Celestial Fragments

If ignorance will kill us all...

A cold shiver run down Angelique's spine as she understood what El'is was implying, clearly very wrong in this moment. She heard Kai laugh under his breath , as he tried not to spill up what he had just took in his mouth. Was this man drinking whisky in the middle of the night? What sort of issues did he -

"Now, don't laugh about it! We all have our preferences, and you are the last of all to laugh, Mr. Kai!" El'is suddenly dropped her mysterious attitude crossing a pair of her arms under her chest, shooting the man a glare.

Kai's smile faded slowly, as his eyes locked with the arachnoid, lifting the glass up to his lips to take another sip, before looking at Angelique again, noticing how confused she was. The man leaned against the bar, running a hand into his hair, pushing it back from his forehead.

"Let's say she is part of the team, in a way. That's why she is allowed access here." the man tried to clear out her confusion.

"I did not know the team had extra members." Angelique stated, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms on her chest. "Why is no one telling me anything?" She hissed, her attitude getting the best out of her.

Kai's eyes widened slowly, as he watched Angelique get a little hot headed.

"I like this one." El'is muffled, resuming her snacking, with a cheeky smile on her face. "I do hope you'll keep her." she added. "What was your name, princess? Didn't quite get it earlier. Was too busy trying to get away."

"Name's Angelique." her eyes pinned El'is down, with fire in them, her jaw clenched. "Will anyone tell me anything around this place or is there a book I have to read? A manual? A flyer? Anything?!" she tossed her arms in the air annoyed.

"A keeper I tell you." El'is chuckled looking at Kai, who seemed a little baffled of how daring this midget was.

As the thought crossed his mind, he found Angelique turn her head to him in a snap, glaring at him. This baffled him even more, his eyes widening a little more.

"I'm not a-"

"Are you going to tell her, or should I?" El'is interrupted Angelique.

Kai raised his shoulders, as he turned his back to them to fill his glass once again. Angelique sighed once again, and dropped her arms around her body, as she made her way to the sofa, falling on it, her attention switching to the alien figure.

"As you've been told, I am El'is." the alien bowed her head slowly. "A very proud member of the Gamayun Mercenary Clan you've most likely heard of."

"Gama- What?!"

"You know, the Gamayun Clan that knows everything that happens around? All the spicy news, gossips-" El'is noticed the confusion written on Angelique's face. "So- like- you know nothing about anything, hm?"

"Pointless to know everything when you are here, right? Anyway, what are you doing here? Stealing and hoarding snacks does not seem very fit for your job, unless there is a very sketchy thing up there that tries to make a snack collection."

Angelique's comment made El'is laugh again and shake her head. "Stealing snacks is a personal pleasure actually. Especially their snacks. I noticed it annoys them, so I thought to pay them back for all the nuisance they caused me."

"Very effective." muttered Kai from the other side of the room.

El'is raised her gaze to look at the man, before switching back to Angelique.

"What did they do to deserve your wrath?" asked the human female, leaning for a bag of chips.

"They interfered with one of my jobs." El'is explained shortly, leaning to grab the exact same bag of chips. "I told you I am not sharing, princess. Get something for yourself." El'is gestured with one of her hands to the cabinets.

Angelique rolled her eyes and decided to not snack right now, a little too comfortable to get up.

"I was delivering something to a certain someone, when I crashed with one of the way too many stray satellites Earth has launched in space. This caused my ship a great deal of damage, slowed me down and gave these weirdos enough time to intercept my ship and drag me down all the way down to Earth. When they understood what I was transporting, they decided to strand me on this planet, in this way too crowded place, trying to gather as much information as possible, but little did they know I am not one to talk ab-"

"You're not one to talk too little? Or what?" spat Kai. "You're so easy to bribe." the man laughed. "We made her talk by offering her food." explained Kai, making El'is lower her head lightly for a second, ashamed of this statement.

"Well, I was starved, famished! Of course I would take such a bribe!" the defense statement came.

"Of course you were." chuckled Kai, while shaking his head.

"And what intel could you have, to be so important for us?"

"As I previously said, pretty much anything spicy happening , like a Demigod rising, important shiny objects he wants to gather..." El'is muttered gesturing with her hands in the air.

Angelique pursed her lips, unsure of what to make of this. "And if you are so mighty, so well informed, how come you did not tell us how to constrain this ?"

"Tsk!" hissed El'is leaning back and crossing her arms on her chest once again. "Because we are not almighty beings, we just like to gossip a lot. And when the same demigod hires you for a job, you stop asking questions, you know?"

"So, you are pretty much useless." Stated Angelique, turning to Kai once again. "So why are we keeping her then?!"

Kai smiled amused, noticing the way El'is alarmed herself, straightened her back and raised her face to look at him as well, as if she only now questioned this herself.

"Because she's pretty." Kai's voice was soft, almost fatherly, or at least that's what Angelique wanted to make of it.

The black haired woman turned to the arachnoid alien, who seemed just as confused as she was, but nevertheless, clearly happy with the man's reply. Angelique sighed and sank into the pillows of the sofa, staring at the pile of snacks on the table, trying to piece together everything.

"And what do we know so far about the An'ekd and the fragments?" came the question in a low tone.

"That they exist and they are very dangerous when combined." muttered Kai in a mocking tone, making El'is narrow her eyes at him, before looking at the clearly concerned woman.

She scooted closer to Angelique, pulling out a small screen out of her pocket, tapping it. The small gadget projected a holographic screen in front of the two, with pictures, doodles and scribbled information in a hieroglyphic language Angelique could not understand.

"Alright, so. The Celestial Fragments, as everybody calls them, are bits of power belonging to The Primordial Gods, the ones who is said to have built up the whole universe. The story of them says that one of the first races they created were the An'ekds, a race of demigods, that shared some of their powers, but not entirely. For example, they could not create as the Gods did. They could not pull out planets out of nothingness, they could not turn nothing into something as the Gods did. And that angered them. After lots of time spent under the law of these Gods, the Demigods decided they wanted the same power. The power to create and rule over everything. They went to war with their own Gods, bringing destruction upon their race and also making the Gods realize their power was dangerous if it came to be used by the wrong hands. So they split their powers into these Fragments and scattered them. There are seven known fragments, some guarded closely, some with unknown locations. By the time I got to meet Aellioah, he had already collected three fragments, destroying three different planets while he obtained them, and he asked me to go search for a fourth fragment on a highly toxic residue of a planet. I did not ask questions, why would I? I was standing in front of a Demigod with the power to destroy entire planets, I could not dare say no to him, and the p*****t was as great as he was. I did not refuse. I tried to gather as much data about the said fragment and the planet before venturing there. The fragment was forged by one of the Seven Primordial Gods, one you know named as Sekhmet, the Goddess of War and Healing, holding part of the Goddesses power, the power to destroy anything blocking one's path, while leading and protecting those that allied with them." El'is paused her words watching Angelique stare at the screen in silence.

"Why-" Angelique paused, biting her inner cheek before looking at El'is. "Why does he need these?"

"I am not sure. I never cared enough to ask. And I doubt he would tell me. The man destroyed more than a couple of planets to get his hands on this power for a reason I am too afraid to know, honestly."

"Did you manage to deliver the fourth fragment?"

"Not really. I did get it, but when I was about to meet him, the whole crashing on Earth happened."

"So where is the fragment?"

"It's in the facility. Like the three other fragments he owned." Kai spoke, making Angelique jump, forgetting he was there too.

"How?" she squinted her eyes a little confused.

"You will understand at some point. This man, is twisted. He is mischievous, sneaky, slimy, completely bonkers. I don't know what drives him, how he still exists. I just know he is incredibly strong and old as time, and that is all I need to know in order to not dwell against him." El'is muttered, shutting off the device she held, getting up.

"So that's why he came to Earth. He came after you, because of the fourth fragment!" Angelique finally understood.

El'is nodded her head slowly. "Exactly. I still don't know why did he not bring this whole place to ashes yet."

"Can he do that?" Angelique stared in horror at the alien before turning to Kai. "Can he DO that?!" she asked alarmed, but did not get a reply from him.

"Why would your tiny brain think he can't?!" El'is questioned turning swiftly to the woman. "That man can do whatever he pleases with your filthy Earth! And what drives me crazy is that I don't understand why he doesn't do anything! He spent the last month eating, sleeping, messing around with everyone, escaping his cell whenever he wanted, but never really harmed anyone! That's exactly what makes him dangerous!"

Silence suddenly set over the whole room. Angelique was tensed, staring up at the mercenary, horror stricken. El'is was just as tensed, as her eyes were fixing an uncertain spot on the floor, two hands set on her head, two crossed on her chest and two paused mid air.

The light of the room shut suddenly, red emergency light turning on. El'is raised her head immediately looking around the room, hurrying to the door, trying to open it. But the door did not budge.

"Just a power shortage. Don't worry about it. The generator will set in motion in a few minutes." Kai explained as he walked to El'is, stopping her from clawing the metal door.

If the power was out, did that mean the security system was out as well? Did that mean that Aellioah could walk out of his cell any moment? Tsk! Like that cell could actually hold him back!

"Your stupid ignorance will bring down this race." muttered El'is as Kai approached her, her voice low, grave, premonitory.

Kai stopped, a step away from her, his grey eyes studying her profile, as she refused to look at him. The white lights were switched on, and the door finally opened, allowing El'is to walk out, leaving the man baffled in his spot, before he followed after her, leaving Angelique alone.

Confused and quite happy she was finally alone, the woman reached for a snack, and opened the bag, sniffing the cheese puffs. She stared into the bag, shook it before grabbing and eating one. "Well, if ignorance will kill us all, then I can proudly say, the human race is doomed. "