Angel Monarch

Sera's gym was full of people training. The most notable was the circle in the middle, which everyone left alone.

There, Sera trained alone with Damien. They weren't using powers, only physical strength, so obviously Sera got her ass handed to her repeatedly.

She dodged his training sword, then moved her glaive in a low sweep. He back flipped over it and delivered a kick in mid air.

It hit Sera on her jaw, stunning her momentarily. Damien then doubled down with a clean stab, that Sera managed to push away just as it was about to hit her midsection.

She moved as fast as she could. While turning in a pirouette, she took a step back and attacked Damien with a vertical strike.

He didn't even place extra strength or speed into his sword, but still parried her glaive with ease. Even in his minor blow, there was enough force for Sera's glaive to fly a few meters away.

She didn't let the move unbalance her though. Her golden eyes turned angry and annoyed.

When Damien's move finished, his expression became surprised, as he saw Sera standing in front of him.

With her hands bowled into fists. One connected with Damien's stomach, and the other with his chin. She got a few good punches in, but then Damien retaliated with a quick jab using the butt of his sword.

It hit Sera square in one eye, sending her crumpling to the ground. She growled in anger and was about to push herself up when Damien placed his feet on her back, preventing her from doing so.

"I think we should take a break, don't you?"

Before she could say anything, he was already moving away towards the rest area. He tossed his sword to a random Angelic Order member standing nearby.

He walked straight to Bea, Bran, and Melinda. The three of them spent the past few hours watching Sera train herself past exhaustion.

In the past two weeks after waking up, she barely left the gym. She either trains with other Order members, or she goes into virtual reality to fight in specific scenarios.

Bran had checked out the scenarios, and the new ones left him worried about Sera's state.

In most of them, she fought against Scarred Sera in her strongest form. The VR was mostly useless in simulating anything at Transcended or higher level, but Sera still made multiple scenarios.

Everyone feared Sera's mental state. She spent two days passed out, then one day in bed, but awake.

After she could walk and fight again, she had spent more time in the gym than anywhere else.

By Lilith's account, Sera's dreams are full of Scarred Sera. Those few minutes while she held back her other half's flames left her mind with deep scars.

But that wasn't the main issue. When her energy ran out and she could only watch as Scarred Sera tried to come through the Gate, to kill them all, did even more damage to her psyche.

It left her with a deep feeling of inadequacy, which in turn, caused her to train a lot more, even though training would never close the distance between her and Scarred Sera.

In those moments, she lost all control, and she felt so powerless that her mind partially broke with terror. She never wants to feel that again, so in her mind she needs to train to be stronger.

Lilith wasn't entirely certain about any of this, but she spends most of her time speaking with psychiatrists, so she could get a better understanding about Sera's mental state.

Bea, Bran, and Melinda tried to talking with her, but she only gives one-word answers to their questions. Most of the time, she just ignores them.

There is only one person she talks to regularly, and that's her daughter. They usually train together. Vicky was trying to get used to her new form, while Sera trains her abilities and tries to make herself use the additional energy source.

Bea and Sera hadn't had an in-depth conversation about what happened back on Kriti. So, they both explored their powers separately, much to Bea's despair.

After much discussions between them, they gave Sera space, and let her deal with her fears on her own.

It wasn't easy for them to leave her alone, but their love for her overruled their own needs and wants. That didn't mean they stopped talking about the problem.

The four of them watched as Sera took on Kim, Astrid, Lucy, and Faith alone. She had no chance in a purely physical fight, which confused Bran and Melinda. But Bea explained to them Sera's reasoning...

"One defeat teaches more lessons than a thousand victories. She purposefully puts herself against unwinnable odds, since that's how she felt when fighting against Scarred Sera."

Melinda and Bran looked at Bea for a moment, then turned back to Sera with a different understanding.

The four women worked well together. They used Astrid's exceptional height and strength to their advantage.

She took up most of Sera's attention, while the other three attacked at the exact moment Sera would've been able to retaliate.

It was an art watching her defend and attack against the overwhelming force. And what made it truly something wonderful was how quickly she learned from her mistakes.

Each time she missed or moved at the wrong moment, she never made the same mistake twice.

"I have to say... It's mostly useless what she is doing, but her ability to improve is something amazing..." said Bea, her voice full of awe.

Next to her, Melinda chuckled as she recalled old memories.

"You two know nothing about Sera... At least not the one from before her evolution..."

This grabbed both of their attention. It wasn't often Melinda was willing to speak of her and Sera's common past.

Her blue and green eye twinkled as light reflected from the tears welling in there.

"She was always like this, learning everything quickly for no apparent reason. She completed all her tests perfectly, but even when she failed something, she spent extra time studying that subject and mastered it by the next time."

"She never failed from anything more than once... In one year, she was failing in athletics, so she spent the entire year in the gym, and by the end she was the best in our class."

Hearing this story brought smiles to all of their faces... It seemed memories weren't the only core part of one's personality.

Just because Sera had no knowledge about any of this, she still acted exactly like when she was younger.

They continued to watch as Sera fell to the ground again and again, losing to the four women constantly.

Out of curiosity, Bran timed how long she lasted each time, and the answer wasn't surprising to any of them. After each loss, she lasted longer. It was only a few second difference, but the increase was linear and ever present.

At first she barely lasted a minute, but after fighting for close to two hours, she lasted well over three minutes.

It wasn't only her stamina and defense that improved. At first, she couldn't even land a single hit, but as time passed, she got more and more hits in, and at some point, she managed to take Lucy out.

Then at another time, Faith fell, or Kim, and even Astrid, the best out of the four, had fallen once.

The speed with which Sera improved was nothing to scoff at, and they were certain that given enough time, she would've been able to beat all four at once.

Sadly, unlike her, most people only spent a few hours training, so after two hours, all the four women went away, leaving Sera alone once more.
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She looked around the gym, which was mostly emptied by now, and upon seeing no potential opponent, she took a break too.

This didn't mean Sera would stop training, but instead of doing it physically, she does it mentally.

She placed down her training glaive, then sat on the mat cross-legged. She then closed her eyes and revisited all her mistakes in her previous fights.

This way she not only realized what she had done wrong, but she mentally corrected the mistakes and thought of solutions to the problems.

Bea and the others weren't certain it has any effect on her fighting, but they took every moment she spent without getting beaten up as a small blessing.

They wanted to give Sera as much time as she needed to get her head straight, but with the news coming from Rome, their time had run out.

Adam had already returned there, since a bit of insurgency popped up in the city. But that wasn't the biggest issue.

The Federal Alliance began testing the strength of the Aegis System by sending a large force against Rome.

The news only arrived in the morning, but they still hadn't informed Sera, but they were running out of time.

They just wanted her to have as much free time as possible, before leadership would inevitably suck her back in.

When she finished with meditating and she was about to search for opponents, Bea, Bran and Melinda approached her with the news.