Disclaimer(s): Artemis Fowl and all related logos etc. belong to Eoin Colfer. If it was mine, a certain tragedy would not have occurred. In the next few chapters, there will be some OCs, which will be mine, as Niki in this chapter is. She's more than mine, she's me.
Aladdin and all registered trademarks are, I think, property of Disney. Rock on kids animations! (Is that how to spell "Agroba"? Or does it have an "r", or an "h"?) (Incidentally, is that the right "counsellor" for the job? Ach. My grammar sucks.)
Artemis, Agroba and Authorial Interventions
Prologue: The Wrong Counsellor
Artemis knocked on the door to the guidance counsellor's office. He did not really expect the man to have any advice for him, but perhaps bringing his displeasure at the current situation to a member of staff's attention would have the desired effect. Artemis could come up with no better plan - in light of these distressing and possibly traumatizing events his genius had entirely deserted him.
"Come in," said a voice, and Artemis entered.
"Mr Andrews, I've come to you about the school play. It's about my part in it. I don't want-" he began, the stopped in surprise. Reclining in the counsellor's chair was not the aged man who had been, when Artemis had last checked, the school's guidance counsellor, but a teenage girl short brown hair scraped back into a ponytail and a pair of glasses that kept slipping down her nose, who was inspecting a sheet of paper upside down and chewing the end of a pen.
"Erm…," said Artemis, bewildered. Had he got the wrong room? "Is this Mr Andrews' office?"
The girl looked up. She could not have been older than Artemis, in fact, she looked a little younger. On seeing him, her face split into a grin and she shoved her pen behind her ear.
"Hello Arty!" she said brightly, and Artemis winced slightly at her use of 'Arty'. "I was wondering when you'd turn up. Thank God you're here at last." She leant forward conspiratorially. "You know, you have some seriously messed-up classmates, Arty. I had one boy in here earlier asking for help on dealing with ingrown toenails, and another girl from St. Cassandra's down the road who has an unfortunate obsession with you."
Something in her tone made Artemis frown. The girl scrambled to rectify her mistake. "Not that there's anything wrong with a girl being hopelessly, pathetically in love with you. I mean, it's not as if you're not a perfectly…attractive…person…" She seemed to lose her conviction at the end. Despite himself, Artemis found himself raising an eyebrow. Then he corrected himself, and frowned again.
"Excuse me, but where is Mr Andrews?"
"Absent," the girl said, her eyes twinkling a little. "I'm filling in."
"But…you're…how old?"
"Fourteen since May."
"And you're…a member of the staff here?"
She nodded. "As shown by the fact that they have trusted me with the perilous position of guiding delusional teens other than myself back on the path to sanity."
"Right…Well, I came about the school play. It seems that, despite the fact I did not audition for ANY part, I seem to have landed a role…"
"As who?" she asked, and something in her eyes told Artemis she knew exactly who he was playing. Something told him she was responsible for it.
"As…" he began, but the name stuck in his throat. "As…Jafar. We're performing 'Aladdin' with some of the pupils from St. Cassandra's."
The girl looked as if she was barely stopping herself from giggling. He scowled. Some counsellor.
"I'm sorry," she said, recovering herself. "but it's OK, you know, Arty. You can tell me anything. I'm the author of this fanfic."
The next thing Artemis knew, he was on his feet, a little more blood than usual in his face. "You?" he asked. "You're the one responsible for this sordid massacre of free-will?"
She beamed. "That's right," she said, offering her hand. "The name's Nikita, Niki to you, authoress of this little tale. Your fate is in my hands."
And then, much to Artemis' bemusement, she erupted into badly-practiced maniacal laughter.
A/N OK, just so you know, I am very against authorial interventions and Mary-Sues, it just seemed to fit for this fic. Well, hope you enjoyed the prologue, sorry it wasn't more informative but Chapter 1 will fill you in on everything if you are still with me by then. The original draft of this prologue was a lot less informative, so it's quite a good thing I changed it. Like, threw it away and started again.
As you may have guessed, I am far from the most talented humour-writer of the century. But I had to give it ago. I'm sure I saw this idea somewhere, so if I am ripping you off and don't realise it, please don't hesitate to tell me and I will make the necessary changes. However, I have been known to mistake things I have dreamt for reality, so I have something of a hard time deciding which of the two categories so-called "events" fall under.
Anything else I need to say? Um…excuse bad grammar, if anyone wants to pretty please be my beta reader I'm starting to think I really need one…if Artemis is a little OOC in this so far, I noticed too, and in the next part he will be a lot more high and mighty. Oh, and it's set after The Opal Deception. I think that's everything, if you're still confused please don't hesitate to ask. Please review!