Angel Monarch

Growing up, Agnes was taught two lessons in life. The first was to always be kind to everyone who deserved it. The second was to always be the meanest son of a bitch when the time required.

With these principles, she lived her life in relative peace.

Agnes was young when she lost her parents. It was at the start of the Last War, which she somehow managed to survive.

She was about eighteen when the Apocalypse happened and she managed to become an evolved. Those were trying and hard times, but they were also much less hectic than the current ones.

During those years, she had killed a lot of monsters and even quite a few fellow humans, but eventually, she decided to retire. That's when she got a job offer as the personal maid to a newborn baby.

The offer came from one of her acquaintances, but they didn't tell her who the baby belonged to.

At that point, she was already an ascended, but she was a bit reluctant to take the job.

Eventually she decided to accept it, since it seemed something new and interesting... That was probably the best decision in her entire life.

She watched little Cassandra grow up and helped her at every possible moment. She raised her like she was her own child, not caring what anyone thought.

Agnes, throughout her life, only loved one person truly, and that was Cassandra. She dedicated her whole life to that little girl. She protected her when it was needed; she pulled her when she fell; she didn't judge her, and only did everything in her power to make Cassandra's life better.

She was there when Cassandra became an evolved, then an ascended and after that surpassing even Agnes... A transcended.

That little girl had grown up by that time, and Agnes couldn't be prouder.

She followed Cassandra even to the frontline of a war neither of them cared about, and now she stood inside her own room ready to kill the person who infiltrated their mansion.

Agnes had a special passive ability. It provided clues about items and people, like a special interface. When her eyes landed on the strange eyed woman in the maid uniform, it initiated the ability.

Item name: Black and White Maid Uniform (female)

Owner: Lily

Description: Wore by maids. The clothing became popularized a long time ago and somehow made a comeback after the Apocalypse.

The clues usually were more annoying than helpful, but in this case it was quite the opposite.

Since Agnes was the one who hired each maid personally, she knew who Lily was and how she looked. The person wearing her uniform wasn't even similar to her, and after a closer inspection, Agnes recognized her.

Still, she pretended to be oblivious and said... "Who are you and why are you wearing Lily's uniform?"

Saying this seemed to confuse the woman for a singular moment, which Agnes immediately used. She had already summoned her sword, and using the brief window, she charged the Acid Empress.

...

Seeing her move surprised the Empress, but it also excited her. She didn't like to kill defenseless people. It left a bad taste in her mouth and reminded her of her own family.

The middle-aged woman moved quickly, and the Empress chuckled to herself, realizing her mistake. The question was a distraction and her hesitation caused this situation. Find adventures on empire

She tried to move as quickly as possible, but the sword still managed to cut her.

The Empress leaned back as far as she could, but it wasn't enough. The blade cut a clear line across her face.

Large pain assaulted her, and she gasped. In both her hands, two greenish tinted clouds appeared, but before her weapons could be summoned, the woman attacked again.

The Empress had to roll away to avoid getting slashed, and she tried to increase the distance between them. The woman was smart and continued her barrage of attacks until the Empress was finally cornered.

She became a bit panicked for a second, not quite sure what to do. The woman swung her sword, and in a desperate maneuver, the Empress pushed the blade to the side. It left a deep cut on her right palm, but it also surprised the woman for a second... That was all she needed.

With her empty right hand, she delivered a quick jab to the woman's throat, and as she bent over to cough, the Empress kicked her in the stomach.

The woman flew for a few meters, then hit the floor with a small crunch. It only took her a moment to get back to her feet, but as her eyes landed on the Empress, something strange happened.

Agnes turned towards the Empress, but she was different. Her body transformed and in the place of a petite girl, a monstrous figure stood.

Her body grew in size. Her legs changed into a long snake-like body, while her upper body's skin changed to scales. The maid outfit looked ridiculous on her, but Agnes wasn't laughing.

A second later she realized the mistake, but by that time it was too late. Agnes looked at the half-snake, half-human's face. Her hair changed into long smaller snakes, while her pupils became small slits. They glowed for a moment with a green light.

The change happened very slowly, but it was instantly noticeable. Agnes looked down in terror to see her feet, which became gray, like stone. She tried to wiggle her toes, or move her feet inside her shoe, but it didn't respond.

What was even worse, was that the stone-like texture gradually climbed up, making more of her legs numb.

Suddenly something heavy slapped her on the chest and she toppled over easily.

The Empress changed back from her transformation, which she used to begin the petrification of the woman.

She slowly walked to where she lay on the floor. Her stone legs had broken off at the knee because of her push, but she was still alive.

When the petrification would hit actual organs, it would slow down a lot, which meant she had to kill her by much more gruesome means.

In her right hand, the green cloud finally coalesced into her green-bladed short sword.

The woman was seemingly crawling towards her own sword, but the Empress didn't let her get there.

Using the sword, she stabbed it down into the woman's shoulder, which stopped her from moving. Still, she was reaching out her hand, trying to grab something...

Only now did the Empress realize that there was something else before the sword. In their fight, a few furniture got broken, which caused a lot of items to end up all over the floor.

The woman was reaching for one specific item. It was a broken framed picture. The Empress couldn't make it out what was on it from where she stood.

She looked down at her left hand, where the other sword was ready to take the woman's life. She hesitated for a moment and looked back at the broken frame.

Curiosity got the better of her. She moved around the woman, always keeping her in sight, then bent down and took the picture out of the frame. The woman watched her with sad and desperate eyes. She reached out, trying to take the picture away from her.

The woman's right shoulder looked like a bloody ruin from all her movements, but still, even after that, she tried to grab the picture. She didn't make a single noise of either complaint or being in pain.

The Empress truly admired this person, and she stared down curiously at what the picture depicted, that would cause this woman to suffer just to hold it.

It showed this very woman and a young girl with purple hair, pink eyes and a bright smile, standing together. The woman looked much younger in the photo too, and the girl was about ten years old.

The picture was taken on a cliff or lookout. Behind them, the vast ocean spread out.

They were both smiling and seemingly very happy. The girl held onto the woman's hand, and if someone ignored their lack of resemblance, then they looked exactly like a mother and her daughter.

Curiously, the Empress turned the photo and read the small text written on the other side.

Agnes and Cassandra, (my adopted daughter)

Taken near The Broken City on Cassandra's 10th birthday

Agnes was still trying to reach for the picture. Her mind was in shambles, struggling to process the pain. The only thing she could think of was to hide that picture, her most precious possession.

She still remembered that day, like it was yesterday. It was her best memory.

Agnes wanted to do something special for Cassandra's 10th birthday, so she had taken her on a small hike in the safe area near The Broken City, and they both had an amazing time.

The best part for Agnes was one specific moment, when Cassandra accidentally called her mommy instead of Aunt Agnes, which she usually used.

The picture was taken by her only a few minutes after she said it, and she wrote 'adopted daughter' on the back as a secret. Nobody was supposed to see that.

This was her thought as she reached for the picture... 'Nobody should see that. It's my secret, my dream!... Nobody should see it!'

On the ground, she whimpered as the pain gradually increased. The petrification was already near her midsection, and it started to appear on her arms as well.

The Empress stared at the picture, not sure what to do. Her hands trembled and memories assaulted her mind.

Memories about a small family burning in an instantaneous explosion...

Memories of people running around the streets, screaming in pain, while on fire...

Memories of herself staring at the ruin of her once beautiful city...

She didn't know what to do. At that moment, she felt horrible. She looked down at the woman laying on the floor, still trying to reach for the photo of her most loved person, like it was the most important item in the world, which maybe it was for her.

The Empress looked down at her sword, and in that moment she felt something strange... Disgust...

She only felt like this when she saw the Phoenix, the person she hated the most. But in that moment, she felt it again, but this time not towards Sera.

Next to where the Empress stood was a large mirror, and as she looked at her own reflection, she felt pure loathing for the woman who stared back.

She stared into her own green eyes, then at the clothes she wore... A dead woman's clothes... An innocent woman's clothes... A tortured woman's clothes...

The reason she fought against Sera was clear, but at that moment the lines blurred. The hate she felt towards herself was much more than she ever felt towards the Phoenix.

The sword dropped from her hand and clanged on the floor loudly. She fell to her knees and reached out her hand, touching the reflection in the mirror.

The cut on her hand left a bloody mark on it, and she smeared it all over her reflection's face. She felt confused and afraid. Something was changing inside her, and some truth began to crawl out, something she never wanted to know, but it was inevitable, that she had done so.

"Who are you?" She asked her reflection, but it only mimicked her movement, not answering the question.

"Who am I?" she said in her insane ramblings.

As she closed to a nervous breakdown, the fear, pain, anger and disgust finally cleared from her mind, and she finally remembered the events of that fateful day in never before felt clarity...