Right, let's move on quickly, shall we, because this bit's giving me trouble. So it won't be to my highest standard. In fact, not a great piece of writing, but I'll try to make sure there are no grammar errors and that it reads well. Also, new plot development. PLOT MOVES FAST AFTER THIS! STICK AROUND!

Chapter Eight Soulless

Artemis Fowl and Minerva Paradizo were quite willing to work together, talk to each other, and share a room without arguing, and had agreed that those qualities should always exist; as Artemis said, he didn't get divorced to start a domestic war. The two had managed to stay good friends.

One thing Artemis could not stand was Mark Hayes. The thing that annoyed Artemis about him the most, besides uncomfortable truth that Minerva found something in him, was that he listened to stupid music, and that he was always giving up smoking. Artemis had never seen the man with a real cigarette in his mouth. It was always either a pen, or a lolly stick, anything, and he always had a several nicotine patches on various areas of his body.

But of course, Artemis never mentioned any of these things, since they were all adults and should act accordingly.

Unfortunately, Domovoi saw just the same as Artemis, in the way that he wasn't keen on this new boy who was Minerva's step-son. Artemis and Minerva tried their hardest to ignore the fighting, arguing and the futile attempts from Mark to pull the two apart while they discussed in depth the important matter of finding out the real reason that Alexander had been taken. It always helped to have Samantha around too. With her knowledge of fairy politics and current affairs that Artemis would never in a million years extract from Foaly's files, Artemis truly believed they could. If they tried hard enough.

It was just another misadventure after all.

Alexander was trying to adjust to his new routine quickly, before it broke him down. He was so confused. One day, he was at home with his family and everything was just peachy and the next he was hauled out of bed at ridiculous times in the morning, standing in his birthday suit in some sterile lab room crying for his mummy while some short people poked him with needles and treated him as a lab specimen.

No outside world, no contact, no love. It was as far from his home as he could imagine, thinking of sitting by the fireplace with Domovoi and poking random sweets into the open fire to see if it made them taste better before Artemis caught them at it made him want to cry. He was so lonely, even though every night he was sent to a dormitory with five other boys with neatly lined up beds and empty and clean, just like him.

It reminded him of a story Samantha had been reading him once about a boy called Cosmo Hill, but he'd never heard the ending, because his father had said he was too young.

The boys he shared a room with were mostly like him. Two were like him, but never used magic; one was an odd mix between a dwarf and a goblin, though was oddly docile and just coughed up a lot of smoke, and the other boy… He was weird.

The others had personalities of some sort, they seemed real, even if the antiseptic had washed away everything that made them who they were, but this child…

He was brought into the room by the same female pixie every day, who would give him a tablet and then say good night and leave. The boy never replied. He would sit cross-legged on his bed staring into space for about ten minutes and then fall asleep on top of the covers as if he'd been knocked out.

When he was woken up to leave, he's get up without any fuss, as if someone were controlling him on a game, and do the same thing when he came back in the evening. He never spoke. The only sound Alexander had heard from him was a single tiny cough. Once.

But the thing that disturbed Alexander the most was that he was almost an exact copy of himself, save one silver eye.

I know, reeeeeallly short, but I know where I'm going after this, I just needed to get that out of the way.

SO! How do ya like that?

Oh yeah, the silver eye thing… This is basically a basis for the last Alexander the great, which I have perfected and is called 'Call Me; Alexander The Great' but don't you worry about that, I'm gonna finish this if it kills me. I quite like this version, but I've made a few changes in the next one so forgive me a little if I made some mistakes.

Reviews?

~BS