Barcelona, Spain
Mulch Diggums, or Sucio Cavar as he was here, counted his money in much appreciated privacy. Finally away from those idiot Mud Men, in one of the best cottages money could buy. Equipped with Fairy technology he'd installed himself, there was no way that idiot R--
And suddenly he was pinned down by a short auburn haired fairy, armed with a gun he recognized to be a fairy DocStun 2000--
Foaly: Designed by ME!!!
Lily: Please Foaly, not now.
Foaly: Me, proving I can beat that idiot Opal Koboi any day, who is now in PRISON, fwahaha!! SHE is in prison! I'm NOT!!
Lily: *smacks Foaly* GO AWAY. This is MY fanfic!
--a gun especially designed for breaching the tough skin of dwarves, plus it emitted a forcefield that made the holder immune to their gas. "Really Mulch, you didn't have to make it so easy. You know we wouldn't have let you go without placing a scanner on you. And despite that you even decided to name yourself Sucio Cavar; "dirty digger" in Spanish." Holly Short of the LEPrecon squad said, in a mock-lecturing tone.
Mulch blinked. And then he got up, slowly, because Holly still had the DocStun pointed at him, and felt under the mass of hair under his arm. Finally his nail hit metal and he pulled out a circular button-like thing that was blinking. "D'arvit!" he swore and stomped on it.
"What do you want?" Mulch growled.
"Exactly," inquired Commander Root, who stepped into the cottage, "How much money do you have right now?"
Mulch's sneer turned into a curious face, and then a smirk. "Oh, not much. You know, just the basic enough-money-to-buy-all-of-Haven fortune."
"And because you are hereby under arrest by the LEPrecon unit, all of this money must be well spent..."
"Yes. Unless some oaf who smokes fungus cigars decided he needed some money, for whatever reason, and chose to give Sucio Cavar another two day head start, this time with no tracer."
Root glared.
"And then," Mulch continued smugly, "Mr. Cavar would contemplate whether or not to give the oaf some money for something so outrageous that undoubtedly the Council would never listen."
Root seemed about to scream, but instead he said calmly, "After some thought the "oaf" decided it wasn't worth it; Mr. Sucio, who was wanted by the LEP, could just go to Howler's Peak. There were other ways to obtain reasonable amounts of gold." And with that he pulled some handcuffs out of his pocket and made a move to arrest Mulch.
"Mr. Cavar decided to reconsider," he said hastily, "And he would agree to the err...Commander's...terms as long as they were reasonable."
"Oh, is that so Mulch? Does turning legal for a change sound reasonable?"
"NO!"
"Didn't think so, but it was worth a try. What would you say if I told you Artemis Fowl has the Omni Stone?"
Mulch blinked. And then he collapsed into a stream of dwarfish chuckles. "So wait, the macho Julius Root, big cahuna of the LEP decides to hunt down a simple dwarfin thief because he needs help to get a fairy-tale--" He reverted to full out laughter, and after calming down, continued, "--pebble from a fairly intelligent mud-boy?"
Holly bristled. "Artemis is far more than fairly intelligent you mud-eating, gas-blowing dwarf!" Having been kidnapped by him, she knew far better than to think of him as "fairly intelligent".
And yet...was this Captain Holly Short actually defending her archnemesis? She shook off this strange feeling and glared at Mulch.
Root sighed. "We know better than to think he's lying. If he says he has the stone, he has it."
Mulch contemplated this for a moment. What could he do with the infamous Omni stone? Pull entire celebrity apartment buildings to the ground, valuables and all...with the proper files...a plan formed in his burgler's brain. This could benefit him. A lot.
"How much money do you need?"