LEP Headquarters, Underground, 1998

"Dwarf gas!" Commander Root shouted from under a cloud of fungal cigar smoke. His face was beat red, hence the secret nickname among his officers, "Beat" Root. There was a bet in the LEP on when his heart would finally burst.

Holly stood rooted to attention before the commander's desk. She had just gotten through explaining everything Artemis had told her and what Foaly had found through security cameras.

"You did NOT just bring a mudboy underground on his word and a hunch!" Root chewed aggressively on the butt of his cigar. "Do you realize, Captain, that you are risking the entire safety of our race? Our civilization? All on circumstantial information?! Provided by a human?!"

Holly shifted a little. It seemed dumb now that the commander was shouting at her. Root was a former recon officer and had more decades under his belt than any other officer in the history of the job. His word had weight; when he called you stupid, it was more than likely that you were.

"And Foaly's findings," she added, not wanting to discredit herself entirely.

"Foaly's findings mean as much to me as a math problem means to a goblin," Root retorted. "He's prone to conspiracy and his tech hasn't exactly been reliable these past few years."

Holly wanted to protest, but didn't. Sure, in the last decade or so Foaly had had his share of mistakes, but then what piece of technology didn't have its downsides? Sure, the Neutrino 1500 had a habit of jamming and the maps of the Ireland coast hadn't been updated in more than a century. It was still good equipment and Foaly was no slouch with research.

"As soon as the psych boys are done in there I want you to wipe his memories and take him back topside," Root commanded. "I never wanna see that mudboy's face again, understand?"

Holly nodded just as the door to the commander's office flew open. The LEP psychologists were stumbling over themselves to get through the door.

"Ahh, speak of the demons." Root took another pull on his cigar and turned his attention to his paperwork. "Well, Short, you know what to do."

Holly was just about to salute and leave before the psychologists fell into the room.

"He's not lying!" exclaimed Dr. Headfast, his eyes bulging.

Holly stood still and the commander choked on his smoke.

"What?!" he roared around harsh coughs.

"It's true!" Dr. Bartlebee agreed. "What he says is all true. Or at least he believes it's all true. There's no trace of a lie."

Root's scowl deepened until it looked like his face would be swallowed up by his brow. He tapped a button on his desk.

"Foaly," he said, through gritted teeth. "Get in here. Now."

The centaur arrived a minute later.

"Do you believe this kid's story, Foaly?" Root demanded. "Does what we know about time travel match up with what this kid is saying?"

Foaly frowned, scratching his chin. "Not quite, but there is precedent for it."

That was not the answer the commander wanted. "Yes or no, Foaly?"

Foaly shrugged. "It's not that simple, Commander. We're dealing with a case of time travel that doesn't use Hybras as a focal point. And seeing as how the model using Hybras is the only one we have…"

"So it's impossible," the commander interrupted. "Great. Wipe his memories and get him out of here."

"Not impossible, Commander," Foaly corrected. "Just… undocumented. Unresearched. We don't know if it is possible and we can't risk the possibility that it isn't."

Root felt like slamming his desk. The centaur was going to make things difficult for him? Fine.

"I'll talk to him myself."

Artemis had been at the mercy of the psychologists for nearly three hours. It had been deathly boring and a waste of everybody's time. He had asked for Commander Root, but he was refused. Instead, he had been issued a long list of dull questions; he had answered all of them honestly, though he had a feeling they wouldn't be believed.

The door to the interrogation room opened and Commander Root stepped through, his cigar nearly burned down to the mouth. Seeing his old friend was harder than Artemis had thought it would be. The Julius Root he knew was dead, murdered in cold blood by the psychotic pixie, Opal Koboi. It took everything in Artemis to keep himself seated and silent, to not jump up and shake the old commander's hand or clasp him on the shoulder. He couldn't afford to act strangely. Or let anything slip.

The commander sat in the chair opposite the silent Irish mudboy. The single blue eye started at him sharply and Root got the feeling that it was dissecting him.

"Artemis Fowl." Root spit out his cigar and went for another one.

"No smoking, Commander, please," Artemis said coolly. "I am, after all, only nine years old. I wouldn't want to damage the development of my lungs through secondhand smoking."

Root lit the cigar anyway.

"From what I've heard, you've been spinning stories to my officers, Fowl." Root stared at the mudboy under a hard brow. "Saying how you're from the future. That you know us, that we're friends, even. I find that a little hard to believe on every front, but you've managed to convince my top recon officer, the two idiots who work as our therapists and my chief techie. What'd you tell them, huh? What did you show them that got them on your side so easily?"

Artemis thought. What example could he give that the commander would possibly believe? He could hand wave almost every piece of evidence, including the oversized eye. He couldn't tell him anything about the future because it hadn't happened yet. For all Root knew, Artemis could be spinning him a story even though it was the truth. He couldn't tell the commander something he already knew, because it was just as likely that Artemis could've hacked into LEP files and found it out. Then it hit him.

"Commander, may I approach you?"

Root glared at him, silent.

"Very well." Artemis sighed and stretched his hand slowly across the table. "I need you to place your hand on mine. Just a finger on the top of my knuckle would do nicely."

The commander eyed the mudboy's pale hand, suspicion lining his every feature. Artemis held up his other hand, trapped in a cast and marred by the burnt ring's molten metal.

"What could I possibly do to you commander? I am holding out my only good hand. Unless you believe I'm lying about my injury as well."

Root took a drag on his cigar. "Alright, Fowl, I'll play your little game. Just know that if anything remotely hostile happens, the guards at the door will be here before you can cry for mommy. Got me?"

Artemis nodded. Root lay a finger on the boy's hand.

"Excellent." Artemis nodded. "Now, I need you to inject a tiny spark of magic into my hand."

"Why?" Root was on the verge of pulling his finger away.

"You need to trust me."

Root laughed. "I trust you about as far as I can throw you Fowl."

"I see no harm in giving a small jolt of magic," Artemis reasoned. "I can't steal it from you and it need not be a bit of healing magic. It could just be a jolt of energy or vibration."

Root still didn't trust the mudboy, but he saw what he meant. No harm could come from giving him a jolt. The commander concentrated and sent a small needle of magic through his arm and to the tip of his finger. As soon as the magic reached the mudboy's hand, Root felt a bubbling, though not in the literal sense. He could feel dormant magic emanating from this boy, a whole sea of power laying flat inside Artemis Fowl. His own magic had just brought it back to life, like a stove bringing a pot of water to boil.

Root quickly pulled away his hand and gazed at the boy with a newfound fear.

"You… you're magic…" he stammered. "How in the hell are you magic?!"

"A long story," Artemis replied, "Involving time travel and the organic flow of energy. However, I believe there are more important matters than that."

"All you've proven to me, Fowl, is that you're more dangerous than we first thought." Root turned to go. "I'm setting up your mindwipe and deportation immediately."

"Julius." Root stopped; only his closest friends called the commander by his first name. "Please, I need your help. If I can't get back to my own time, there will be dire consequences. For me and everyone else."

Root looked back at the boy and saw a frightened, nine-year-old face looking back at him.

Darvit, Root thought as he closed the door and turned back to the human.

"Talk fast, Fowl." The commander sat back in the chair. "And make it simple."

"Right," Artemis began. "I believe this all started because I attempted to perform the Ritual."

"You what?!"

"Please, commander, don't interrupt. Yes, the Ritual. I thought I could rejuvenate the magic I had gotten in the time stream. Unfortunately, all it seemed to do is reactivate the time energy left over from one of my previous adventures. Now, I am in 1998, stuck here, by all accounts."

"Skip to the part where this has consequences for us," the commander barked.

"Yes, right, well, the problem is that there are now two Artemis Fowls in the same timeline. If no attempt is made to correct that issue, time will attempt to correct that itself. Time will do everything in its power to eliminate either of us. However, which is the real Artemis is difficult for it to tell. It could eliminate me, setting everything on a corrective course. Or, it could destroy the Artemis who is currently in Ireland. This would mean that I was never here, that the next eight years of my life will never happen and that we will never meet. It would be a disaster, likely causing a malfunction in the timeline. For you see, it would be met with a paradox; if that Artemis doesn't exist, then how could I get here? And if I'm not here, why would it have the motivation to kill one of us?"

Root blinked. "That doesn't quite make sense. You make it sound like time is a living thing"

"It is, in a way," Artemis replied. " It is a lot like us in a way; constantly changing in some aspects and remaining permanent in others. Ask Foaly, if you don't believe me."

Root wasn't sure what to believe anymore. "Okay, so," he began, rubbing his eyes, "hypothetically, we help you get back home. What happens then? How are we supposed to make sure everything ends up the same by the time we meet?"

"Simple," the boy replied. "You would need to perform a mindwipe. You would need to purge all images of me from the past of all the key players. That would be you, Foaly and Holly."

"That's Captain Short to you!" Root spat.

"Right, of course," Artemis conceded, holding up his hands. "Do we have a deal?"

Root scratched his jaw. "This would mean crossing a lot of red tape, Fowl. Working with humans is a big no-no, even in extreme situations."

"Even the end of the world?"

Root didn't like this, not one bit. Yet he found himself stretching out his hand towards the boy anyway. Artemis gripped it.

"Deal," Root grunted. "But after this, you're out of my hair."

"Agreed." Artemis sighed.

"What is it?" Root asked, still suspicious.

"Nothing, I…" Artemis trailed off. "I just wish our meeting could've been under… more friendly circumstances. I've… missed you, Commander."

They sat in silence for a bit before Root spoke.

"We don't get to choose our circumstances, Fowl. We just gotta work with them."

"Right, of course," Artemis said, trying to fight down a lump in his throat. "Let's get to work."

He made to get up when his knees buckled underneath him. His head was swimming and his breath came out in sharp pants.

"Fowl?" Root bent down beside him. "Fowl, what's wrong?"

Artemis felt like his head was splitting open. Memories flashed before his eyes, faded, and then seemed to slam back into focus. He could feel the dormant magic rushing inside him. It was chaotic, pulling and pushing him this way and that, building up and bursting like a sea of molten lava. It felt like his insides were being ripped apart and then being put back together by force. The ends of the split bone in his left arm ground painfully against each other. The hand was so hot it felt like the flesh would fall off. Artemis screamed and fell to the ground. He then continued screaming, even as the commander called for a medic fairy.

Artemis began to lose consciousness, his brain shutting down against the all-encompassing pain. The magic began to bubble back down, once again settling into a smooth, stagnant bog of energy.

"Less..." Artemis murmured as a medic looked over him. "There's less..."

AN: We've come to the end of the chapters that I made ahead of time. I'm now working with the loosest outline of a plot idea. I guess I shouldn't worry too much; this is for fun, after all.

Once again, thank you all so much for reading and God's blessings on your week.