Fowl Manor, 2005

The Fowl Estate was encased in a blanket of tension. Not a single breeze dared disturb the heavy silence. Even the critters in the woods that bordered the house seemed to know that their usually charming chatter wouldn't be welcome that evening. The only sound that could be heard either within or without the building was the heavy footfalls of Juliet Butler as she paced frantically on the Persian rug in the Fowl's living room. The elder Butler sat in an armchair by the fireplace, quiet as the grave, polishing the dismantled pieces of his custom Beretta M-9. The bodyguard had learned long ago how to turn his nerves into productivity; Juliet released her stress by suplexing people, but since the only other person in the room was her brother, she wore out the rug with her pacing.

The Butler siblings were waiting on further contact from Holly, after she had sent them both texts and voice messages saying that Artemis was hurtling through time and that they should meet her here. That had been almost eight hours ago and they still hadn't heard any updates from Captain Short. They had contact Foaly in Police Plaza; he hadn't heard from her either. Holly had disappeared off the face of the map. And so the Butlers could do nothing but wait impatiently, trying to hold back their hysteria, guarding the Fowl family mansion as had always been their family duty for generations.

The siblings jumped at the sound the brass knocker on the front door. Juliet sprinted to the front hall, rolling the edge of the carpet as she launched herself. Butler remained seated; it would do him no good to strain his old bones with something so spontaneous. Besides, he would find out who it was soon enough. He heard Juliet open the door, the sounds of voices and then the door shut, the knocker clanging with the impact. Juliet came back into the living room, leading in Minerva Paradiso and gesturing for her to take a seat in the armchair beside Butler. Minerva looked the worse for wear; her blonde hair was unwashed, she hadn't put on fresh makeup and she had dark bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. She clutched a laptop to her chest and slid slowly into the armchair beside Butler, flipping open her computer and starting to type. She did all this very deliberately, as if she were trying to hold herself together lest she might snap.

"Holly bring you here?" asked the bodyguard, beginning to resemble his handgun. Minerva nodded silently, her intense gaze focused squarely on her computer screen.

"Did she say anything?" Juliet pressed. "We haven't heard anything for hours. She was all 'Artemis is in danger' and then nothin! Zilch! Zip!"

Minerva looked up from her laptop, her wide eyes shaking slightly in their sockets. "She has a plan," she said, her voice crackly, as if she hadn't spoken in a while.

The Butlers perked up, leaning in, waiting for Minerva to explain. Minerva just stared at them and Butler snapped his fingers under her nose. The young French girl blinked and seemed to come back to the room.

"Je suis désolé," she said, shaking her head. "Er, I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"You said Holly had a plan," Butler prompted, as Juliet frowned and left for the kitchen to make the poor girl a mug of lavender tea.

"Oui, yes. A plan." Minerva opened a window on her laptop that displayed a funnel model that Butler couldn't make sense of.

"This is a time model," Minerva explained. "It's to simulate the flow and shape of time."

Butler nodded, following so far.

"Holly's plan is to open up the time stream and bring Artemis back that way," she went on. The faint ding of the microwave could be heard from the kitchen.

"Okay..." Butler said, cocking an eyebrow. "How does she plan on doing that?"

"She wants to use one fo the warlocks," replied Minerva. "She said that she knows where... when Artemis is. Said something about her eye... I can't remember." She rubbed her face in her hands, letting out an exhausted sigh. Juliet walked back into the sitting room, gingerly slipping a mug of boiling hot tea into her hands. She took the computer out of the girl's lap and tilted the mug to her lips, prompting her to take a sip.

"Merci," she said, taking another sip. Butler rose and put a giant hand on Minerva's shoulder.

"Juliet," he said, "keep guard here. I'm going to put Minerva down for a night cap." Minerva's head jerked up from where it had fallen onto her chest.

"Non, non!" she cried, switching completely to her native tongue. "Je dois être là pour Holly. Si quelque chose tourne mal-"

"Je vais vous réveiller quand elle arrive ici," assured Butler, who was himself fluent in several different languages. "Tu as besoin de dormir ou tu vas t'effondrer."

Minerva agreed sleepily as the bodyguard lifted her gingerly from her seat and led her up the ornate staircase to one of the guest rooms. Juliet continued her pacing, the carpet losing color under her footsteps.

Whack whack whack! The door knocker struck once more and Juliet once again scrambled to the entrance hall. She threw open the door and there stood, at long last, Captain Holly Short, a small warlock hiding in her shadow.

"Well, well," tolled Juliet, a scowl etched into her features. "Look who finally decided to turn up."

"I know," Holly said shortly. "I'm sorry. I'll apologize as many times as it takes. I'll bake you a cake if I have to, just please let us in." She kept looking behind her, around her, as if she'd been chased all the way from Haven City. Juliet stepped aside and let the elf and warlock scramble into the entrance hall. Now that she could see them properly, the two fairies were an absolute mess. They were covered in dirt from head to toe which, despite literally living underground, was rare for the normally clean Holly. What's more, Holly's LEP gear was haphazardly slapped on, her helmet skewered, one of the straps on her wing pack undone and her belt missing half its equipment. The warlock, Juliet couldn't tell which as she had never met either, had absolutely no clothes on, exposing his stubby tail and the runes that covered the entirety of his form.

"Where's Minerva?" Holly asked, adjusting her helmet so that it sat straight on her head.

"She was exhausted," said Juliet, walking back to the sitting room. "Butler put her down for a nap. She looked like she was awake all night."

Holly looked guilty as she buckled her wing pack more firmly onto her back. "That's fine. She told me enough; this'll totally work. We can let her sleep."

"Yeah, two things," Juliet said, crossly, lounging on the sofa. "One: what exactly is the plan? And two: what the heck happened to you two?"

"Let's just say," the warlock piped up, his voice high and anxious, "that she's going to need a very good lawyer once we get back to Haven."

Juliet cocked an eyebrow and Holly cringed.

"Not my finest hour, I must admit." She took her helmet off and placed it on the coffee table. "Thing's could've gone a lot smoother with this plan."

"Again," Juliet interrupted testily, "what's this plan?"

"Yes," said Butler from behind the two fairies, causing them to jump. "Good question." Despite the look of tired annoyance on his face, Holly couldn't help but smile when she saw the old bodyguard.

"Hello, Butler," she said. "Been awhile."

"Indeed," he replied. "Too long." Holly caught the double meaning and slumped into a chair.

"I'm sorry," she said again, rubbing her face in her hands. "I panicked. I didn't know what to do, so I called you. And then I had to do some things underground and... well, in all the confusion I forgot to call you back. I'm sorry." The Butlers just looked at her, expressions blank. She wasn't sure if they were forgiving or unyielding.

"I forgive you!" chirped No. 1, poking his head out from behind Butler. "I don't mind helping Artemis, really. I don't mind that you broke me out of Police Plaza."

Butler's eyebrows shot up. "So, this is your non-panicky plan, is it Holly?"

Holly glared at him. "What was I supposed to do? I was under-grounded, no topside trips permitted. And the warlocks were being put under lockdown."

"Could've had Smelly do it," said Juliet. Holly shook her head.

"Mulch got caught getting my equipment," she admitted. Another nugget of shame to add to the pile. When you mess up, Short, you mess up big. "I had to get No. 1 out of there myself and I'm gonna have to face a trial when I get back."

"But this will get Artemis back, right?" Butler looked at her with pleading eyes. Eyes that didn't want the last seven hours he'd spent awake in anxiety to be for nothing. Holly nodded.

"Yes." Her voice was filled with absolute certainty for the first time in the last eight hours. "It'll work. No. 1, start up the portal."

"You still haven't told us what 'this' is!" Juliet was having difficulty controlling her volume as the warlock shoved the coffee table off the rug with a heaving grunt.

"We're going to use No. 1 to open the time stream and drag Artemis back here to us," Holly explained, pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to Butler. The bodyguard opened it and read "1998 -Artemis" in his young charge's immaculate handwriting. "We know when he is, which gives No. 1 all he needs to open the portal correctly. Now, all we need is an anchor to drag him here. And that anchor is me." She explained to them about her connection to Artemis' eye.

"If we can keep me here in this time using silver," she explained, holding up her left hand with a silver hand wrapped around the wrist, "then the rest of his body will be dragged towards his eye and my eye dragged towards me."

The Butlers looked as if their heads were swimming. This kind of theoretical physics would be difficult enough for them to comprehend on a good day, but in the middle of the night, after hours without sleep, it was all they could do to comprehend the words coming out of her mouth, never mind how what she was talking about worked.

"Just trust me," Holly said, turning back to No. 1, who sat cross-legged on the cleared rug and was chanting in Gnomish. The runes on his body burned with a kaleidoscope of burning colors, casting them on the wall like spotlights.

"He's gone into his trance," Holly mused. "Good. The time door should be here any second. You both might want to stand back; we wouldn't want you being sucked in by mistake."

"I'll get Minerva," said Butler. "She wanted to be woken up when you got here."

"No," Holly sighed. "Let her sleep. I'm the one who made her run all those simulations for me. She just wanted to be around if something went wrong, but from what she's told me it sounds it'll be fine."

Famous last words, thought Butler, but Holly looked so guilty that he relented, stepping a few feet back from where No. 1 sat.

"You know, you really pissed me off fairy girl," Juliet said into the silence. Holly's ears drooped. "You had me get on a 10 hour flight scared out of my mind. I'm missing my next match. And you had us sitting in this living room tense as a sinner in mass. All for nothin. You didn't even need us."

Holly nodded. "I know. I'm sorry. I just-"

"Panicked," Juliet finished, nodding, her expression softening. "I get it. I can't say I wouldn't have been flailing either."

"I'll make it up to you," Holly promised.

"Damn right you will," Juliet said, grinning. "You're giving me a video copy of that dwarf wrestling match you told me about that one time. That'll about make us even."

Holly grinned back. "Deal." Holly looked up at the bodyguard. "Anything to get off your chest, Butler?"

"I can forgive you for a scare, Holly," he replied. "All I ask is that you not do it again. There's a shortage of good, reasonable people in this world. Please don't lose your head."

Holly smiled and finally let the tension seep out of her shoulders. "Don't worry, old friend. I don't plan on making this a habit."

Suddenly, Juliet gasped and pointed over to wear No. 1 was sitting. Holly whipped around and found the warlock floating a foot off the ground, his runes steaming and his chanting sounded as if he had a thousand other voices.

"Don't worry," Holly told the humans. "This is totally normal... theoretically."

CRACK!

A whole in reality ripped open before the floating form of No. 1, a dark vortex of nothing that crackled with arcane energy and great rumbling noise like she was inside a thunder cloud. Holly could feel it tugging at her, but the silver on her wrist anchored her to this time. Still, she grimaced at the painful tug she could feel on her eye as it loosened dangerously in the socket. She tried moving her arm to cover her eyes, but she felt resistance, like it was being pushed back down. Holly dropped her arm back to her side, not wanting to risk somehow interfering with the process.

She felt the grip on her change slightly; it was less like the vortex was pulling her in and more like something was latching on to her to be pulled out.

"I think it's working," Holly yelled over the noise.

"Oh, good," called another, chillingly familiar voice, somehow smooth as silk over the chaotic racket. "That means this will be easy."

Holly felt a chill of horror run up her spine. It couldn't be. She had been flailing, grasping at straws like Foaly said. There's no way the pixie could've still been alive.

A short, slender figure in an elegant green dress sauntered catlike into her line of sight. Two ice-blue eyes pierced her above a mocking, sharp-toothed grin. Opal Koboi was smiling right in her face.

Holly reflexively tried to grab for her, intent on strangling the pixie with her bare hands. Her arms stayed where they were.

"Awww, what's the matter little fairy?" Koboi asked in a mocking, sing-song voice. "Are you caught in the iron grip of time? Well, don't worry," she assured her, her bright white teeth flashing dangerously. "I'm going to let you go. I'm going to let you fly into the arms of time, let it take you wherever it wants." She ran her fingers teasingly along the silver band and Holly's heart beat painfully fast against her ribs.

"But first," Opal purred, taking her hands off the band, "I'm going to show you just how badly I've beaten you." She clapped her hands and a pair of humans carrying shotguns came to stand on either side of her. Holly looked up and would've gasped in horror had she been able to work her jaw. Mr. and Mrs. Fowl stood to attention on either side of Opal Koboi, a dead, far-off look in their eyes. Their shotguns were pointed somewhere over Holly's head, presumably at the Butlers, keeping them at bay.

"It's amazing what you can do with a bit of fairy hormone and some human spinal fluid," Opal commented, looking up at her new slaves lovingly. "It's such a delicious revenge, don't you think? I have Artemis' parents under my thumb. And as soon as I find Artemis, I will show him. And as he watches in horror, I will make his father shoot him between the eyes. Then, I'll break them out of the trance, just to have them see what they've done. And then I'll kill them too!" Koboi squealed giddily, as if she were planning a surprise party for a beloved friend. It made Holly sick to her stomach.

"The Underground will be next, of course," continued Koboi. "With the control I've gained over Fowl Industries, I'll have the funds and resources I need to launch a full scale assault. No creative schemes this time I'm afraid." She sounded almost sorry. "It didn't work the last two times, so I figured brute force was a more stable route. So many less mitigating factors. Don't you agree?"

Holly said nothing. Neither, as far as she could tell, did either of the Butlers.

"Anyway," Opal sighed, "it was lovely to see you again before you're lost to the waves of time and space, Captain Short, but I believe it's time for you to be going."

With that, Koboi ripped the silver band off Holly's arm and she felt herself be carried, sucked, into the vast empty portal.

AN: This is an update of the chapter originally posted because something weird happened with the formatting.