesting it!" After this David, Cassandra and Lilith all began to laugh, while Sera just shook her head again.

"How the fuck did I walk into that..." She grumbled under her breath, then walked away to inspect the city and its defenses.