Disclaimer: All characters, ideas and situations which are taken from the books 'Artemis Fowl' and 'Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incidence' belong to Eoin Colfer and his publishers. No infringement is intended and no money is being made from this work.

Note: This is an eventual AU (Alternative Universe) fic. Things happen in this fic which could not have possibly happened before the events in AF and TAI. This is a childhood fic and so it deals with the relationships between the human characters, the development of characters, their choices and 'destinies'.

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Wer mit Ungeheurn ka mpt, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

"Whoever struggles with monsters might watch that he does not thereby become a monster. When you stare into an abyss for a long time, the abyss also stares into you."

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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PROLOGUE

We can never know the consequences of our actions.

We can never anticipate what road to take when there are no maps drawn.

In life, there are never any maps, only guidelines that our parents wish that we would follow and know that we will not.

Big things happen because of small things, decisions that we had thought were nothing more than the choice to have peanut butter on our sandwich can change the world to be unrecognisable.

We don't know what these things might be, what things will occur from that decision, what the consequences will be, at the time when we make these decisions. We can't even know what might have happened if we had taken that other road, if we had asked for cheese instead.

But sometimes one person gets the chance to know the consequences, if only in their heart, and so they can make the right decision. Or as right a decision as anyone can ever make.

~ * ~

The possible future

Miss Hannah Higgins busied herself with organising her ornamental china. Those annoying school students had been around today to 'help an elderly member of the community' and put everything out of place and caused her more pain than help since she now had to put everything back. And it wasn't as if Hannah was really helplessly old – she had only retired from teaching at the local primary school last year. People just never appreciate privacy and independence these days. Admittedly, she had agreed to taking the helpers, and she wasn't going to admit how hopeless they were. Children had to do some community service and maybe even that small duty would inspire them to be better people.

Not better home-helpers certainly, but maybe better people.

She gave the last Lladró a smooth wipe and placed it back on its stand. And only then did she move to her comfortable armchair, switching on the television to watch the news.

On the screen a violent fire-fight was being shown. The camera was jolting back and forth as if the cameraman was running. He was. Backwards. Away from the scene before him. A police swat team was the center of attention but the majority of firepower was coming out of the besieged building, not going in. Police officers were falling in slow motion, shot. Others were dropping to the rubble-covered ground and rolling to get into a better position. A huge figure appeared behind a cloud of dust from a blown-in wall and was almost instantly mowed down. But he got a few shots of a machine gun off first and when he fell the trigger was jammed and went on shooting through the wall back out towards the police.

Just as Hannah was panicking about the recognition of the man, whose name was on the very tip of her tongue, the scene cut to a comparatively sedate one of the building in ruins, dust clouds settled and yellow police-lines erected. A reporter who had had too many face-lifts standing before it.

"This is the only remains of the shoot-out that occurred earlier today at the headquarters of the infamous Fowl cartel. The group were meeting with only minimal security and, through an informant, police were able to capture a few prominent members of the group including Artemis Fowl the younger."

The scene flashed to a young man with an expensive jacket half-falling off his head as he was lead handcuffed to a lock-up van. He looked as if he should be worrying about spots and dating instead of being arrested at such a devastated scene.

Hannah Higgins felt her stomach leave her and her bones leak out through her backside into the chair. Artemis Fowl… Ten years ago he had been a handsome child with an adorable inability to know when to be quiet or when to stop being so smart or even why others could never understand the things which he could easily comprehend. And now…

She saw the face of her old student looking out the TV and into her eyes. Mocking her efforts to keep him safe from himself and his father. Artemis Fowl could never be controlled, even with the best of intentions and all the prayers in the world.

She turned off the box when the presenter's face came back on and eased herself out the armchair which was now more like her own prison cell. She walked slowly out to the kitchen and only once she got there did she realise that there were tears in her eyes.

Artemis Fowl the Second could never be controlled. And it was a sad day indeed when he could be.