A/N: This will be short because parents want me to go outside.

This chapter is dedicated, once more, to FlamingWingsAndFrozenHearts.

Enjoy :)

It was so very tense, waiting. Holly had moved so that she was close to the magical back door, but all she could do in this moment was listen to Artemis' first meeting with the elf-sprite that had attempted to take over his mind.

"I suppose you must be feeling very lost." Glimmer. Her voice was even now laced lightly with the hypnotic mesmer, and Holly had to concentrate to keep the tone from affecting her, sending her mind into a fog. She can only imagine how Artemis was being affected. Her voice was fainter than Artemis', but not as faint as it had been when this conversation had started. She was moving steadily closer. And Artemis' heart rate was ratcheting up, well past normal levels. He was frightened. Of course, when his voice came through, he sounded numb, devoid of all emotion save greif. Which was the point.

"I can't be lost if there's nowhere to go."

"Hm, I suppose that's true." Holly felt a snarl fix itself onto her lips at the other's dismissive tone. That she-devil was talking to a boy she had just made kill everyone who mattered to him! Or, she thought she did. "Come here, Darling."

Darling. Darling! Of course, Glimmer had talked like that before. Sugar-sweet. Even to Holly, in the short amount of time they'd seen each other face-to-face before Holly had shot her ship out of the air. She had thought the Sprite-elf gone, but she had turned up in prison a few months later. No one was sure how she had gotten there. Some conspiracy theorists theorized that this one might be a very advanced clone, which was impossible, as clones lack a soul.

All the vitals were now ratcheting past what would normally be considered safe. His oxygen intake was lowering. Was that the pain? That had to be the pain. But . . . so soon? It couldn't be. Could it? Of course not. Then, the oxygen levels went back up, out of the danger zone. Artemis' heart went slowly back to normal, and the rest of his vitals settled. Something had either surprised him, terrified him, or both. Holly was leaning towards the latter.

"What, exactly, is that?" Artemis' question was a bit breathy, and Holly wished that Foaly had devised an unnoticeable earpiece, just so that she could tell him that now was so not the time to be even slightly impressed by the enemy.

"This?" Glimmer's voice was full of barely-suppressed glee. "This, Honey, is what can take your misery away. After you help me."

"Why do you need my help?" Artemis' tone was once again full with the numb grief it had held before, but Holly was a bit preoccupied by Glimmer's previous statement. Take his misery away? As in . . . end his misery? As in kill him!? Holly was really very close to broadcasting the order that would have Mulch busting through the floor and Butler charging in like an enraged bull. Except . . . Number One wasn't nearly as far along in the binding spell as he needed to be.

She opened the icon to Butler. "How much longer!?"

"I can't tell," the bodyguard said, and she could hear all of the tension that Butler must be filled with in his voice. "He's glowing red and the runes are spinning. And Artemis is in danger. That is what is going on right now."

"Sorry Butler. You can go in as soon as Number One says you can. I'm not good at sensing magic from a distance."

"How's Myles behaving?"

"Ah . . ." the boy was staring at Holly, quite obviously both scared, and bored, out of his mind. "He's looking a bit impatient. Other than that, he's behaving well."

"I'm trusting you to keep him safe, Holly."

"Yup. Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to him, least of all 'cause Arty would kill me if I did."

There was silence for a while, before Butler spoke again. "Be safe, Holly."

"You too." Then she closed the icon, reopening the conversation between Glimmer and Artemis. He was doing a good job of stalling.

"You made me kill," Artemis sounded as if the word physically pained him, "everyone I cared about. Why should I help you!?"

"You came to me. You really have no where else to go. This is the only purpose your life can serve, boy. That you have magic is proof enough that this spell was meant to be unleashed upon human kind." Glimmer's voice was losing some of its mesmerous quality, apparently she was becoming a bit incensed at the delays in her grand scheme.

"You wanted me to come to you. This could be more of your hold over me." Oh, Arty. Glimmer had to be getting suspicious at this point. "And that machine. It is designed to take my magic from me in what looks like a very painful way."

"There really is no other way to do it, Honey. For you to accomplish the spell without this . . . machine . . . you would require many years of magic instruction. And I think that death is always painful, no matter how fast it is. Just the fact of death is painful. Sometimes enough so to keep yourself from falling into it." Glimmer's voice had taken on a tone of fierce nostalgia. Like Opal's, when the crazy pixie went on one of her rants. "I know from experience. Of course, you have nothing to live for, so the pain of death may be preferable to this world, hm?"

"I would have let you kill me if it would keep my family safe." Unfortunately (or, perhaps, very fortunately), Holly thought that Artemis was not lying there. He truly might have died (giving Glimmer the human race as a result) to save his family. There was a tugging at her sleeve, and Holly was forced to concentrate on the world outside her visor.

"Holly? What's going on? Is Artemis okay? Are you gonna go help him now?" Myles. Holly really wished the boy had stayed put where he was. She said so. "But there are little people in black in the stones now."

Little people in black? What in Frond's name . . . flicking her screen to heat sensor, she turned back to the monument. Nothing. Then, on a whim, she began scanning for ambient gasses. The stones showed up as nothing, holes. And flitting between them . . . stealth suits. Glimmer, or someone helping her, had developed stealth suits. Great. This was typical. And she was not to attempt contacting Haven unless it was an emergency, Glimmer would likely pick up on that too, so Foaly was out of the loop. Holly pulled her neutrino from her belt and pushed Myles behind her, opening Butler and Mulch's icons as she did so.

"I've got company, boys."