Imminent Destruction

Just before Artemis went to bed that night, he took out the pills they had stolen from the pharmacy. He twirled the bottle between his fingers for a while, thinking about the plan. To the rest of the staff it would be as if Artemis was just sleeping, instead of purging a foreign mind. Not that Artemis would be doing much purging, Gaia, Sirius and Shu would be doing the actual assault. Artemis would be attempting to stay principle and Orion was to jump into the breach if for some reason Artemis should fall unconscious, they didn't want Opal getting control of the body.

Artemis popped a sizeable dose down, and waited for the pills to take affect, keeping himself awake by working on several projects at once, from the rebuilding of the Ice Cube to finishing the composition of several orchestral pieces.

Meanwhile, deep in the pit of Artemis' mind, three personalities sat on a hill watching Opals fortress. Sirius looked at Gaia then Shu and asked.

"So, when do we attack?"

"The first sign of loss of power will probably be structural damage." Shu said in a monotone. "When we see the damage, we attack."

"And we just walk towards where there is less damage?"

Shu nodded. "Opal will keep the closer things from falling apart, so the more stable the area the closer she is."

There was silence for a while as they looked down at the door less building. That was until a chunk of brickwork suddenly came away leaving a sizeable entrance.

"Do we count that as "structural damage"?" Sirius said sarcastically before they started running towards the fortress.

Inside was a corridor, lined with eyes. Not painted ones but of flesh and blood, of a cold blue colour. The carpet was composed of a single large animal skin, maybe leopard. But now they were inside the building the damage the pills were doing was more obvious. Tufts of fur were missing and some of the eyes had fallen onto the floor. Sirius had the misfortune of stepping on one, which made a very unpleasant sound hollow ball squelched flat.

Shu didn't stop to admire the décor and marched on oblivious to the staring or squelching. Gaia was floating so didn't make any noise as he followed. Gritting his teeth in disgust Sirius charged after them trying to drown the noises with thundering steps.

As they continued, the walls started to melt and bubble thickly as imagination started to crumble. They could all feel the effects as well, Gaia had descended to walking and they could no longer run without fatigue. Any action became closer to a chore and even Shu momentarily struggled to open the next door. It wasn't worth the effort.

Although the correct direction, it led into what we can only describe as a prison. If you can call the masses of bodies as they filled the cages to bursting point, the living standing on the dead, the rotting smell of hundreds of bodies the heat of thousands, a prison. But all one body. Artemis's. But they weren't Artemis, they weren't even people. They were animals. The faces were exact copies, but for the expression's of hunger and insanity. Some were eating others, tearing through the identical suits to gorge on the organs. Other Artemis' were smashing at the cage trying to escape, some were even being pressed so heavily against it the wire was cutting into the skin. But despite all this the only parts that escaped the cage were dismembered fingers and blood which seeped out of the bottom, pooling around the cage.

Again Shu was unfazed and continued his brisk walk through the room. Gaia was moving very carefully trying and failing to keep the blood off his white suit. He probably would've wanted to torch this room if his imagination would've been powerful enough. Sirius's main concern was for the cage and was silently grateful that it hadn't broken yet. Not that it would last long as the creaking sounds seemed to indicate. This led him to sprint after Shu, feet splashing in the puddles of blood.

As they left the room Gaia was sure to close and lock the door after them.

"What do you think that room was for?" Sirius asked.

"Entertainment." Shu said simply.

"I can think of a few people I'd want to put in cages like that." Gaia mused.

Sirius might've killed Gaia on the spot if they had not heard Opal screeching in the distance.

When they reached the distance, they saw it was… well the closest thing to call it is a control room. However not many control rooms have a wall of hot melted chocolate continually cascading down it sluggishly, nor a giant eye protruding through another as if it had been forced in from outside.

What it did have in common with a control room is the controls, the many screens and an egotistical mad genius in the middle of it all. This particular egotistical mad genius was in a hover chair, which looked like it needed its stabilisers fixing, continually rising and falling to different screens which made up a column of screens all the way to the ceiling. However even in this centre of power one could see the slow ruin creeping in. Many of the screens showed nothing but interference, the giant eye was drying up and the chocolate wall was splattering onto the white tiger fur rug.

Maybe because of this chaos Opal didn't notice the trio for a noticeable amount of time. And when she did she didn't seem to be in a talkative mood. Something about her screaming wordlessly in rage, shooting lasers at them from the hover chair and her immediate rise up towards what appeared to be an escape tunnel, seemed to give that away.

Sirius, seeing Opal making for the exit above, immediately gave chase using the screen column as a makeshift ladder.

Gaia too gave chase though he, with great effort, floated after Opal.

Shu however calmly walked over to a golden bust of Opal and picked it up, and as Opal was nearly within reach of her egress goal, he hailed her attention or, as anyone else would put it, shouted.

"Hey, Opal." And as her attention concentrated on who had called her Shu dropped the bust, which shattered easily.

In the mind, hovering is done very easily by, in the simplest terms, ignoring gravity. By not thinking about it.

So when someone actively drops a priceless bust to the floor in front of you, gravity, falling, that entire area of concept comes to the fore front of ones mind.

The upshot being that you drop. Heavily. Which was precisely what happened to Opal and Gaia. Sirius, fell too but with the column of screens instead which had also been held up by the above hovering principle, and the room was soon filled with breaking glass and different coloured gases as the gas screens turned to broken glass.

Shu stood alone in the room which was dismantling quicker now Opal had been destroyed, still, Shu wasn't worried and poked around the ruins searching for any signs of Gaia or Sirius. When he didn't find any, he let out a ghost of a smile.

"Excellent," he thought, as he allowed the old fortress to fade into nothing. "Just as planned."

A/N: I kinda wanted to make this chapter longer but I'm typing this at 5AM, and I felt this was a very good cliff hanger. Anyway hope ye enjoyed, and I'll see you next time, with a longer chapter.