"Damn." Spat Holly. "Damn! DAMN!" She punched the outside of the ambulance. "Why? WHY?"
"Holly." Number 1 said. "Leave this to me." Those few words sapped away Holly's anger and within seconds her breathing was calm. She sat down and folded her arms.
"Do what you have to do."
Foaly trotted over to the driver's window. He tapped on it and a small section slid open. "Take us to LEP HQ."
"What?" The sprite in the driver's seat asked, surprised.
"Take us to LEP HQ!" Foaly snapped.
"But doesn't that guy need a hospital?" The driver indicated to Artemis. He ignored the fact that this person did not look like a faerie.
"No hospital could solve his condition. We're using my lab for this."
"Are you sure?"
"JUST DRIVE!" Everyone yelled at him in unison. Startled, he did so.
As Number one examined Artemis, the rest of the gang sat around nervously. Holly beat her foot on the ground and Foaly watched her tensely. She's pretty damn frustrated… He thought. All of a sudden, Foaly's hologram phone vibrated and opened.
" 'Trubz' is calling. 'Trubz' is calling." A professional voice repeated, struggling to pronounce Trouble's nickname correctly as Foaly put on his v-gloves. He pressed enter; the voice stopped and the screen flipped to the said elf's face. He looked apprehensive.
"Hey Trouble. What brings you here?" Foaly asked. The fact that Foaly didn't crack a joke or insert sarcasm into his greeting was a bad sign.
"So… How's the mud boy?" Trouble asked, awkwardly. Foaly was startled.
"Okay, what do you really want?"
"N-no… I really want to… to know." Foaly gaped at him. "Shut that long face of yours, p-pony boy!" he stuttered, blushing. "It's just, I suppose, if Holly, you know, likes him that much…"
"Ooh 'Holly' now, is it?" Foaly teased.
"Fine! Major Short!" Trouble shouted.
"Shh!" Snapped Holly from Artemis' side. Foaly shrunk away from her and put his finger on his lips to signal Trouble to be quiet. He then turned the camera onto Artemis and watched Trouble's expression carefully. His eyes widened… mouth gaped…
Artemis was laid out on the stretcher. His eyes were closed. A faint, red smear could be seen under his lips. It was like a scene from snow white. His face was as white as snow, his hair- black as coal. His lips were redder than the fullest roses. This scene was a re-enactment of when she was poisoned by the apple, lying dead with her friends mourning beside her. Waiting for that faint hope of rescue…
Our Snow White,
Her blood red,
Their faint hope,
Both half dead.
Once Strong, Now
Depends on others,
Happy ever after turned
Tale of tragic lovers.
The witch got her way,
Outsmarting Snow White,
This story ends with
The heroin losing her fight.
Once stunning and kind,
A hopeless heap,
And all around her,
They grieve and weep.
Coal black hair,
Cold face pale,
One young girl,
One sad tale.
"Frond…" Trouble murmured under his breath. The mud boy looked… dead.
"He'll pull through though." Holly said, more to reassure herself than anyone else.
"Holly, listen…" Trouble started. "Humans are bound to die before faeries any way and-" Something inside Holly snapped.
"How dare you." She steamed, whipping her head round to glare at Trouble. Her eyes hardened like steel as she glowered into Trouble's eyes. "How DARE you!"
"I'm just saying-"
"Shut up!"
"Don't get too attached-"
"QUIET!"
"He's just a mud boy!"
"STOP IT!"
"DAMN IT HOLLY! LISTEN TO ME!"
"NO!"
"H-Holly?..." A faint voice mumbled. Holly span round and was at Artemis' side instantly.
"Artemis! Are you okay?!" She asked, worried.
"Yes…" Artemis cracked one eye open, squinting. "My head just burns a little, that's all."
"Do you need anything?"
"No, thank you. I will be quite alright." Artemis smiled, slightly.
"You didn't wake up screaming." Butler noted. "No dreams this time?"
"No… just a little flash back. I remembered my mother's birthday."
"Anything's better I suppose. Your condition may be improving." Butler smiled. Then he added, "Plus, your speaking style seems to be back to how it used to be."
"Speaking?"
"You've gone back to being more formal." Butler explained, chuckling to himself.
"I don't speak formally!" Artemis looked shocked. Holly grinned.
"You speak like a single casual word would kill you." She laughed.
"Just because I don't use slang like 'yo' or 'wassup' doesn't mean I speak formally!" Holly sniggered. "What?" Artemis was confused. For once, there was something he didn't understand.
"It's just…" Holly continued to snicker. "Hearing you say things like that… haha! They're not even slang words now-a-days!"
"I wouldn't know." Artemis pulled a face. "I don't keep track of such vulgar terminology."
"…Why?" Number one suddenly muttered.
"Why?" The mud man looked taken a back at this sudden input. "Because it's not in the slightest bit 'cool' to-"
"No. That's not what I mean." Everyone watched Number one. For the first time in months, Number One was serious. "Why do you seem so well and healthy, after being ill for so long? Not just ill, but on the verge of something more extreme?"
Silence.
The jovial atmosphere from seconds ago evaporated.
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
"I don't know." Artemis admitted.
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
"You feel fine?"
Da-dum. Click. Da-dum. Click. Da-dum.
"A lot better… But not entirely."
Da-dum. CLICK. Da-dum. CLICK. Da-dum. CLICK.
"You said your illness came on all of a sudden?"
CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
"Yes. Indeed. What are you getting at?"
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
"It's like someone has a switch controlling you."
A switch. Inside of you. Controlling you.
CLICK!
"Impossible." Holly spat.
Controlling you. You're helpless.
Da-dum!
"Let me see that injection mark you talked about."
There's nothing you can do.
There's nothing left.
DA-DUM! …
Click…
"I can't wait any longer!" Angeline cried out, burying her face in her hands.
"Please, darling, be patient. He'll be fine." Artemis Fowl Senior rested a hand on his wife's shaking shoulders, attempting to comfort her.
"I don't want to lose him!" Tears started to stream down her face, her hair tangled with the amount of times she had ran a hand through it in stress. "I don't want to lose him again!"
"We won't! Angeline, listen to me!" Artemis tried to insert some authority into his voice, but couldn't manage it. He knew exactly how she felt. The clock's mechanical hand jolted slowly, each beat seemingly taking an hour to pass. Every second lasted an eternity and he felt like he was helpless. Occasionally, the memories of his son nearly drove him to the brink of insanity... "We'll just have to wait for Butler to contact us." That sentence tore at his insides to repeat aloud. To put the life of his son in another's hands… A doctor he had never seen face to face, never mind spoken with. Yet Butler had recommended him. Of all people, Butler had placed his last hopes on that doctor. So, if he was good enough for Butler, the most protective person (in job and nature) Artemis senior had ever known, then he was good enough for him.
Come on Butler. He begged inside his head. Save him. Just like I know you've done a thousand times over.
Miles away above ground, in a place where sakura trees thrive and samurai legend shines bright in people's hearts, not your average local was waltzing his way through the crowds. People turned and stared at his black hoody shading his face, avoiding coming too close despite the millions of others around them. The black bangs of his fringe flicked out from under the hoody's peak, glinting in the sunlight. His eyes were concealed by darkness, along with the rest of his face. But every now and again, a glint of blue shone eerily, so that the civilians hurried on quicker than before.
The boy was tall and thin. His frame depicted him to be of around 17-19 years old. Smirking to himself as he entered the modern apartment block and caught a lift to the top floor, he thought over his plans.
"It's all going perfectly!" He grinned. "As expected of a genius such as myself." He tapped a code into the door at the end of the corridor and entered a luxurious apartment. "That fool let himself go!" he cackled. "I will beat him and it's all thanks to his own stupidity!" Collapsing into an office chair and spinning round, the boy finally removed his hoody… to reveal a face identical to Artemis Fowl the second's.
"My, my!" Another voice echoed from the other side of the room. "So you've returned my wonderful invention!" 'Artemis' stopped spinning.
"Opal!" He smiled in delight, rushing to her side. He took her long black locks between his fingers and looked down into her eyes. Being the height of a small sized human woman, Artemis towered over her.
"Arty, Arty." Opal snickered. "How much do you love me today?" Her self-obsessed voice slid silkily from her lips. Without hesitation, the teenager answered.
"More than the world itself. Your beauty astounds me. The stars can't shine as bright as you and no God could ever exist and be more radiant and intelligent as my Opal." After the boy finished, Opal preened and patted the boy on the head, standing on her tip toes.
"Good boy. Now, tell me how your plan is progressing. Tell me how amazing I am."
"I will." Artemis smiled, romanticised by the faerie in front of him. "Those ugly, disgusting and idiotic faeries and humans who dared confront you will soon witness the beauty of your intelligence. They will bow down before your godliness and kiss the ground before you. The most stupid of them all, Artemis, let you gather enough DNA over the years to successfully create a clone of him- one that loves you more than anything and will die for you. Then, the microscopic robot you created managed to crawl down that human's ear and into his brain, attaching onto it to give us some minor control of his dreams and body. After that, your amazingness managed to inject another microscopic robot into his bloodstream which produces a poison on command from us. The best thing is- he didn't even realise! This way, those damn faeries get to witness the gradual decent of their friend's body and mind before them, watch as he writhes in pain and falls helpless to Queen Opal's plot!"
"Outstanding plot." Opal corrected.
"My apologies." Artemis said, taking her hand and kissing it.
"Anyhow. Sounds like my genius creation is doing his job, is he not?"
"I will do anything for Queen Opal."
"What is our original's condition like now?" Opal ignored him, getting tired of the cheesy lines he was reeling out.
"He recently delved to a state of around 62% health drop, his blood stream almost 5:1 with the poison. After switching off the robot, the amount lowered to around 10:1 and his position has stabilised to less than a 38% health drop and I believe he is currently conscious, my Queen."
"Conscious?! Conscious?! Why have you let him recover like this?!"
"My Queen, recovery implants hope in people and makes downfall more dramatic." Artemis grinned maliciously. Opal thought about this, before cracking her own smirk.
"And that's why I decided to clone a criminal genius."
"Artemis is nowhere near as smart as my Opal though."
"Speaking of that human…" Opal, again, ignored the clone. "We need a new name for you. Having two Artemis' is too complex."
"Three." Corrected the clone. "There's Artemis the first too."
"I don't care for such minor details!" Snapped Opal. "And do not speak to me in such a repulsive tone!"
"My apologies, dear Queen Opal! Your glorious majesty!" The clone knelt to the floor and looked up into Opal's cold eyes. "I beg your forgiveness!" Opal sneered down on him. Secondly later, she laughed.
"Seeing that damn human's face begging for mercy… Ha! You are forgiven." Anyone who knew Artemis, that is – the real Artemis, would take one look at this romanticised, evil and clearly obsessed human and know this was not the real Artemis. Well, some may agree with the 'evil'… and maybe the word 'obsessed' could be put into context with the word 'money'…
But Artemis had never, and would never, be the type to bow down to a woman and shroud her with compliments that were unrealistic such as 'your eyes shine brighter than the stars' and 'you are more glorious than God himself' because he was simply not that type of guy. He couldn't stand those cheesy chat up lines. If he was to get a woman who loved him for who he was, then she'd have to realise that he would never want a relationship with words straight from an American romance movie. Sure, he'd treat her well and like a gentleman should, but how can you compare giant blazing balls of gas to globular organs? It made no sense to Artemis.
Yes. It was clear that this was not only a clone, but a twisted clone. One whose mind had been altered for a purpose- A sick purpose. Going against the laws of both nature, faery and man-kind alike for her twisted goals.
"Now. It's about time we plan our next move, my dear Hunter."
"Hunter? Is that my new name?"
"Indeed. We have our pieces in position. One more move and we have their King in check mate. It's about time we turned up the heat in this game." And with that, Opal burst out into cackles of laughter.
"So let me get this straight." Holly frowned. She felt like she was the only non-genius in the room with Number One spouting magical and medical jargon, Artemis backing that up with scientific nonsense and Foaly adding some technological rubbish just to confuse her even more. Then she had looked at Butler. His expression was vacant, like he had learned to ignore this part of the conversation and just listen for the part where someone bothered to simplify it at the end. As soon as Holly spoke, the manservant paid attention again.
"When Artemis was found out of his bed on the floor, someone had managed to break into the Fowl mansion and inject him with some sort of… thingy which does… something, which can be controlled by the mystery person behind this. This person controls Artemis' current level of health, which is why neither human medicine, nor magic can help him for long. If we find this thingy and take it out, Artemis can recover-"
"Theoretically." Foal interrupted.
"Wait! I haven't finished. Save your crap for later. I'm going over everything to make sure I haven't missed anything. Our bodies used magic within us to convert our eyes to their original colours. This caused his minor headaches and weakness in his immune system. He then contracted a normal human condition -cataclosmian disease- and the stress caused the dreams… But Artemis has had way more stress because of this before? Why hasn't this happened before if that's right?"
"We'd have to analyse Artemis to find the 'thingy' that was injected into him and see its exact effects. Otherwise we'd just be guessing at what is causing what. My guess is that the dreams aren't linked at all… But I could be wrong. I hate to say this Artemis but, you're going to have to write all those dreams down for us to analyse. I know remembering might be stressful but-"
"What did you say Foaly? I wasn't paying much attention." Artemis looked up from a note pad he had withdrawn from his pocket just as Foaly had begun to speak.
"What are you writing?" Foaly sniffed, feeling rather ticked off.
"A dream log for you to analyse."
"… So you were two steps ahead… Again." Holly rolled her eyes.
"Why, did no one else realise this?" Artemis put on his 'I'm-only-being-rational' expression. Foaly snorted and scuffed his hoof on the floor.
"Go on then, genius. What have you got for us?" Foaly spat. Holly caught Artemis' eyes flicker to the floor before back to the note pad. Tossing the note book casually across to Foaly, Holly remembered her own dream. The fear, the pain, the agony of loss… Artemis had suffered from that many times over. Possibly many times worse. As Qwan and Number one whispered in the corner of the vehicle, Foaly read through the dream log.
"We're here." The driver called. Rather unnecessarily, for the ambulance had stopped and Holly was already out of the door, with Butler two steps ahead of her, carting a rather surprised Artemis along on his stretcher. Sat bolt upright, the expression on the young genius' face read 'This is rather undignified'. But still, he said nothing. Foaly trotted after them. Usually, he'd take his time just for the smug feeling he'd get when they'd all get there before him and would have to wait for him to unlock the door to his lab. However, there was no time for such immature indulgences right now.
"When is there ever?" Grumbled Foaly, trying to remember at least two peaceful days that had gone by when Artemis was added to the equation… He couldn't think of any time. "Man. Such a troublesome human." He grunted, making sure the mud boy heard as he stormed past.
"You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me." Artemis grinned. It didn't last long however, because he suddenly began to feel very dizzy again…
"Queen Opal. Those two idiots you put in Tara say they have spotted Juliet Butler near the shuttle entrance." Hunter put down the mobile in his hand and turned to the said pixie.
"Really?... Hmm. That means they'll send the big human up to collect her…" Opal smirked. "Hahaha! I think we're going to have a change of plan! Turn down the poison so the mud boy is relatively healthy for now. We'll capture the girl and draw the human mountain away from his charge. Then, we'll put our original plan into action and let the destruction of Haven commence! With Artemis down and Butler and his sister out of range, it'll leave Holly and Foaly alone to save the world! This time, I WILL win. This time, I WILL become Queen of this world!" …
…
A.N: Sorry for the wait! Hope you liked this chapter :) I never really liked the idea of the cheesy evil character in Artemis Fowl, but I didn't want to create my own and complicate the story further so I used Opal :) But I suppose we have this Hunter too so… ;D And which of you got the link to Artemis? Artemis? Goddess of Hunting or something? :D Anyway. Double meaning too :D This copy of Artemis is going to hunt Artemis down and kill him.
…
But will he succeed?!
I keep having people re-iterating what is going on in the story like Holly did in this chapter, not only to remind me to stay on track, but to let you know how everything is working in case you're confused. However, I'm telling you now. One of Foaly's theories is WRONG! :D Dun dun duuuh! Okay, hope you liked :D
Freekiellie :)