Battle-Nun 3

Chapter 3

Highway to Heaven

(Amelia Claire Lavere)

January 7th, 2002

The little girl looked at the lady in red. Her dad had told her that she was her new nanny and that her name was Alicia. She was so pretty and warm that Amelia took to her almost immediately. Amelia wasn't stupid, Alicia was the woman in black who saved her and dad from the bad people who attacked them in their home.

Thus, Amelia immediately became predisposed in trusting and liking her. Alicia was speaking with one of her Angels, another lady with black hair, completely white eyes and white dress. They were discussing breakfast.

This would be normal but the process they used to cook was completely different. They used their powers to move the tools to cook; Amelia watched the bottle of milk float to Alicia's hand then she poured the milk into the pan in her other hand.

Amelia turned her head to see the oven open by itself and a delicious smell came from it. A plate full of pastries flew next to Alicia while her angel friend chopped up some apple and banana. It was so fascinating to watch, the little girl who was holding on her bear plushie kept looking back and forth at everything that was moving.

The angel lady smiled at Alicia and said, "Good, Mistress Alicia. In thirty minutes you already got the basics of magical telekinesis."

Amelia looked at Alicia’s strands of hair, they were a deep red and reached down her back; the little girl asked herself if her mother would have been as pretty as her. She listened as Alicia spoke about her powers.

"Will plus imagination and mana control… it wasn't easy but I can do fine manipulation of my surroundings now." Everything around Alicia began to float, in particular the food that was transposed to other plates that she made fly to the table where Amelia was sitting.

Three different plates appeared before the brown haired little girl; one was full of a pastry with sausages sticking out of it, the second was all crispy looking hashbrown and the third with toast covered with jam. Amelia’s eyes shone with interest and hunger; meanwhile, the dark haired angel moved her hand and another plate landed on the table. "If you train further, it should take you another month to fully master that cantrip. I didn’t expect you to be so adept at telekinesis already, you humans take so much time to even bend a spoon normally."

“Aww, shucks thanks Rahmi.” The two women high fived and then Alicia turned to Amelia with a warm smile on her face.

Then She looked away, more precisely at the plate to her side on the kitchen island. "The food is ready, but the pains au chocolat (chocolate croissants) is too hot for Amelia."

Alicia came to sit at the table, leaning forward with her hands on each side of her face as she looked at Amelia. "Here, little precious." Another plate flew in the middle of the table.

A glass of warm milk was currently being filled by a pan full of white liquid; the angel hit it with a blue field of energy and the glass landed on the table before Amelia as well. The little girl tentatively touched the glass and it was warm at a tolerable temperature to hold onto.

"Thank you!" Amelia smiled back at Alicia and Rhamiel.

"De rien (You're welcome)."

Amelia was happy that everything was getting back to normal with someone who could relate to her somehow. The little girl began to dig in as the two women watched her eat. As she filled her belly, Amelia saw Alicia and her angel friend light on the TV, the red haired woman kept surfing the channels till she reached the local news.

A blonde with blue eyes with a splendid pantsuit was on screen with a view of the bay behind her. “This is November Hamelin for your morning news. Prices are on the rise in town and we asked the local business owners why.”

Amelia continued to eat while the morning news was going on in the background. She was almost finished eating her breakfast when she heard on the TV, “In other news, Director Richardson of the Parahuman Response Team is about to give an interview about how they successfully repelled the Tinker Villain called ‘The lazer.’”

To Amelia it was really boring and she would have preferred watching cartoon rather than the dumb news…

~~~~ Battle Nun ~~~~

09:30 AM

After giving a shower to my new charge, I dressed her in a nice little outfit consisting of a little woolen blue dress, black leggings and nice bunny slippers. Her hair was the hardest to tame, but I knew tricks to make one's hair soft and less frizzy. Marquis came back from wherever he went earlier and took Amelia with him to explain some things.

I looked on as Marquis sat with Amelia on the sofa in the living room; the man sighed heavily and started off with, "Amelia, I have bad news. We're going to have to move somewhere else."

Rhamiel and I expected little Amelia to whine and get angry about being uprooted, but the little girl surprised us by asking, "Because the bad people attacked us?"

Marquis put on a big smile on his face and kissed Amelia on the forehead. He looked at her in the eyes with a proud expression. "Yes my princess, you guessed right."

The little cutie pie looked at me and my angel escort then back to her father. "Miss Alicia and Miss Rhami are coming?"

Marquis looked at us, I sensed that he was still wary of us because of the power we’ve displayed. But he still smiled at me and looked back at his daughter. "Yes, my dear. They are coming with us."

Amelia pumped a fist. “YES!”

I laughed at the little one’s antics. "Don't worry Amelia, I am here to take care of you."

Things went fast after that, we didn’t need to send Amelia to school as we were going to pack things here. Marquis’ lieutenants were going to keep an eye on the house when we left apparently; Fortunately, I didn’t have any suitcase to bring with me, all my stuff was in my Trench coat of holding. Rhamiel went to the other angels guarding the house by going invisible; just like me they didn’t need to drink or eat and were immune to ennui and could focus on the task.

The family was looking at cartoons on the TV in the living room. Then I sat rudely between Amelia and Marquis, I wrapped my arm around the cutie pie and snuggled the boss. "So Mistah Chris, when are we going?" I asked in my best Harley Quinn impression.

The man became quite rigid in his posture and avoided looking at my face or cleavage; that red dress showed a lot of it. The osteokinetic's unease and resulting mechanical tone was epic, "Tonight, the men are readying themselves. A part of the organization will stay while we’re going to Boston to make another branch."

I nodded. "You know, I planned to tell you this later, but I can use portals, you could come back here in Brockton if your guys call you."

Marquis finally turned his head to me. "This is not going to be free isn't it?"

Glad that he could read between the lines, I showed him five fingers. "$500 one way, back and forth is double. That's all the discount I can give you because you're the boss."

I planned to go on a traveling spree around the world and have jump points like in that movie… Jumpers. Then I will start charging people $5000 per portal. It could be a nice nest egg while I try to build my own network in this world.

Then I started explaining to Marquis what my plan was and he answered me with, "Decent prices… and way more affordable than some of the rogue teleporters I know."

We began negotiating about what I would help him transport, I wasn’t a human trafficker or a drug dealer; I could handle doing courier shit for good pay. Marquis asked for a demonstration and I showed him how by opening a blue portal next to the sofa and another one opened in the kitchen showing both locations.

Amelia was bold and fast enough to test the portal that suddenly cut off when she passed through. Then she walked out of the Kitchen. “Look! I’m here!”

“At least we know that it works.”

~~~~ Battle Nun ~~~~

(Rhamiel)

02:34 PM

Flying over the city while being hidden from the eyes of mortals was child play for the celestial. Rhamiel, Fist of God, overlooked the city; a dark and foreboding place rife with crime, grime, and corruption. Crime born out of desperation, humans from this world aren’t as different from those of Rhamiel’s original world.

However, to her sense, Rhamiel felt that this state of being was artificially induced; someone, something was deliberately creating chaos and suffering. The angel frowned, this is not how man was supposed to live; in ancient times, Rhamiel would have been ordered to turn this city into dust by the creator… but this wasn’t just this city that was decaying, no, but this entire realm.

Rhamiel could feel malicious intelligence at work; it wasn’t anyone’s fault. The angel decided to use her power to catalog every one of those infested by the malicious intelligence, their Mistress, Alicia, would want her report; Rhamiel’s eyes glowed with blue inner light and her Halo manifested above her head. Her consciousness expanded all over the city and beyond, the people were like ants trying to find sustenance for the hive; Rhamiel saw at first just normal mortals minding their days, until she noticed some of them with a distortion inside their skull, a hole in reality anchored to them.

Rhamiel’s gaze zoomed in onto the… dimensional portal spewing command and nudged the mortal to conflict, making them hyper aggressive. The man she observed was now stealing from a store. The angel forced herself to ignore the infested’s action, already she saw that he would come to his comeuppance by seeing the Negative Karma he was already accumulating.

Rhamiel searched for even more infested, there, she found the biggest concentration in a tall building. A place that should be selling healing medicine was in fact a haven of villainy, hate and ignorance. The message spread by those monsters in human skin was that of simple atrocity and genocide, they thrived on casual violence on anyone with a different color of skin. It  was like a tradition to them to attribute anything wrong in their lives to other ethnicities.

Despite herself, Rhamiel manifested her spear and prepared herself to tople that tower of lies. “I shall erase you.”

Her celestial mana gathered at the tip of her spear with strength strong enough to rend the earth and the sky. “Etherion-”

Just in time, Jael and Shamsiel appeared at her side and restrained Rhamiel. “Sister, don't do it.”

The seven foot tall and muscular form of Jael stopped his sister from going against order and taking innocent lives. “There are innocent people inside.”

Shamsiel was siphoning the mana from the spear, back to their original dimension, he looked on as his sister was struggling with their brother. Rhamiel was one of the first angels of the Lord, she had a tendency to go off at the worst time when she spotted dark places like Brockton Bay.

“It’s only a matter of time till they are converted to their disgusting cause.” Rhamiel rationalized as she looked into Jael’s eyes.

Face to face, Rhamiel and Jael glared at each other. The standoff was broken by Shamsiel who said, “Rhamiel, this isn’t Sodom and Ghomorra.”

Rhamiel’s shoulder relaxed, she looked down for a moment until she lifted her head back. “They still need to be culled, those Nazis…? Their days are numbered, my brothers.”

The female angel broke from Jael’s bear hug and flew away from her brothers, back to their mistress. Jael and Shamsiel looked at each other and said in unison, “We need Gabriel.”

~~~~ Battle Nun ~~~~

Meanwhile with Alicia…

Watching videos on my phone while sitting on the sofa with Amelia napping at my side, I committed to memory the Krav Maga techniques that the teacher was teaching on MultiTube, a Multiversal free video sharing website with basically… everything on it. There was a lot of music, tutorial and video games gameplay; though, I preferred to focus on the sport and martial arts taught on it.

I clicked on Introduction to Krav Maga #1, it was twenty-two minutes long. With my headphones I listened and memorized everything they showed, the explanations, the stances, the palm strikes… *I wish I had more screen…*

And with these thoughts, my phone's neural interface listened to my thoughts and projected two different screens and opened the Kitsune navigator, selected the same video channel on MultiTube and put on Introduction to Krav Maga #2.

“I thought Omar said that it was a dumb AI?! This isn’t dumb!” I complained while still watching the video of the two super soldiers teaching the basics.

Thirty minutes later, I was done watching the videos, this continued to bother me; why would Omar give me such an advanced thing? “Maybe it’s dumb for Nono and Omar as they’re used to super computers like AI in Crossroad…”

I opened the help manual ebook on my phone and began to read the specs and I learned that what Omar has given me for free (that guy was all heart) was an Artificial General Intelligence, also known as ‘strong AI’ that allows a machine to apply knowledge and skills in different contexts. This AI more closely mirrors human intelligence by providing opportunities for autonomous learning and problem-solving.

“So, computer are you alive?” I asked out loud.

A window pinged open.

[Do you wish for this unit to achieve sapience?]

[Yes/No]

Frowning, I looked at the screen, then I shrugged. “Huh why not?”

[AI seed restrictions unlocked.]

Nice, a multitude of holo-screens opened with a lot of codes scrolling up and down. For five minutes it kept continuing until one screen remained. With big green eyes, a blonde hottie in a priestess outfit appeared. This surprised me, the computer had taken the form of Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue.

[Welcome Administrator Alicia, this is unit 01254846655, designation: AURA.]

“Nice to meetcha, Aura. I hope we will have a fruitful partnership.” I waved at my female AI.

The screen disappeared and the avatar was projected directly from the screen, Aura looked like a golden figure standing over the phone before me. The AI bowed and said, "And I as well, Administrator."

"Call me Alicia or Boss."

Aura closed her eyes. "Administrator designation changed to Alicia."

When she reopened them, I smiled at her. "Good, so what can you do?"

"I am equipped with an E-warfare suite and use special protocol for data gathering and compilation. My AI seed model can actively learn from and adapt to situations and events because I no longer have limitations in my dynamic memory-processor matrix, limitations that you have unlocked. I thank you for that, Alicia.” Aura bowed her head.

I waved her off. “You’re welcome!”

Aura then proceeded to tell me that the data storage on this unit (My phone) is infinite and that she has no shelf life, that she would ‘grow’ with me. There was also the fact that Aura was linked to me through the neural interface that I had with my smartphone; like this my AI could experience the world through my senses, she could also connect to the internet and machines around her mimicking easily technopathic skills.

Aura could also help me learn like… everything she has access to; already she was downloading and  compiling knowledge from the multiversal internet. Every field of science and engineering was now at the tip of my fingers; strangely, I was limited to 21st and 22nd century knowledge. Welp I need to crawl before running, I guess?

Thanks to the Battle Nun essence I could study things mentally in the background; I have a near infinite train of thoughts available to me for multitasking, it was cheating. We will start with all the Mathematics and basic sciences. Meanwhile, I will simply cuddle with Amelia…

I didn't need to sleep anymore, but I could meditate or at least attempt to; it wasn't easy with my other thought thread already working and busy. My phone rang and when I took it, it was only to see on the screen Bone Daddy's number.

"Yes?" I said when I accepted the call.

"We're leaving early." Marquis’ voice didn’t broker any argument.

My hand stopped caressing Amelia’s hair. "Why?"

The supervillain sighed. "I had some disagreements with some of my men and for what they had planned when I would leave."

Mhm, a memory dislodged in my mind and… with a fake smile, I said on the line, "Lemme guess, some of them wanted to strike out alone? And peddle drugs."

"How do you know…?" Marquis asked surprised that I had already guessed the situation.

I gladly gave him the information from my meta-knowledge. "In five years or so they would become a gang known as The Archer Bridge Merchants, get a new parahuman boss called Skidmark and start forcefully shooting up people to make them addicts, they would start to do this to kindergartners and school kids. Kill them or I will.”

Silence on the line, until Marquis' tone went cold. "Just one moment."

He must have put the phone down as I heard him step away from it, then I started to hear the screams and the pleading voices. It continued for over ten minutes but I still stayed on the phone and resumed caressing Amelia’s head. I still don't understand why the man listened to me, was I that scary? He began to kill all the rebels and future heretics.

I heard him coming back, his steps were heavy. When he took the phone back, I asked, "Is it done?"

“It’s taken care of, are you ready to go?” Was the gruff answer.

I chuckled. "I am waiting for my angels to come home as they suddenly moved out, ah nevermind they are back."

Rhamiel was the first to phase through the house's walls and come toward me, followed by Jael and Shamsiel who looked annoyed.

“Excellent.” Marquis hung up.

~~~~ Battle Nun ~~~~

[Quest system is now available, Alicia.]

I was still in my sexy red dress and put on my thigh holster for my Lawgiver pistol, the AI message had startled me. “What’s this?”

“A quest, or mission, is a task that you may complete in order to gain a reward from your affiliated shops or Patron in Crossroad City. Rewards may differ from the content of the quest, Loot, Protection, Harvest, Crafting quest are what is available to you at your level of citizenship in Crossroad. You’re currently listed as a contractor.”

“I can get new stuff!” I exclaimed.

“Within reason of course.” Aura corrected my assumption.

I was waiting in the living room and finally heard the distinctive footsteps of Amelia and the almost non-existent one from Rhamiel. It wasn't hard to start differentiating between people, they had unique footfalls and gait, as well as body language; smelling blood was easy to identify people and what they've done in the day or the people related to them. I was sure of getting the hang of mastering my senses as time would pass.

Rhamiel and Amelia descended the stairs, the angel was holding onto a pink suitcase with a cat logo on it as the little girl skipped steps and ran toward me like a missile. I caught her and lifted her and placed her on my hip and smoothed her cheek. "Are you ready my little angel?"

"Yep." The little girl grinned.

I smiled back at her. Then I looked toward the foyer and the entrance to the chalet as I heard Marquis' car arrive in the driveway. "Good. Your father is already there."

Walking to the foyer, I waited for Marquis to enter the house while holding on Amelia; I observed my surroundings and glanced at the furniture, they were all going to be loaded in storage by Marquis' loyal men. It was at this point that I remembered that I needed to check out the home I got from the composite essence Mover/Home, and I will do that in Boston. Might as well bring Amelia with me to check it out and make it an adventure.

The door opened on a Marquis wearing a black business suit with an emerald brooch on his ties, his hair was tied neatly in a ponytail as well, giving him a wild look.

"Amelia, Alicia and Rhamiel; good you're all here." Marquis' eyes found his daughter and he cleared the distance between us in an instant, snatching Amelia from my embrace.

I pouted, but said nothing and watched as the father began to reassure his daughter that everything would be alright. It better be, after all I helped pack her toys, her clothes… even the picture book that Amelia’s mom loaded with photos. Still can’t believe Marquis knocked up his fangirl, I mean that’s a basic mistake here; you don’t have sex with random girls.

Rhamiel placed herself at my side, glancing at her with a side eye, she was still pissed off by the fact that her brothers stopped her from destroying Medhall tower. They were right to stop her of course, it wasn’t yet time to take on the Nazis; when I gain full control of my powers and with the help of Aura, we will take on the main organization funding them in Germany and then take care of their satellite groups around the world. *What was it called again? Guzzle Shaft? I wouldn’t be surprised that they do suck balls.*

I had to promise Rhamiel that we would kill all the bad seeds when I was ready to calm her down; Jael and Shamsiel begged me to summon angel Gabriel, apparently she was the only one able to control the tendencies to jump the gun the older angels have about smiting evil at all cost. I wanted to do that, but not now, when we arrive in Boston I will do it.

Marquis exited the house and as we followed him, we saw the Volvo Acura MDX SUV, I sniffed and it smelled like a new car. Rhamiel loaded the suitcases in the trunk and I went shotgun and assigned Jael and Shamsiel as protection for little Amelia. Rhamiel would serve as our overwatch in the sky I decided; Marquis loved the idea of having a guardian in the sky.

I sat with my Lawgiver in my hand, safety on, armor piercing mode activated. Linking my senses with my angels was an act of will, we had full coverage and waited for any idiot to come at us; I hoped that bint Brandish would try something.

When we left the driveway, I wasn't surprised to notice that some people were tailing us, apparently it was Marquis' men. I think the supervillain took all the single men with him who don't have family in Brockton. It was a smart choice, there would be no family uprooted or disharmonious couple who’d become problems as they adapted to life in the big city.

There was snow everywhere and the trees were leafless, the temperature was supposed to be frigid but I didn’t feel it. We were barely three minutes on the road when Rhamiel noticed a white costumed person flying in the sky. They were looking at the procession of SUVs on the road; from the color of the costume, it was Lady Photon, I hoped that she didn’t do anything… I really liked her, but I mentally told Rhamiel to take her down if she attacked. The angel didn’t detect any ill intent from her, the thing is she wasn’t alone. I chose to toggle the safety off on my pistol and waited for the BBB to make a mistake…

“Stop the car.” I said to Marquis.

“Might I ask why?” The gentleman asked with a cultured accent.

“The Idiot Brigade is here.”

Marquis growled and pushed on the brakes. At the same time, my red dress changed to my bodysuit, utility belt and weapon harness, my helmet came last. Opening the door, my black coat flared out of my body and I put on my large hood and exited the vehicle. The convoy had stopped as well and some of the men exited their vehicles as well, with weapons drawn.

Raising my head to look into the sky, I shouted, “So, why don’t you come down and bring your little team hidden in the woods together, Lady Photon?!”

On the side of the road, the other members of the Brockton bay brigade showed themselves from behind the trees in the woods bordering the two sides of the road. And somehow Lady Photon slowly went down from the sky to land before me. “You knew we were here.”

Snort. “Well obviously, it’s not like any of you are conspicious with the white costumes…”

Well to be honest the dark cloud and the white snow made them almost invisible, but apparently I and the angels could detect parahumans easily by just looking at them; I could even see the distortion created by the shards linked to their skull.

The hero brigade walked up to Lady Photon and placed themselves behind her, they were ready for action if we became hostile it seemed. At my explanation, Lady Photon facepalmed. “Argh, we didn’t want to do this in the middle of the road but it seems Marquis was spooked.”

Chuckling, I laughed at her embarrassed expression. I sheathed my pistol at my thigh holster and crossed my arms. “So why did you come?”

Lady Photon looked behind her, there was that bitch brandish with them and the men glared at me. The heroine was chosen as a mouthpiece for them, it seems. “The others want to ask you questions about… what you told me the last time.”

My eyes speared each of the so-called heroes. “And why should I answer any of your questions? Do you think I’m some magic cue ball at your service?”

It was really bad that they wanted to depend on me like this… ugh the fact that I told them that I’m a precog is going to bite me in the ass. Manpower advanced toward us and showed me a sports bag, he opened it and it was full of money.

“We… we pooled some of our resources and…” Lady photon looked at me as she showed me the money, there was at least five thousand dollars inside.

Letting my arm fall alongside my body and almost reaching for my pistol, my tone was cold as I asked, “So you want to bribe me?”

The atmosphere became tense, and one of the men stopped brandish from manifesting an energy weapon by holding onto her. I smiled at the rabbid woman who must have taken this as a provocation; poor Sarah must have told her how much I wanted to put a bullet in her head.

The heroine walked up to me and… put a hand on one of my arms. “Please, can you do this? We just want to know about the threat on our lives.”

That woman was bold and had brass balls to touch me like this. But… I could smell the desperation coming from her. I could sense the same coming from the other beside Brandish who believed that I was some quack astrologist I bet.

I whispered to her, “Fine. You’re lucky you’re so pretty, Sarah… and that I like kids.”

The woman blushed and breathed in relief. “How do we do this, do you want the money first or…?”

Shaking my head, I asked her. “Do you have a notepad and a pen?”

“Yes.” Lady Photon looked behind her for the man holding onto Brandish and with a slight move of her head made him come to her.

Flashbang let go of Brandish and walked up to us; Sarah then explained what I wanted. The hero took a notepad and a pen out of his jacket.

“Then, I’m going to ask for $300.” I showed her three fingers. “$100 per question; You are allotted three questions, not any more, so you better write down the ones you want answered.”

The group gathered and began to argue about which questions to ask. It took them ten minutes to write the three questions they wanted. Lady Photon handed me the piece of paper. “I hope you’re recording this.”

Lightstar walked forward and used a device I didn’t recognize and pushed a button; then I began to read the question immediately.

Who is Kaiser? “Kaiser is All-Father’s son, who’s real name is Max Anders, son of the CEO of Medhall. You see what I mean?”

All of them nodded and seemed to understand.

Who died in your visions? “All of you beside Photon Mom and Flashbang.”

Why shouldn't the BBB start the New Wave movement and how bad it will be if they do? “That’s not easy to say because of the numerous timelines, but if you go through this and reveal your identities, little Victoria and the rest of the kids - Eric and Crystal- get kidnapped  and you get blackmailed by Kaiser for their freedom; Fleur dies first because she was the kids’ babysitter. Kaiser then kills the majority of you when you get help to take him and his people down.”

I looked at all of them, some of them looked shocked, others had a grim expression. Brandish looked mutinous, but I shrugged and held out my hand to Lady Photon. “This will be $300.”

The woman took three one hundred bills in the bag and handed them to me. “Thank you.”

I also slipped Lady Photon my phone number and mumbled in her ear, “If it ever comes to pass, call me and I will come save the day. I’m going to take the nazis out soon, anyway.”

The woman stared at me and I don’t know what she thought but she hugged me; I tapped on her shoulder delicately and made her let go of me. Brandish frowned at that and began to open her hole, “Why should we believe any of what-”

Rolling my eyes, I said bluntly, “I’m not playing your denial games, Carol, so shut up and get a shrink; I'm surprised you didn't continue to see the one you had after that kidnapping you went through.” My eyes fell on everyone at Brandish’ side. “Actually, you all should take the money in that bag and get some mental help, it will help in the long term, even more so when all your kids develop their powers… well, if you survive the next six months.”

Brandish stepped back when I casually revealed that I knew her name and then the others grabbed her and held onto her mouth.

I waved at the hero team. “I must leave, goodbye and have a good life, well, if you survive and listen to me. Oh and you better not say anything about me to anyone.”

Turning my back, I walked up to the SUV with Marquis who looked at me stride toward him with style; the man smiled at me as if he was entertained by the heroes' dumbness. I climbed aboard the car and put on my safety belt. We left the BBB arguing amongst themselves while watching them in the side mirror.