Celestial Fragments

Help is on the way

"Angelique?" Ioelena muttered, staring at the broken panel that gave way too many errors and looked like a Christmass tree from all the malfunctioning lights. "I'm coming in!" she announced herself, struggling to push the door open for a few moments.

Eventually, the door opened with a loud metallic shriek and Ioelena stepped in.

To her surprise, the room didn't look as bad as the access panel. There no broken things splattered all over and to her utmost surprise, Angelique was laid in bed, covered and all tucked in. A little strange, wasn't it? Just a few minutes ago she was throwing a fit and now she seemed so peaceful and- suspicious.

"Hey, Angelique!" Ioelena called out again, sitting on the edge of the bed, reaching her hand to the sleeping body, shaking it gently.

Angelique's eyes snapped open and she shot right up, gasping for air as if waken from a nightmare. Her eyes landed on the strange pink humanoid sitting on her bed and it took her several moments to understand who it was. The unease and panic washed away so suddenly, she felt her heart skip a beat as she fell back onto the pillows, moving her hands over her face, hiding a pained expression.

"Are you alright?" Ioelena muttered, noticing the beads of sweet pooling on her forehead.

"'Yeah-" Angelique breathed out, rubbing her face a couple of times, before looking at her again. "What is it?" she asked, getting out of bed on the other side, looking around for any blood spots, touching her side carefully, unsure of what happened. Was it all a dream? When her hand touched her ribs, a sharp stabbing pain shot through her chest, hitching her breath. Definitely not a dream...

"Regarding the current events throughout the world, we've all been assigned a mission." she started, getting out of bed, not really paying attention to the strange behavior Angelique displayed.

"So we're going to Europe-"

"Some of us are, but I think It's best you come back and hear for yourself." Ioelena instructed in a stern voice that somehow did not suit her.

"Right..." Angelique muttered, smoothing out her uniform with her palms. "I'll grab my shoes and join you..." she added, staring blankly at her empty feet.

Ioelena's footsteps eventually went away and Angelique let out a sigh of frustration while tying her shoes again and pinning her hair in a sloppy bun.

Not long after this, she was back in the meeting room, where everyone was sitting, waiting patiently for whatever was next. Blanche was there too, his gray-peppered hair catching Angelique's attention. He was deeply lost in his thoughts, playing with a pen between his fingers. When she took her seat at the table, Blanche pulled himself together with a long deep breath, got up and opened the holographic screen, where a slideshow started with different pictures of the current state of events. For a few moments, the pictures just scrolled before Blanche started speaking.

"This got out of hand way faster than expected." he stated, peeling his eyes off the screen. "We were expecting something to happen, but not at this kind of scale. Europe is drifting slowly towards the Southern Pole of the planet and well-"he shrugged slowly "-even if we anticipate nothing else to happen to it, I'm not entirely sure we can be sure about anything anymore. At the split sight, a rift opened and magma started pouring into the ocean. We can expect volcanic activity all over the globe but what do we know ?!" he sighed, defeated, tossing his arms in the air with frustration. "Cities fell, countless of them. We need to start searching for survivors. We don't expect many and, at the same time, we do hope we find as many as possible. Some of our troops are already on their way or at least getting ready and we need all the help we can spare so-" he turned his back to the screen, facing the small audience.

Angelique shifted in her seat, uncomfortable. There were countless faces she did not recognize and she really hoped she did not have to. While the tragedy was displayed right in front of her, she had this hollowing feeling of something not being quite right. Everyone seemed uneasy, worried and even despairing with every picture that passed.

"Grimes, Ioelena, Raine, Morbius...." and the name list went on. "-You'll be getting ready for tomorrow's flight. We could use you all out there, rather than in here.

"Kai, El'is, Angelique-" Blanche turned to Angelique, his stern face now shadowed with worry. "We still have our hands full with our outwordly guest. You'll be staying, along with fortified security forces."

No one seemed to have anything to say, so Blanche asked everyone to go get ready, while gesturing for the team that was staying there, to sit and wait.

Soon, the room was almost empty and quieted down once again.Blanche sat down again sighing deeply and running a hand over his forehead, staring at the papers in front of him.

"The inmate is known to slowly grow fond of one of you. Angelique, stay away and out of his way as much as possible. He displays maniacal tendencies and he's very unpredictable. We don't need another tragedy on our already full hands. El'is, you're the one to know the most about him and the fragments, so if anything happens we can count on you to know what to do. Kai, you're the only one that managed to knock him out a few times already and, well, I don't know why, but I'd rather have you ready with a baseball bat here than handing blankets somewhere else." Blanche spoke without even looking at them, scrolling through the numerous papers. "If what he says is right, we need to get the fragments off of Earth as fast as possible. We're still trying to find the best solution for this, because we can't just ship them to the moon and hope for the best, and while asking for help from other civilizations is a possibility, it could eventually start a diplomatic problem.For now, they're still in the facility, under some of our best security systems. Seems that no matter how many times he gets out of there, he can't track them. They're safe, so all you have to do is to keep the inmate from roaming around as he pleases."

"And what if he does? what if he manages to get out again -" El'is started.

"I just need you to keep him busy as long as possible, so we can get the Fragments away from Earth and find a stronger prison. the sort of prison that has the right cell for a Demi-God being."

"Right-" el'is breathed in, getting up and walking to the door, agitated and talking to herself in a strange, unknown language.

As the room emptied, Angelique found herself slowly falling into the endless emptiness of dread, staring blankly at Blanche who was still entranced with the papers in front of him.

"You know, "the man started, "sitting here and pondering on your life decisions won't get you anywhere near close to getting s**t done." It almost seemed like he was scolding her.

Angrlique narrowed her eyes slowly and got up briefly. Was there even any point in trying to talk it out with him? Would he listen? Would he care? Most likely not. So why bother?

With a heavy mind and heart, she made her way to the common area of the building, to get herself a snack before hitting the bed. To her surprise, the living room was empty, but as soon as she entered El'is followed right behind, still hissing and cussing under her breath.

"Can you believe this? Can you believe I'm trapped here with you all? On a decaying planet with idiots left to fend it!" she hissed bitterly, falling on the couch, folding her arms on her chest, eyes pinned on the table in front of her.

"Oh! I can not!" Angelique replied in a sarcastic voice, shuffling through the cabinets for a snack.

"Oh, shut up!" the arachnoid hissed and rolled her eyes.

"You started it."Angelique shrugged her shoulders, unphased.

Silence set over the room again, as Angelique opened the back of pretzels and poured everything into a bowl, and poured herself a glass of soda, before joining El'is on the couch.

"You know-" El'is started again, picking up a handful of pretzels from the bowl, stuffing some of them in her mouth. "I'm a prisoner here too!"

"Definitely. They should put you in a cage too!" Angelique insisted, leaning back and crossing her arms on her chest, watching the other stuff herself with her snack.

"I think it would be better treatment than this!" El'is hissed and rolled her eyes, grabbing another handful.

"Right..." Angelique sighed and started munching too, replaying earlier events of today in her mind over and over again.

His voice, his touch, his eyes- all of them made her skittish again. It was both infuriating and exhilarating. Did she stand a change in a fair fight with him? She didn't think so... He was faster and he held the upper hand by simply reading her mind. By making his way into the deepest corners and darkest drawers of her mind... A cold shiver run down her spine, prickling her skin just at the mere thought of it. How could he do that and she didn't get to?

"You know, the worst part about all this is that if we got the fragments out and away from earth, we wouldn't have to deal with him, and it would be somebody else's problem!" El'is voice forced Angelique out of her thoughts again.

"Great idea! And then we can just forget about it all, right?!" Angelique faked a wide smile and surprised expression .

"Exactly!" El'is tossed her hands in the air and sighed, slumping into her seat. "But then again, we'd have to watch our backs for one of the most impulsive devils out there." she murmured under her breath. "Aellioah is well known across the galaxies for his mischievous nature. For his trickery, for his utmost wrath and unspoiled mood for fun. He's been searching for the fragments for over a century now, and so far, he's left only destruction in his path-"

"Alright-" Angelique murmured under her breath as El'is continued to ramble out her scrambled mind. "I'll go ahead and get some rest. Today was.... too much."