Chapter 33

We delayed dinner while Steven organised a stretch limo to take us to the campground. With a subtle hint from me, Steven decided to leave the adventure to us girls. I was worried about how the girls would react to any male presence. This led to discussing with Joy what kind of orphanage we wanted to create. Joy said that there would be no problem taking in these four girls, but if this was going to be an ongoing project, we would need to set up an orphanage.

Besides the obvious housing and staffing issues, there would need to be legal representation and then there was the question about adoption and fostering. I didn't want adoption or fostering as I wanted to mother them all, I just knew that wasn't going to be practical. I hated the idea that someone could come, interact with multiple kids and pick one. That would lead to others feeling they were worth less because they weren't chosen. All the kids would need counselling and might have issues with male presences. I didn't know what the right thing to do was, but I knew I needed help.

I was greeted with enthusiastic hugs when we arrived. I introduced them to Joy and Hannah. I caused a brief delay by wanting them to be clean before we left. I invited them into the caravan, one at a time and used my micro telekinesis to clean their bodies and clothes. They said it made their skin feel all tingly. I could have done them all at once, but I wanted them to know I was concentrating on them individually and realise they were clean.

It amazed me that they could all go through something so horrible and be normal happy kids so soon afterwards. None of them were first-timers, and as terrible as it was to say, they were all used to it. All they could feel was a sense of freedom with that innocent belief that I would never allow it to happen again. And I had to live up to that. I think there was also a feeling of camaraderie since they had all been through the same thing and I had even been carrying some of them as I visited the next case. Brook wanted me to check in with Cali back in Seattle to see if all the girls were being properly looked after. I had passed Brook to Cali at one point in the night and I think they bonded. Since I didn't have a phone anymore, Joy phoned the Seattle Supers and as Cali was out patrolling, we left a message for her to call us. We told the receptionist what it was about so hopefully Cali could do a bit of checking first and give us a proper report.

Dinner was a boisterous affair with all of the kids wanting to express their opinion and usually all at the same time. Interestingly, I was the only one they listened to when I tried to keep them calm and take their turn talking. We let their imaginations go wild and they talked about having a house under the sea, where only girls were allowed to go. When asked about schooling and after Steven coming in with the dad joke about schools of fish, they talked about learning at home with each other. Joy mentioned Madeleine, which was a movie about an orphan girl living with other girls her age in a big building that also was a school. Hannah managed to find it on a streaming service and the girls all watched it like a slumber party. They didn't have any PJ's so they were down to underwear and wrapped in blankets.

Brook's mother had passed away, Holly was told to call several different women mother since hers had likely passed away as well, Terese hated her mother, but Simone missed her mother, so I was going to ask Cali to check in with her. She had clearly been complicit or I wouldn't have taken Simone, but that doesn't stop someone from feeling love.

I was overwhelmed with the task ahead of me. I had been shown a problem that I knew existed although I had no idea of the scale of the issue. Now that my eyes were opened I could never close them again, so I needed help. Joy and Steven had promised to help. Hannah had even told them that her danger sense worked very similarly to my asking my mind for specific thoughts. She was willing to help find those in need, but she would need to be protected. There were systems already in place with lots of people willing to help and with telepathy almost all of them had been checked or were checked to make sure they weren't abusing the system.

Do I just help New York, or just help America. Where do I draw the line? The one thing I knew was that I couldn't do it alone. I needed a General or the female equivalent, which was probably a politician or businesswoman. Someone who could see the end goal, look at our assets and work out a way forward.

Steven agreed and together we set up the Angel Foundation. He would look through business agencies and interviews. I decided to go a different route.

Ruth's POV

Goddammit my mother was right. “Geroff me!” I yelled.

I saw his hand briefly, heard a loud smack as my head was thrown to the side, followed by pain on the side of my face.

“Yer me wife! Do your duty, woman!”

I felt his knees pushing my legs apart. I struggled but he was too heavy and too strong. 'Help me,' I prayed. 'Please God, help me.'

He turned my face towards him and I managed to spit in his face before he brought his face any closer. His face turned red with his anger and I braced myself for the hit I knew was coming, closing my eyes. I felt the impact but it was as light as a feather. I opened my eyes, confused.

“Arr..” he shouted in pain, leaning back from me and staring at his red hand.

His weight lifted off me and he rose in the air to dangle like a puppet. I heard the window unlatch itself and then open wide. I stared at the opening in wonder as a small woman flew through before turning upright and gently landing on her feet in front of me, ignoring my drunk husband.

“Let me down, ya bitch!” he said, refusing to be ignored.

She turned to him with obvious disgust on her face. She dropped him on the floor. He got up quickly and came at her. She didn't move and allowed him to hit her. It must have been like hitting concrete, his hand snapped and he cried out in pain again, falling to his knees and clutching his hand.

I managed to get to my feet and tried to move my clothes back into place so I didn't look as bad.

She turned back to me. “Your choice,” she said.

“My choice?”

“Stay,” she said looking at my defeated man, “or go.”

I knew what she meant. “Go,” I said. “I don't ever want to see this piece of shit again,” I told her honestly.

“Gather everything that you want to take with you onto your bed. I'll keep an eye on bozo.”

“Are you going to do what you did in Seattle?” I asked. “Please,” I added in case she was wondering what I wanted.

She sighed. “I want to, but I promised I wouldn't.” Then she grinned, “I'm sure God will punish him though.”

I gathered my clothes, jewellery and paperwork on the bed. I called out to say that I was ready and watched in amazement as the duvet gathered itself into a sack and hovered behind me.

“Let's go out the front door, shall we, with heads held high,” she said and we did, but a few steps past the front of the apartment and we lifted into the sky. I vowed to myself I would pay this woman back. She had saved me.

We dropped down in a caravan park and she led me to a caravan and gestured me inside. There was another woman there who looked as bruised as I probably did.

“Hi, Emily, I'm just going to ask err... I'm sorry I didn't get your name,” Angel said.

“Ruth. It's Ruth. Nice to meet you Emily, Angel,” I responded.

“Ruth. I have a need of like-minded women,” Angel started.

“I'm in,” I stated confidently.

Angel chuckled. “I haven't even told you what it is about.”

“You don't have to. I'm in. I owe you.”

Angel frowned. “You don't owe me anything. I was just looking for women who would understand the importance of what I am trying to achieve.”

“We'll agree to differ. So what do you need? Oh, and what did you do to my husband?”

“He may be inflicted with incurable impotence. Nothing to do with me, obviously,” Angel said with a wicked smile. She checked that I was aware of what she had done in Seattle and talked about starting an organisation to first stamp out paedophilia worldwide and then work on domestic violence. Starting in New York, then other big cities and eventually the whole of the US, then on to the next country until everywhere was covered. She wanted to create a network of telepaths with superheroes. The difficulty was manyfold with issues about the law, finding and training the appropriate women, looking after the children who had been abused as well as management to help work out how to make this all happen. Emily wanted to be a paedophile hunter which involved giving Emily specialised telepathic powers. Apparently, there was a way to do that. I wanted to be in management. I had studied business and wanted to put it to good use.

That decided, Angel went out again to help someone else.

Chapter 34

Angel's POV

Ruth became my general. She was the shadow head of Angel Foundation. We found there was no way to do what we wanted to do and stay within the law, so the Angel Foundation became the centre for looking after the abused children who had nowhere else they could be safe. That part was headed by Joy with Steven supporting her. The Shadow Angels were a vigilante group who would go out to gather evidence and save children from abuse.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. I explained everything to Ruth. All my abilities although not exactly how it worked but the possibilities that I thought could help. Essentially there were two elements that were necessary for our plans to succeed. We needed money, not small amounts either, and we needed superheroes who could find and protect those children in need. As far as money goes, the Angel Foundation was going to be supported by Joy and Steven, but I would need to find the money to support the Shadow Angels.

I suggested various schemes to Ruth until we came up with one that would work. I had to do a few tests though. The idea was to go into space and collect asteroids, bring them back to Earth and refine them for their high mineral content. Apparently, most supers who can fly, can't fly that high because they utilise the electromagnet field that the Earth produces to defy gravity. That is not how my power works but a quick trip to the moon and back checked that out pretty thoroughly. Speed is important but it is acceleration that really matters in space. As long as I was able to accelerate in space, going vast distances wouldn't be a problem, navigation, on the other hand, was a lot harder.

The other issue was about the size of my domain and affecting things outside of my domain. Anything within my domain I didn't have trouble moving, however, most asteroids that I would be aiming to bring back were going to be larger than a sphere with a twenty metre radius.

I practised on icebergs. If I just landed on the surface then what usually happened was I broke off a semicircular sphere of ice. If I burrowed in so that I was twenty metres below the surface, whether I could lift the iceberg depended on how big the iceberg was. Not that the weight seemed to matter, it was just a question of how strong the ice was and whether it could take the strain. I was most effective if I burrowed to the centre and lifted.

Navigation I couldn't solve. However, if we made a small spaceship with sensors to work out which asteroids to choose and hired a navigator with an expensive computer, it all became possible again. We didn't have to worry about oxygen since I would automatically convert carbon dioxide to oxygen and carbon, the weight didn't matter to my lifting ability and insulation wasn't important as long as everything was within my domain. This meant most of the normal issues you would have with such a project, didn't exist. Design-wise, my domain was crucial which meant the ship needed to be circular and there wasn't much point in making it higher than we could comfortably stand so it was going to be disc-shaped or as everyone said, a flying saucer.

Another of my ideas to make money was to make diamonds. With my domain and micro telekinesis, it would be easy, I just needed carbon which was easily available. The only diamonds I could make were either flawless or to copy a flaw in another diamond. Ruth believed we would quickly flood the market and reduce diamonds to something relatively worthless. However, I could use my diamond making ability to help with the spacecraft. Rather than have panels made out of glass, I made them out of diamond, multiple layers with vacuum in between for insulation and graphene so thin it was see-through. Although insulation didn't matter, nor did oxygen supplies because of my domain and abilities, the spacecraft was going to be built with the idea that if I was briefly unconscious for whatever reason, the occupants would be alright for a few days at least. This meant it would be built with insulation and there would be a few oxygen tanks for emergencies.

Whilst my spacecraft was being built, paid for by a few diamond sales and Ruth searched for an appropriate navigator, I had other tasks ahead of me. I needed to create the Shadow Angels. The process of re-birth was painful and time-consuming taking about six weeks. I could carry two at once, possibly more, but since I only had two breasts, I intended to limit myself to a maximum of two at a time, unless there was an emergency. In order to save the children, we needed someone with the ability to find them, someone who could fly quickly and someone strong enough that no one would mess with them. Because of the difficulty and time involved, it made sense for all those abilities to be concentrated on each Shadow Angel. I might add that while Ruth and I plotted, Hannah was going out with the New York Supers and continuing the process.

With all that power within each Shadow Angel, they needed to be very loyal, ideally devoted to the cause but not hotheads who would bring the name of the Shadow Angels into disrepute. Which meant we had to be very careful who we chose. Quality over quantity. I already had the DNA template for telepathy and partitioned mind that would allow for the detection of abused children, but I also needed some power that would allow people to fly and give them some offensive ability. My telekinesis hadn't been something I could graft onto someone else's DNA and it was the same with Celeste's mind energy power. I could give everyone the power cells that Celeste had, but that wouldn't be healthy unless they had a way to use the excess energy that leaked out of the cells. Otherwise, the excess energy that naturally leaks out would be harmful. Not immediately fatal, but shortened life expectancy.

I needed another DNA live sample, possibly more than one to get more powers for me to copy and the only way to do that was to re-birth someone. Before I trolled superhero nursing homes I decided to contact Cali from Seattle. She had the requisite flight power and I knew she had fire abilities. She also wanted to continue what I had started in Seattle. Not exactly a Shadow Angel but close.

Talking to Cali and revealing what I could do would be telling someone outside of our immediate circle a Shadow Angel secret and that was deemed a bad idea. So I had to travel to Seattle incognito, transform myself into Josie and have that identity talk with Cali. The travel was not difficult, I just did it at night over the ocean. That did mean a long detour, but I could travel fast and noiselessly, using my domain to muffle any sounds and ducking into the ocean if anyone approached or even came close and using my telepathic mind division to warn of anyone near. The main challenge was changing into Josie who was significantly taller and weighed more than I did. It meant I was a skinny version of Josie and all my bones were a little less strong than normal. Energy was not an issue, it was just a question of mass.

I couldn't fly around as Josie so I had to take public transport or taxi to get around. I arranged through Joy to meet with Cali at West Point Lighthouse. I introduced myself as a friend of Angel and explained that I had a way to give her the power to find those children who were crying out for help, but it would take six weeks and she would end up a bit younger. I refused to talk about the process but reassured her that it wasn't painful and all she was likely to remember from the six weeks would be some feverish dreams. I didn't want her to answer immediately, but to think about it and contact Joy if she agreed.

I waited for her to leave, dived back into the ocean, became Angel again and returned to base.