The War Of The Worlds

A/N: Thanks to the following people, who have declared their consent to me trampling all over their wonderful ideas by not coming over and litigating the life out of me (HINT!):

Eoin Colfer: for Artemis Fowl and gang, Holly and gang, and action-packed stories that don't fall short on character development (albeit rather stereotyped character development).

J.K. Rowling: for Lord Voldemort, Harry "WHO TURNED INTO A STUPID ANGSTY TEEN? WHO? WHO?" Potter and gang, and action-packed stories that reveal the folly of not investing enough in character development.

Stephen Baxter: for the Manifold, which sparked this off, and for Squeem. They taste good. I swear!

Will Smith: for showing the world the folly of buddy movies. Dude!

Last but not least....

Fanfiction.net!! For the world's largest repository of cliches, speling erors, grammar bloopers and bad metaphors, without which I would never have been inspired to write this. You guys are awesome; it's just that some of the writers here aren't.

OK, I'm done!

I: Hither the Plot Bunnies come!

Raindrops were falling on his head -

What?

His eyes opened and he looked around in pain. This wasn't Fowl Manor! He suddenly felt the piece of canvas cloth tying his hands behind his back. He tried to get up from his kneeling position to run away, but fell flat before realizing that his feet were similarly bound. And with a start, he realized that there was nothing else on his body.

"Servant, who is this?" A sibilant voice, a blend between the whispered hiss of a serpent, the coughs of a dying old man and the murmur a radio makes when its batteries have almost turned to slush. By now Artemis' eyes had dark-adapted sufficiently to see the hobbling dark creature, and another old man, standing beside an ominous cauldron.

"I ddon't know, Masstter." The old man spoke now. "I jusstt...jusstt read the spell you wrottess...sir, the sspell to summon a boy geniuss..."

"Boy genius? I said, boy sorceror! Why did you see fit to - "

"Masstter, may I...I voice my humble oppinnion?"

"Speak wisely, or you will rue the day you were born with a tongue."

"Well, everybody knowss you are a masstter s...sorceror, Sir, so I ddidn't think you need the boy sorceror. I t...thought it betterr... to summon s...someone to m...make up for your lack of brrainss, that's - "

Artemis saw a flash, and a toad appeared where the old man had been. "And the nearest fly is 50 miles away!" the hobbling dark creature cried in spite. He turned to Artemis. Suddenly, his identity became clear to Artemis.

"Voldemort? But I thought you were the just the invention of an inferior children's fantasy author!"

"Thought? Do the sallow sparks in your cranial cavity qualify as thought?"
Artemis had the right to feel insulted. "Well, have you ever beaten anyone in chess with three moves?"

"No sweat."

"How?"

"It's really hard for anyone to win when he's dead."

"Granted." Artemis' brain chugged furiously. How hard could it be to change the subject? He felt out of character having to think so hard, as if he was being besotted with a teenage girl at a prom. "For the record, your first impression stinks. Your voice has no proper enunciation whatsoever and your body odour is worse than that of a decaying Rafflesia."

"Well, what do I do when lightning strikes me?"

"Curl up and die. My olfactory nerves will never be the same again."

Lord Voldemort was at a loss for words. He was barely smart enough to realize it. He hastily flipped mentally through his sessions at the Hollywood Villainy In Criminal Existence (V.I.C.E.) Academy and recovered a maxim his instructors had called the "Lollypop Principle": "You say it best when you say nothing at all! Use a long and evil laugh to assert your villainy!"

So he laughed – or tried to. Rather, a sound not unlike the dying cries of a choked elephant assaulted Artemis' ears. Artemis had had enough. He stood to his (tied) feet. "Lord Voldemort, you are pathetic!"

That broke something in Lord Voldemort's demeanour. "That does it!" he cried, and stretched out his hand. "Avara Kedav - "

Artemis awoke with a gasp. He was safe and sound in Fowl Manor. His groggy mind was filled with fear – not by the dream itself, but by the fact that he could have conceived such nonsense. Crossing over into the world of Harry Potter indeed! Where could such mental pollutants be coming from?

As if an answer, he suddenly noticed a strange glow from his computer monitor. He arose and brushed the mouse to clear the screen saver. His Internet Explorer was open – how? - and in the Address field was an ominous concatenation of characters:

http:// www. fanfiction. net.

What the? - he swiveled. Something had touched his left shoulder. It had felt far too warm to be human, like a hyperactive rodent in a sauna. It couldn't be – again! He turned around again feeling that same something touch his right shoulder. Suddenly he turned one last time, and came face-to-face with the strange intruder.

It was about three-quarters his height. Its head looked the wrong shape, definitely not human or even simian, too rounded to be canine.There was a ski mask over its head, disproportionately big compared to its body, and there were two ominous masses of – something – crinkled up underneath, as if it was having a bad hair day. On its torso it wore a long black trench coat, quite untidily buttoned, but beneath the trench coat a tinge of pink peeked out every now and then. And its legs – there was something about its legs that didn't seem quite right, for the black slacks it wore seemed to curve in all the wrong places, giving it the appearance of perpetually sitting on an invisible chair. Its hands weren't very apparent either. There were just stumps that ended inside the sleeves of the trench coat, looking like a baby trying on clothes for an adult. It reached out just such a trench coat sleeve to Artemis, who was standing face-to-face with it now. "Hello, Master Fowl," a husky, almost seductive voice crooned, only muffled partly by the ski mask.

"Butler!!!"

"Now, now, let's not be hasty. I come all the way here to meet you, and that's the welcome I get? Let me take off my mask first, alright? Customary proprieties." It – she – pulled the ski mask off to reveal a pink face that bore some feminine attractiveness, but nevertheless belonged unmistakeably to a bunny. And the two masses folded underneath the mask bounded up and unfolded into two long, slender ears, the tips of with she began massaging with her "hands". With the ears, she was now a little taller than Artemis.

"What – who – are you?"

"I'm a plot bunny."