Death Note

Meets

Artemis Fowl

A crisp autumn morning dawned upon the

small town of Galway, Ireland. The dewdrops resting on each leaf and blade of grass were frozen in its position, with the sun hidden deeply behind thick storm clouds approaching over the horizon. Fog lay upon the river and town, deep and impenetrable. Above such intimidating fog, a mansion rose over the rest, sitting atop a small hill, east of the community, across the river. Still early in the day, Artemis Fowl rose from his sleep, unable to rid his mind of a complicated nightmare. He exited this mansion without a sound, leaving his sleeping bodyguard, Butler, behind.

Strolling upon the fallen leaves of the deep forest surrounding Fowl manor, Artemis continued to penetrate the hill top forest. The crunch of leaves and few morning bird songs, left in the wake of the growing cold weather were the only sounds that he heard that morning. The only thing that rendered his path clear for his return was a small but complicated pattern of direction scratched on to trees spread far apart using a pen he always kept in his pocket. Without his body guard, Artemis could be a little paranoid.

Giving way to his trail, a small clearing opened up to him. Besides what lay before him, everything was normal. All that was out of place was a small black notebook, damaged from the wet, frozen dew. Considering its condition, to Artemis, it was no more than a dropped notebook from a child of a nearby school. What puzzled him was that he was still in Fowl property and to access such permission to enter the grounds would either require execive training in breaking and entering or connections with one of the Fowl members, few of which had. Artemis knew, for one, that none of the Butler's who were highly skilled in the arts of body guarding would be as carless as to leave a notebook behind and his parents or younger brothers rarely strayed far from the house, unless out to the town. No, this wasn't the same.

A little suspicious, Artemis returned home, his body guard still fast asleep after a long night of studying the ancient Mayan language. He packed up a few small devices before departing back to the location of the notebook. Some of the things included a metal detector,- engineered by Artemis to be no larger than his thumb -, a camera modified with the extra option of x-ray, and a cell-phone that had a bonus of having an advanced, sonic alarm that set off any bombs, as long as they were within a 60km zone.

A short distance from the location of the book, Artemis took the time to set off the cell-phone. Nothing happened. More reassured, Artemis continued on his path towards the notebook and finally reached the original clearing. There, he set off the metal-detector and camera. Still, nothing turned up. Satisfied, Artemis carefully picked up the small notebook. All seemed normal. Flipping through the pages though, he discovered several names written upon the few pages left of the notebook. The rest were roughly torn out. Perplexed, Artemis made his way towards the house but something kept him from continuing on. In fact, at that moment, Artemis began to doubt if he would ever return again to Fowl Manor.

Before him, sitting leisurely in a tree munching on an apple was some sort of... What to describe it... Beast? Monster? Still, it was one of the very few things that made Artemis turn quite pale.

Relax. He strictly told himself. Without taking his eyes off the creature, he breathed deeply, relaxing his muscles, but his left hand reached tentavely to his pocket for the small, fairy-designed bomb that he always kept there for emergencies. Before accessing it though, he withdrew it, but his hand stayed at his side.

"May I ask, are you of the fairy people?" He questioned, his voice slightly shaky, but calm none the less.

"Fairy? What are you talking about human?" The monster said in a rough voice. "No, I'm a shinigami." He then took another large bite from the apple, taking some of the core with it.

Shinigami? What could that be? Artemis had never heard about one such thing from the fairies, and this creature seemed to deny all relations with them as well. He had spent quite enough time, Artemis believed, to uncover all the creatures of the group, so what could it be?

It resembled most closely to a demon but distinct features, Artemis noticed, such as a human-like appearance, (despite lanky arms and a longer face) rung true to what it was saying. It was no fairy. So it must have been speaking the truth when it spoke of being a "shinigami". Perhaps from a different language? But which one? The pronunciation of the "i"'s suggested of Japanese or Chinese relation and ending with a vowel also reinforced such deduction, although this could have simply been a fluke. But what if it was, say Japanese? What would it mean? Artemis racked his brain. He had only been studying the language the other night. The silence between the two continued to draw out.

Artemis knew "shini" meant god, and "gami" meant kill. But a killer god made no sense. The problem with the Japanese language was that putting two normal words together can change the meaning of one or two words entirely. Quickly deducing the grammar possibility, this meant...

"Are you a god of death?" Artemis said, obviously fearful now. A god of death was massively un-likely... But he had run into fairies and demons in the past, why not gods?

"You're sharp, aren't you?" The Shinigami said in the same rough voice. A smile appeared upon his face; literally almost reaching from red eye to red eye. "This is going to be fun."

"You're telling me this notebook can kill with a name and face?" Artemis said. This conversation had long since started and the sun now rose far higher in the sky and the storm clouds parted. Artemis sat upon the soggy wet leaves that paved the forest floor, talking to his new-found God of Death, or Shinigami, Ryuk (A bonus to this so-called Death Note). Artemis vaguely realised that Butler was probably deep into the search for him, but luckily, he wasn't quite as fluent in the gnomish language and the code upon the trees would take far longer for him to decipher.

"That's right." Ryuk answered with a sharp laugh. He was standing leaning against the tree he had been previously sitting in. Although no taller than the nearly eight-foot Butler, he was still quite intimidating.

"I'm sorry, but that is simply impossible. I refuse to believe it." Artemis retorted. This could not be... A god of Death? A notebook like this, Artemis would have believed this was a dream had it not been that he had already attempted to "wake himself up" by nearly smashing one of his fingers to bits with a nearby rock.

"Believe it kid, if you don't I'll have to kill someone to prove it." Ryuk replied with a smirk, almost as if he would have been glad to do so.

"No thank you. I'll test it myself." Artemis said, standing up briskly and snatching the book from the grasp of the God and opening it at a random page. He pulled out the pen he always kept by his side and began to write the name of one of the criminals charged with mass murder in a nearby area. He was due to be executed in two days time. Artemis paused though, feeling a little perplexed.

"What is it, exactly, that I have to do?" He questioned to Ryuk who was peering over at the notebook with an outstretched neck.

"Simply write the name of the person you want to kill while picturing their face, the time of death, and the reason. If the reason of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack. Make sure to write the cause of death within a window of exactly six minutes and forty seconds, or nothing will happen." Ryuk explained in a tone that almost made it seem that he had done this one too many times before.

Artemis obliged, and filled in the Death Note accordingly. He was to die ten minutes before the start of the evening news tonight, simply of a heart attack. He then closed the notebook and looked around, a little un-sure.

"I guess, I must be off." Artemis said and rose from the cold, wet ground, dusting off his pants before following the exit of the clearing the same way he had came in. He stopped suddenly though when he heard Ryuk's prolonged and exaggerated laugh behind him. Artemis rolled his eyes before turning back to face him.

"Can't do that, I'm afraid," Ryuk began before bursting into another short fit of laughter. "I'm stuck with you until you either forfeit the notebook losing all memory of anything that occurred while using it, or until you die."

"Not a problem," Artemis began, "I plan forfeiting it soon, and I had suspected that there would be such a catch to the notebook, I guess I'm right. I also think there is probably a loophole around it so I can keep my memories, is there not?"

"Who knows?" Ryuk said "Us gods of death don't know all that much about the death note ourselves. It's up to the owners to discover in one bit at a time."

Artemis returned home to find Butler hacking his main computer for the gnomish code he had created so many years ago. He was still deciding whether or not to even tell his most trusted partner about his newly discovered power. At the sound of Artemis entering his own room, Butler turned around sharply, facing him with an expression that would make most grown man cry.

"Butler, please, stay calm, I know this may be a little-"Artemis began approaching his friend cautiously and putting a hand lightly on his massive shoulder.

"Artemis, why did you even think that leaving the house at such an hour without my warning? You could've been hurt and nobody would have ever known!" Artemis took his hand back a little sharply. Of course he was expecting him to be angry with him, but wasn't the sight of some demon creature by his side slightly more frightening? Behind him, Ryuk burst into a harsh fit of laughter.

"I forgot to mention something." He said, laughing hysterically all the while. "Only you can hear and see me. Unless you get the big ape over there to touch the death note, he will never know I'm here."

"Care to have mentioned that before?" Artemis said in sarcastic kindness over his shoulder.

"What was that Artemis?" Butler's voice came. Artemis turned his look back to Butler.

"Nothing old friend," Artemis began, carefully guarding his tone to seem as honest and calm as he could possibly be with a huge demon-like death god laughing hysterically at his side that only he could see. "I understand completely that you would be upset with me. I simply could not sleep after a rather frightful dream, so I decided to take a stroll around the property." As honest as possible so there would be less to hide.

Butler sighed heavily. "All right Artemis, its fine. Be more careful in the future though. With the adventures we've been through throughout the past couple of years, there should be over a hundred men after you. At least let me know next time you leave." He said while discretely turning off the computer, adding all the same locks and guards to the computer that was in place before, hands behind his back, still facing Artemis. Artemis smiled gratefully before exiting his room, Ryuk in tow.

Artemis, after all had been settled and Butler gone from his room hours ago, returned to his room to collect some important information from one Holly Short. Making sure to lock his door and quickly check that the fairy designed sound-proof barrier around his room was still in place, Artemis started up his computer and accessed the fairy communicator application he had designed himself while putting on a miniature head-set that he had modified to be completely private and protected with the best anti-hacking devices known to fairy.

"Holly? Holly, are you there?" Artemis asked. His tone of voice, unusually concerned, worried Holly.

"Yes Artemis, what is it this time? If it's some other mission or something along those lines, count me out, I'm tired of constantly getting hurt and-"Holly answered, her tone of voice a little annoyed. Artemis cut her off mid-sentence.

"Holly it's nothing like that. I simply need you to answer a question. Along with demon and the like, have you ever heard of gods?" Artemis questioned.

"Gods?" Holly responded incredulously, letting a small giggle escape her lips. "I've heard some pretty strange ideas come from you, but gods? Do you honestly believe those exist? Artemis, I have more important things to handle then this, I've got to go." Holly said, hanging up without another word. Artemis replaced the head-set in a special trick-drawer in his desk. Obviously Holly would be no help to get any more information on this situation and Ryuk didn't seem any closer to giving the slightest bit of information on exactly what the death-note was.

For an hour or so, Artemis wasted his time reviewing old information and lessons in anticipation for the evening news.

"This is pointless." Artemis mumbled to himself as he was sitting at his desk, spending his time searching through his old files and deleting the ones he no longer needed. He rested his elbow on his desk, lightly propping up his forehead with the tips of his fingers. "There's no point to this, it won't work." He continued. He seemed absolutely sure, but inside, Artemis had his doubts. Ryuk sat on the floor, munching on the tenth apple in the past hour.

"Butler is going to wonder were all of his apples have gone." Artemis said to Ryuk absentmindedly, not even looking his way.

"Pretend you ate them." Ryuk answered his mouth full of apple.

"Not even a grown man can eat that many apples." Artemis added, but didn't wait for Ryuk's retort. He then shut down his files and began to search the internet. Artemis was never a big fan of using the internet for its unreliability, but even the most pointless topics and simple rumours could be found all over the internet and this pointless stress and panic had to end. If the internet had nothing to say about it, it certainly wasn't real.

Artemis scrolled down the endless pages of related information.

"Gods of Egypt, Ancient Greek gods, Notes on Gods... Ah, here we go." Artemis listed, before straightening up at something that could contain useful information. "The Death Note incident" Artemis said. He clicked on the page which led him to a rather interesting site. It was simple, nothing added in besides a few notes here and there, but what really interested Artemis was that the page mostly consisted of several newspaper articles, all relating to some incident in Japan involving a series of inexplicable heart attacks, all happening to criminals. Interested, Artemis quickly copied some of the more interesting newspaper articles and the ending paragraph and translated it from Japanese to English. It would simply be quicker this way.

Scrolling through the articles, no truly important information that wasn't revealed in the first few newspapers was given to Artemis now, besides that people began to believe that the power of this so called "Kira" (Variant, Artemis guessed, of the English word killer), could be given to other people. At the bottom of the page, a small paragraph was given from the publisher of the sight.

"Kira killed by using a name and a face using some sort of notebook called the Death Note. By simply writing in a name and imagining a face he could kill. Three notebooks were discovered in total."

"So it is real." Artemis said to himself in true anxiety. If this was real, what would he do with it? He had done some pretty nasty things in the past including almost killing a monkey, but could he really drive himself to killing a human and risk himself to getting caught? Just then, his watch went off. The evening news would start in ten minutes.

Artemis paced his room anxiously. He had recently installed a wireless application that linked live feed of most television channels to his computer. With fairy technology, it only took him about ten minutes to create. How useful. Just then, the normal news theme song came from the two speakers attached to his laptop. Artemis quickly walked over to his computer and tapped the mouse to wake up the screen. He placed both hands on his desk and let his weight lean on them, still standing. Ryuk looked curiously over his shoulder be Artemis gave him no attention.

It began with the normal weather and traffic, but then it switched over to the normal news of the day.

"In other news, mass murderer convict Tom Malfoy mysteriously died from a heart attack only minutes ago. So far the cause is unknown although some believe it was related to high stress from recent events."

"Damn, it is real." Artemis said, slamming one fist on his desk which shook slightly. He ran one hand down his face.

"What's wrong Arty? Can't handle the pressure?" Ryuk said teasingly.

"Ryuk, you're testing my patience." Artemis said in a very serious tone. He began to pace his room once more.

I suppose Holly was right, I did end up killing somebody. Artemis thought. But would I really have the intentions to kill again?