In Nomine Revisited: “N.J.” Saint of War

So, this is one of those situations where, before I can show you something, I have to show you all the things that you need to understand the underlying joke. Which is, yes, a little weird. Then again, it’s me.

“N.J.”

Saint of Michael

Corporeal Forces: 3 Strength: 7 Agility: 5

Ethereal Forces: 4 Intelligence: 7 Precision: 9

Celestial Forces: 3 Will: 6 Perception: 6

Skills: Chemistry/3, Emote/3, Fast Talk/1, Fighting/3, Knowledge (Movie Industry/3, Physics/3), Large Weapon/3 (baseball bat), Lying/1, Move Silently/1, Ranged Weapon/3 (Shotgun), Savoir-Faire/4

Songs: Charm (Celestial/3), Form (Corporeal/2), Healing (Corporeal/2), Light (Celestial/2), Shields (All/2), Thunder/2, Tongues (Ethereal/3)

Attunements: Blessed, Generator, Proficiency (Shotgun)

Artifacts: A shotgun/4 artifact with the Instantly Summonable Feature

N.J. is one of those Saints hovering around the fringes of Diabolical activity. Her particular task is to find those humans that are in the most danger of succumbing to the temptations that the Media displays so prettily, and steer them away. That’s her job. She also looks up Servitors of Media, Drugs or Gluttony and sends them to Trauma whenever possible. That’s her hobby. She’s pretty good at both, though her methods can be a little extreme at times. Luckily, her Superior is pretty indifferent about methods, as long as you get away clean.

N.J.’s earthly vessel is completely unlike the way she looked during her first life, not least because her old face was too famous. She’s average height, reasonably muscular, and mildly pretty … but her appearance is almost aggressively generic. A demon that encounters her will only remember the grin. Not to mention the sawed-off shotgun appearing out of thin air to rest under his chin, just before he finds himself contemplating his Heart…

History

Heaven’s supposed to be a happy place, but N.J. has a minor beef with it: she got pretty tired, pretty quickly, of people coming up to her and visibly thinking, “But what are you doing here?”

Granted, she’s not too sure herself. Objectively speaking, her life wasn’t exactly an enticement for Good. There were the drugs, the parties, the drugs, the meaningless sex, the drugs, and various other successful attempts to exemplify the meaningless tripe that fuels the Media. When she died of a drug overdose, any objective observer would have been sure that she was on the fast train to Hell. Certainly the Impudite that was her handler thought so. Nybbas, Demon Prince of the Media, couldn’t wait for her to become his secretary.

Unfortunately, nobody bothered checking out either N.J.’s Destiny, or her Fate. Her Destiny was to become a legendary screen star and object of desire for a generation. She managed that. Her Fate was to bring down a President in a sex scandal. She avoided that. Barely. Sloppy work all around: especially for the Impudite, whose living hide is now covering his Prince’s favorite chair.

N.J. was not prepared for Heaven, to put it mildly. It was so good, so noble, so dedicated to helping those still on Earth — and here was a soul who had shown contempt for the gift of her body and her talent. N.J. had no illusions about her Earthly accomplishments. She kept expecting someone to suddenly notice her extremely unworthy self and send her down to Hell where she belonged. She kept to herself: actually, she hid. It’s hard to feel pain in Heaven, but N.J. was managing it quite nicely.

People find redemption in the unlikeliest of places. N.J. found hers in the Halls of Progress.

Servitors of Flowers or Destiny would have been kind to her, of course, but N.J. wouldn’t have responded to kindness. What she craved was something that only an Elohite Archangel could give her: forgiveness and acceptance not because she needed it, but because she really was worthy of it. Plus, quiet affirmation that her soul was where it belonged, and that there was work for her if she wanted it. The serenity of the Halls helped N.J. get her bearings back.

So, why is she a Saint of Michael’s?

Because, once she learned to believe in her goodness (along with some of the secrets of the cosmos), she started to get very, very angry. Not at Heaven, not at Earth, but at the manipulators and liars that had turned a nice, cheerful country girl into a stunted puppet for their tawdry shows and propaganda. They were still doing it. There was another N.J. on a bus to Los Angeles right now that would be calmly, and delicately, broken to fit a part that would consume her soul. Being dead gives you wonderful hindsight, and N.J. could see the puppet strings that had choked out her earthly life. The strings came ultimately from Hell. Someone should do something about that. Someone would.

By now, she was serving Jean himself. The Archangel of Lightning is a distant entity, by Choir and nature, but never cruel. He made it clear to N.J. that he simply didn’t need the kind of Saint that she wanted to be. But he would entreat Michael to give her a chance. Michael did (albeit with several raised eyebrows about what on earth a former sex symbol was doing in the service of Lightning), and she was soon ready to go to Earth. She’s still on her first vessel, which is impressive, considering the amount of trouble she gets into. Possibly it’s due to the shotgun that was a completely unexpected gift from Jean, or the attunement from the same source that allows her to give an assailant literally the shock of his life. Maybe it’s the training from the Archangel of War.

Or maybe it’s just that, beneath it all, N.J. still thinks that she needs to earn her way back in, and she’s nowhere near that point yet.

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