Istituto di Acqua Fredda, Belermo, Alpine Europa, 12/6/11243
Layers of fat draped from the enormous green creature to the other side of the glass.
The entire corridor flashed red in the lights. Guards covered their ears as they ran away, in an effort to protect themselves from whatever sound was being broadcast outside of Fiore's silent glass cage.
The slimy green palms of two enormous, clawed hands pressed silently against the transparent wall between the two cells. Chaac's black eyes examined Fiore's cell, his face like thunder as he took a look at the fragment of cane which Fiore had hopelessly tried to bury in the most discreet corner she could find.
"No, you don't understand!" Fiore wailed, her pleas absorbed by the silent glass for the millionth time. "I didn't break it! I'm not the one you're after!"
An angry fist thumped silently against Chaac's side of the glass. Fiore took a hasty step backwards until she slammed backwards into the opposing glass wall, completely unnoticed by the Saturnyne who inhabited the adjacent cell. "If that thing breaks through, then I'm going to tell it exactly how to find you, Ivo!" Fiore screamed into the silence. "All this was on you!"
Without hesitation, every cell of Chaac's body contorted silently until in his place stood a purple creature not dissimilar to a rhinoceros, only larger and with more horns. The creature stepped backwards, its heavy hooves making not a sound against the metal floor, until its great rump was squashed against the opposing corner. The creature looked upwards, its heavily-sunken yellow eyes focused on the wall in front of it.
Fiore whimpered, her eyes unmoving from the creature. Chaac lurched forward, slamming silently against the wall they shared, before losing his footing and crashing mutedly against the floor.
Fiore took a brave step forward. She pressed her face against the wall, her loud, nervous sigh absorbed by the glass. "They put him in a cell he couldn't escape," Fiore muttered to herself between heavy breaths. "He can't get out this time. He can't get out this time. Oh, shit. He's never getting out again."
The rhinoceros morphed silently into a tiny bird with a large, bony head, which fluttered quickly and silently between corners of the cell.
"Please, no," Fiore muttered. "He can't get out," she assured herself. "He can't get out. This is a maximum security cell. He can't get out."
The bird hit the adjoining wall with a faint thud.
Fiore stopped breathing. Her mouth opened. Her gaze studied the glass. She wasn't sure whether she saw a tiny crack or a piece of dirt.
Thud.
This thud was louder. Fiore could hear the visible crack enlarging. Petrified, she slammed backwards against the rear wall, her breathing heavy once more as she watched the crack grow larger and larger with every slam of the bird into the glass.
The bird transformed into the gigantic purple beast once again with a faint swish. Chaac raised his horned head to one side. Fiore could hear him breathe.
"No…" Fiore muttered. "No… no…"
Chaac's head crashed against the glass. Fiore buried her head in her arms protectively. A clang sounded against the metal floor, as Chaac's green, tree trunk leg stepped into Fiore's cell. Fiore shuffled into the corner adjacent with the corridor. Fully upright, Chaac's short, black hair scraped against the glass ceiling.
"Wait! No! You need me!" Fiore pleaded, her arms flailing in the air. "I didn't break it! It was Ivo Iannone!"
Chaac marched rapidly towards Fiore.
"You can't leave this prison, but I can!" Fiore squealed hurriedly. "Break me out, I can find Ivo and bring him to you!"
Chaac stopped in his tracks. Fiore shrank backwards into her corner, desperately trying to avoid brushing the bloated belly which stood millimetres from her chest, as she stared into the scarce remains of a human face which inhabited her eye level. A large, green hand hovered undecidedly above Fiore's head, scraping against the glass wall as it did so.
"Why would you help me like this?" Chaac asked. His deep, booming voice vibrated through the glass wall.
Fiore smirked. "Ivo was the one who had me thrown in here," she explained. "As soon as I arrived, I made a promise to myself that if I ever escaped this place… the moment I escaped this place, I would make him pay for what he did to me." Fiore stared upwards into Chaac's unreadable black eyes, anxiously awaiting a reaction.
"I recognise you, Fiore Storto," Chaac said. "I know you knew Jade Ianonne. I see her memories, clear as the day I first received them. It appears that you and Ivo had a good friendship." Chaac rested each of his enormous hands on a pane of glass. Fiore cautiously watched Chaac's body contort, trying not to let him touch her as he leaned downwards until his ugly face was directly above her, his breath putrid.
"Ivo is not the kind of person who would betray a friend like this," Chaac said accusatively.
"That's what Jade thought five years ago," Fiore replied, defensively. "I believed it too. Ivo was a good man once. But much has changed since then." Fiore seethed. "Ivo is not the person he once was."
"I sense a great anger in your voice," Chaac observed.
"Yes," Fiore said through gritted teeth. "I am angry. Fucking hell, I have never been this angry in all my life. And if you can help me to get revenge I will relish that opportunity with every muscle in my body that I can use to bring him to you."
Chaac stood upright again, his belly coming uncomfortably close to Fiore's face as he moved. "Do you know what these alarms are for?" he asked.
Fiore glanced at the flashing red lights in the corridor. "No?" she replied.
Chaac stared reflectively through the glass. "My brothers are coming to Belermo," he contemplated. "They've come to finish what I started. They would have freed me too had Ivo not trapped me here." He looked back at Fiore, his voice calm, almost assuring. "They will ensure that revenge will be served."
"If you help me escape I can help them," Fiore insisted.
Chaac nodded graciously. "I will break down the wall of this cell," he agreed. "But you can start by showing me everything you know about Ivo Iannone."
"Thank… thank you," Fiore muttered quietly. "I've… I've known Ivo for many…"
"I didn't say tell me," Chaac interrupted. "I said show me."
Fiore fell silent. Every hair on her body stood on end. "No…" she whispered weakly, as Chaac's hand wrapped around hers.
'I no longer have my own body,' Fiore pondered, 'yet I walk freer than I have since I arrived here.'
Chaac's leg clanged against the metal floor once more, sending Fiore's view of the empty corridor bouncing in all directions.
"Where are we going?" Fiore asked.
"To the vault," Chaac growled as he marched quickly forward. "Ivo was working on the Tablet of Fortitude down there."
"You know all that just from looking at my memories?" Fiore asked.
"Everything you know, I know too. Hopefully Ivo and the tablet will both still be there."
"I see." Fiore winced a little. As Chaac continued to guide her down to the vault, she pondered every memory she didn't want Chaac to see.
"My cane!" Chaac boomed, his voice thundering through his belly and into Fiore's face which clung to it.
"What of it?" Fiore asked.
"You…" Chaac cried, accusatively. "You gave it to Ivo to destroy!"
"I didn't want him to destroy it," Fiore pleaded.
"I knew I couldn't trust you to walk free on my behalf!"
"Just… look at the memory again," Fiore said. "I only gave…"
"Why am I one of the few inmates who deserve to be here?" Chaac grilled, angrily.
"Alright!" Fiore squealed. "Many wonderful people and beings from other planets have been locked up in this hell hole of a prison simply for being on the Earth, all of them innocent of any crime. But not you, Chaac. You came to this planet which had no quarrel with you or your kind, and came here with the intention of killing several innocent people simply to serve the purposes of you and your planet.
"Let me have a look inside your mind," Fiore continued, pressing her green eyelids shut. "Oh, yes. I see no remorse here. Not a crumb of sorrow for all those people you murdered, including one of my closest friends! I see the fear she felt when you absorbed her. It is perfectly preserved inside your mind and yet it does not affect you one iota. None of it does. Not for any of your victims. And that is why you deserve to be trapped here, Chaac. You disgust me."
"And yet you're still willing to help me," Chaac replied. "I can see it in your mind. You're so driven by your hatred for Ivo that you will overlook everything that you have told me so long as you can have revenge."
"Yes?"
Chaac smirked. "I think we're going to work very well together," he said, rounding the corner to approach a large mannequin, almost identical to him in both size and shape, a white cloth hastily dropped on the floor beside it. A one-legged pedestal stood beside it, its rectangular surface slightly higher than Fiore's face.
"He's taken it!" Chaac raged, knocking over the pedestal a he swiped the fractured remains of his cane angrily to the ground.
"Maybe… maybe he's still here," Fiore said, calmly.
"Do you see him?" Chaac snapped.
"Ivo! Help!" Fiore cried out, helplessly. "Help me! Somebody help! Aaaaarghhhh!" Fiore stopped, listening intently for a response.
"Do you hear that?" Chaac asked.
"Hear what?"
"Shush…" Chaac paused.
A faint rustle sounded from down the corridor.
"Oh, I think I hear it," Fiore said. "Ivo, is that- WOAH! SHIT!"
A laser gunshot fired centimetres in front of Fiore's face, hitting the wall beside the display. Immediately, Chaac's slimy skin transformed into white feathers, and Fiore found her soul a passenger upon the bird which flew in the direction of the gunshot.
A man in a crimson, gold-lined cloak stood down the corridor, holding a light blue staff which fired an array of colours at the bird. Chaac resisted every one that hit, landing behind the man and returning to his original form with his hand upon the man's shoulder. The man resisted, but was quickly absorbed, his staff falling to the ground with a clang.
"Do you have the tablet?" the man cried out desperately from Chaac's back. "The Tablet of Fortitude?"
"No, I came here to find it," Chaac replied. "It was already taken."
"Oh no no no, this is bad, this is bad," the man said, his voice full of anguish.
"Do you know where it is?" Chaac asked.
"Did Ivo Iannone take it?" Fiore added.
"Who's Ivo Iannone?" the man replied. "No no no, I was told if it wasn't here, then the government probably took it."
"Your government will give the tablet back to my people in exchange for them leaving," Chaac said. "That is the deal my people told me would happen."
"No!" the man insisted, furiously. "Do you really think the government intend to give the original tablet back to your people? Everybody who has come to Earth from your planet will be destroyed, along with Belermo itself."
Fiore's eyes widened as she examined the man's memories. "He's telling the truth," she gasped. "There's… there's nothing we can do…"
"Not so fast," Chaac insisted. "Take another look, Fiore. Three others came with him. And only one needs to escape the facility for an adequate warning…"
"No… no no no…" the man wailed as Chaac returned to bird form, his eyes focusing on the other three cloaks which hid around the corner.