Hello there! I'm glad you found my first attempt in writing an own Fowl-Fic - and I hope you enjoy! The story is set after the second book, which fortunately allows me to write a lot of Butler in action, hehe.

I'm really looking forward on some feedback :) If you encounter any spelling or other mistakes, just let me know. I won't bite you, promise.

And now - chapter one, which is indeed a bit short but later chappies will be longer. Have fun!

"So we know this is going to work, right?" Ara asked for the third time in as many minutes.

"Sure we are," her brother answered. "Well, at least - Fitch is. Guess we are, too, then."

"Sounds like a good basis for risking my life out here, doesn´t it?"

"I think so, sis. Never mind, though. Micah will help you distracting that girl. Since there´s nobody else in that house, you´re hardly able to get killed, are you?"

"Fine then," Ara muttered and tried to calm herself down. As always, her brother was huffing her whenever she was close to a breakdown. And as always, it helped. "Thanks for bothering me, Francis."

"You´re welcome. And now get us that chip you´re here for before somebody else appears right behind you and you get shot in the back, Ara."

"Francis!"

Her brother laughed, clearly audible through her almost invisible earphone. God knows where Fitch stole that technology from but when they first used it, it seemed like being ten years from marketability. However, Fitch´s technicians and IT-freaks were able to improve them until they were at least working reliable without ear-splitting feedback and were still not to be seen from the outside.

The chip, she reminded herself, trying to get her wandering thoughts back in line. Were did Micah say that it was?

As if on cue, Francis interposed again. "Go straight and then the third door left. That´s supposed to be his study. If Micah´s true, the chip in the safe is a fake for thiefs not as clever as we are. The one in his study should be the right one. And hurry up a bit, the cameras will recover themselves automatically in twenty minutes."

"How´s Micah?" Ara asked in the mic while passing the doors. She was really looking forward to breaking into appartements and hotel rooms again. Who would ever need a building that huge?

Well, the Fowls did, as it seemed. And here she was, trying to steal some sort of very hightech chip because - well, because Linus Fitch wanted her to do so. The rest was none of her business.

"Fine. I just tuned in at his frequency and it seems like he is . . . busy with Jules."

Ara stopped in front of the door. "Seriously? He knows that we´ll all get killed if her brother decides to arrive unexpectedly, does he?"

Francis snorted. "I think so but I´m really not going to ask him about that right now. No matter what, Butler ist picking up little Fowl from school, so if he didn´t decide to let the boy walk home, he won´t be back in the next thirty minutes. And since you have only nineteen minutes left until the cameras switch back on -"

"Yeah, got it," Ara snarled and started to pick the lock at the door in question. The sooner she got out with that chip, the better.

Fitch was pleased. Everything went according to plan. Of course it did. He wasn´t some wannabe-gangland boss, after all. No, he was Linus Fitch, known for his unscrupulousness both towards his enemies and his own people and for his clever ways of borrowing technologies developed by other people.

Like today. That girl, Ara, as she called herself - as a short form of Kiara, which he didn´t care about either - was up to steal this special device this Fowl-boy invented. Right now it even looked like she might be able to make it. Not that he cared.

In fact, Fitch couldn´t care less about the events in Fowl Manor. If she managed to get the chip - fine. If she failed - so what? She was only a cog in his wheel so to say. So was her brother, keeping up her morale as always. And Micah, who indeed was busy with Juliet but, in Fitch´s mind, that was something to be easily understood. She was a pretty girl, even though seventeen seemed to be a bit young to him. So what. Not his business. And after all, part of the plan.

The plan was easy enough to work but genius enough so people wouldn´t make it up by themselves, at least not while being stressed out by the events taking place.

His phone rang and he answered the call right away.

"Good news, Linus," Nicholas said on the other end of the line. Nicholas was one of maybe four or five people Fitch really trusted since in years of cooperation, he had never been disappointed. "We got him."

Linus smiled. "Very well, Nicholas, very well. Is he hurt?"

"Not too bad. Everything´s going according to plan?"

"Sure it is. Bring him here. I´ll tell Micah to move on."

"Fine. That was damn easy, Linus. Hard to believe that they are that simple to trick, don´t you think?"

Fitch laughed, one of the rare occasions he did that without sounding scary while doing so. "After infiltrating the household? There are some important rules you are supposed to obey in terms of protecting somebody, Nicholas. First: always be around. Second: don´t let anybody be close enough to you and your little heart to make you vulnerable. By the looks of it, Butler didn´t take too much effort in following those rules; so how do you wonder about kidnapping Fowl was that easy?"

He heard Nicholas laugh through the phone. All right then. Time to get things running.

Fitch turned to Micahs frequency, supressing a smile as he heard the two of them whisper promises of love to each other. Well, at least one of them was lying for sure. "Micah," he barked into the microphone, just to be able to grin at the startled sound the boy made. "Sorry to interrupt you but it´s time to go to the next phase now. Have fun."

St. Bartleby´s wasn´t far anymore, as his phone rang. Butler frowned as he saw his sister´s number on the display - and almost crashed the Bentley into a truck after hearing Jules scream in panic.

"Dom!"

"Jules! What -"

"Dom, he - I - he -"

"Jules, try to -" he was interrupted by the sound of something massive colliding with something else. He kept himself from shouting her name into his phone for several more times and instead listened to any sound possibly coming through.

Nothing. Even though the connection was still up, silence seemed to ooze out of the phone. Butler felt as if he was struck by lightning. Though, it didn´t take him more than a split second to decide what to do.

Sorry, Artemis, he thought, but if Juliet´s in real danger . . .

He forced the Bentley into a U-Turn, ignoring the squealing tires, and rushed back to the Manor.

Alright, this is it! Thank you for reading, I hope you'll tune in the next time as well. Until then, take care!