Artemis Fowl: The Ivory Files
By Caspian Nyghtvision
Jiu the Weatherperson is mine, and like all my things, can be borrowed with granted permission. Jiu was actually born of an interesting coincedence involving cousins, chaos and Carinna's IM, so she does have a claim in everything Jiu-esque; also the humor prostitutes bit is half hers. Ivy's Amazing Hyper-Reactive Pan-Galactic Blend belongs to Intrikate. Because I am a lazy slacker and I steal from my friends.
Take it away, Jiu.
Jiu the Weatherperson: (pointing to graphic of the fic) As you can see, there's 80 percent sarcasm in the air today, with the dry humor continuing throughout the fic. Later on, a biting wit will drive derision towards us at very high speeds, while we can look forward to random showers and possibly even hysteria.
... Thank you, Jiu. And without further ado:
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Chapter Twelve: Just a Little Unwell
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"All day staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
Feeling like I'm headed for a breakdown
And I don't know why
But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me..."
"Unwell," Matchbox 20
===============================================
Back at Fowl Manor, at a convenient distance from any trouble or strife that might have caused discomfort, Mulch Diggums was having the time of his life.
There were bottles, and splashes, and beetles, and a squid.
Bottles lay strewn carelessly around the multi-million dollar kitchen -- empty bottles, broken bottles, bottles filled with dirt and earthworms, bottles filled with mud and garden beetles, and bottles that bore a proud black label with gold ornamentation and strange lettering surrounding the image of a superbly ridiculous, long-legged pink bird with a beak like a deformed banana. The substances in these black-labeled bottles were unlike any substance on this earth.
Splashes of unknown things were puddled along the Italian-tiled floor. Splashes of sticky things clung to the expensively painted walls. Splashes of something else entirely stuck to the ceiling.
Beetles scurried about desperately, trying to hide under appliances that cost more than the average fanfiction.net reader could afford in a year.
And, sitting despondently (and rather limply) in the stainless steel sink, with its lovely round eyes looking damp and depressed, was a single squid.
In the middle of it all was a middle-aged dwarf, wearing an apron that said "Feed the Cook." Mulch stood on the counter, chugging something from a dusty bottle marked "Terribly Expensive Vodka" as he fed earthworms and beetles into the blender. He turned it on cheerfully, neglecting to put the lid on. Splatters of brownish goo joined the rest of the crud on the walls.
It was this scene that Artemis Fowl the First stumbled into, looking for a midnight drink. He might have been a noble man, but he liked his Terribly Expensive Vodka more than he would admit.
"Good God! What the hell is the meaning of this?!"
Mulch promptly fell off the counter, the bottle of Terribly Expensive Vodka smashing into a lot of Terribly Expensive Pieces and forming a Terribly Expensive Puddle on the floor. "Oh, 'ey, what's up, top o' the morning and all that!"
"Who the hell are you?" Artemis Fowl the First demanded in frosty outrage, waving his walking stick in disbelief. This wasn't the best idea for a crippled man; he fell sideways and had to catch onto a bar stool.
"Oh, I'm the new help," Mulch said breezily, clambering back up.
"ARE you." Artemis Fowl picked up a bottle and squinted at the strange, hieroglyphic letters that decorated its black label. The liquid inside was dark pink, and the bubbles inside it were going downwards, rather than up. A good head of foam had already collected at the bottom of the bottle. "And what, pray, are you doing?" he asked, icy blue eyes straying towards the depressed squid in the sink.
"Snacking." Mulch had a long soup ladle, and was spooning the blended earthworms into his very large mouth. "Ish verra good. Wanshome?"
"Ah, nooo. And the squid?"
The lavender inverterbrate held up a tentacle and waved it around hopefully.
"Oh, that? It was on sale."
"You are aware that Fowl Manor is a tightly run affair," Artemis Fowl said in a voice that could chill wine at ten paces. "We do not spontaneously hire new help. I have reason to believe that you, sir, are an impostor. And impostors are not tolerated here."
"YOU'RE a tightly run affair," Mulch remarked. "Want some a' thish? It'll looshen your ash..." He held up another black-labeled bottle; this one glowed a radioactive green.
"If I want my 'ash' loosened, I will inform the family physician. What is your business here?"
"The kid hired me."
"WHAT kid?"
"Artemis kid. Ya know, black hair, blue eye, yea high--" Mulch waved a hand in the general direction of the squid, but he couldn't see straight -- "Oi, that rhymed..."
"I demand to see your references."
"Tight-ash-ness runs in the family, I notice," Mulch muttered, rummaging about in his apron. He held up a grimy, muddy piece of paper.
Artemis Fowl peered at it from a distance. "Ah. It appears you are indeed legitimate. That being said... you are fired."
Mulch shrugged. "All righ' with me. Wanshomma this?"
"Dear God no. It's... wiggling."
"Feh. Try thish then." Mulch held out the glowing green liquid again, wiggling it enticingly.
Artemis Fowl snuck a quick peek around, on the off chance Angeline was going to leap out of the woodwork and discover him. "Well..."
Five minutes later, Artemis Fowl was happily plastered without a care in the world. Humans just aren't up to Ivy's Amazing Hyper-Reactive Pan-Galactic Blend, bottled exclusively by the Netherworld Flamingo.
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Grub was literally up against the wall. His scaly, lizard-looking captor was keeping him easily pinned there with one massive hand. Or paw. Or... whatever was politically correct to call the mottled, hideously strong *thing* that was currently strangling him against a building. Because an LEP officer should never be politically incorrect, oh no, it made for bad feeling among the masses.
Grub would have liked to be dropped, so he could breathe again, but it was a freaking long way to the ground. About five feet. It was just his luck that his captor was a massive creature and a real giant among the former B'wa Kell. Since goblins are enormously imaginative when it comes to naming their kiddies, his name was Snot. Because -- and this is the creative bit -- he had an unusual amount of snot. Grub noticed this, from his handy vantage point way up on the wall. And when Snot conjured up fire with the one hand that wasn't casually pinning Grub there, and inhaled it into his nose, the effect of the flaming mucus was just a lovely sight to be hold. Like Mozart and his symphonies. A work of pure art.
Tongue firmly in cheek here. Whatever the hell that means.
"So whaddaya think of that, ya mangy pink-haired point-eared nancy?" Snot wheezed snottily with little bits of fire and mucus dripping down his face in a lovely display.
"Um. What do I think of what?" asked Grub, who hadn't been paying attention. It was hard, with a roaring in his ears and his lungs feeling rather squashed, and the rather distracting circle of goblins leering up at him like starving wild-eyed penguins eyeing a particularly juicy bit of penguin food. Some of them had long knives. Some of them had long forks. Grub did not like the looks of this.
"Our revenge. For years of being downtredden- downtredded- Cerebellum?"
"Cerebellum?" Grub choked. Even he didn't know what that was. Something to do with the brain. Brains involved thinking. Thinking involved intelligence. Snot and his gang were not big on intelligence. And the word had four syllables, for crying out loud.
"Not you, idiot." Snot gave him a light shake which almost did the poor corporal in. "Cerebellum, what am I talking about?"
The gang member who answered looked to be some kind of cross-breed, with a very large head. When he spoke, he sounded like a weary British gentleman of the David Attenborough type. "Our revenge for years of being downtrodden, sir. And then you were asking the mangy pink-haired point-eared nancy what he thought of it, sir."
"Ya, what he said." Snot appeared to want an answer.
Cerebellum coughed discreetly; turning to Grub, he said almost apologetically, "We would like closure, you see."
"Oh. Um. It's. Lovely?" Grub tried. Because an LEP officer should never be politically incorrect. Oh dear me no. It would be bad PR.
"What a waste of time. Well, I'm terribly sorry," Cerebellum stated very English-ly, "But I'm going to have to shoot you."
Apparently there was no right answer.
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At the LEP Headquarters, things were returning to normal. Rescue teams were sent out in all directions to dig trapped fairies out of crumbled buildings.
Artemis Fowl the Second woke up and abruptly wished he hadn't. His eyesight was blurry, his mouth was dry, and he had a nagging feeling of having been, however briefly, vulnerable. The last thing he could remember was making a crash-landing in Police Plaza and then arguing with Holly about something. He remembered it being rather important at the time.
Foaly's face slowly swam into focus, a strange, dreamy smile on his horsy face. "Oh, he's awake."
Artemis opened his mouth to retort and made the highly intelligent sound of "Whi."
"Oh, I'll expect you'll be a little dehydrated after the drug." Foaly stretched out his words, giggled lovingly, and offered Artemis a glass of clear liquid. The young man blinked, running his tongue against parched teeth, and accepted the glass suspiciously.
"I presume this is water?" he said dubiously, but it came out of his dry throat more like "...eh, water?"
"Ah, water," Foaly agreed tenderly, helping himself to a glass from a handy cooler. "The lifeblood of the planet. Did you know that most of our water is from the Ice Age? Gushing and rushing and slushing and plushing and qushing and flushing and tsushing and ... now I need to pee."
The same glazed calm smile on his face, the centaur swung his hindquarters around and clopped off dreamily.
Artemis looked around. Holly was sitting in a human-sized plastic chair against the wall of the dingy room; Artemis recognized it as last year's interrogation room. Apparently it had not been vacuumed since then. The young captain had her buzz baton laid across her lap and was watching him with a kind of weary alertness. He caught her eye and held up the glass.
"Water," she told him curtly. "Drink it."
He did. "... Foaly?"
"We've given him horse tranquilizers. He's under a lot of stress. If we didn't inject it into his carrots he'd be kicking the walls down," Holly stated casually.
Artemis digested this. "Butler?"
"In the next room over, sleeping it off."
"Medic?"
"Who? Oh, the kid. We sent her home."
"Commander?"
"Having a triple bypass," Holly said calmly in the same tone she'd used with the other sentences. "He had a heart attack when you showed up."
Artemis blinked.
"Oh, it's no big deal," Holly said hurriedly, noticing his reaction. "Well, it is, but not for Beetroot. He's like a veteran. Legend has it he's got his own special bed in the Emergency Surgery Ward, and the medics take bets on his next cardiac arrest."
"So open-heart surgery has become commonplace among the People?" Artemis mused aloud.
"Not commonplace, but definitely not as risky as it is for you humans," Holly replied with a spark of pride in her eyes.
"Hmn. Do you ever have... ethical dilemmas with that sort of thing?" Artemis questioned.
"Ethical dilemmas?" Holly snorted. "Oh, that's rich, coming from you."
"Well, you can't deny there is one. Perhaps some of the lives you save should have run their natural course."
Holly stared at him for a bit, then remembered to close her mouth. "What on earth are you talking about, Fowl? What's with this sudden moral interest?"
"Oh, no real reason. I was just pondering." Artemis templed his fingers and Pondered. "You know, I don't think it's right, you being able to just magically fix everyone who has a heart attack. It takes something out of life. It takes the edge off. Perhaps--"
"Stop it!" Holly bolted up, the buzz baton clattering from her lap. "Shut up, you ignorant little--"
"What? I'm just speaking my thoughts aloud--"
"Shut up, damn you! Shut UP!"
Artemis and Holly fell silent and stared at each other. Artemis looked calm and vaguely interested, Holly's face was a mixture of outrage, disgust and horror. Like he had just suggested that they go murder puppies.
"So you'd just have Root die? Is that it?" Holly said, her voice starting to shrill. "After all we've done for you, and our magic--"
"So that's it, then." Artemis sat back. "You fairies have a real fear of death."
Holly wasn't expecting that.
"You fairies have this desperate need to be in control," Artemis went on. "You absolutely love being superior and having the means to make everything bad go away. You can have whatever blood pressure you want and not have to worry, because your magic can even cheat death--"
"You are one twisted kid, Fowl."
"Or perhaps it's not all fairies. Perhaps it's just you, Holly. Have I hit a sore spot? Something personal?"
"Quit it with the damn mind games, Fowl."
"Oh, so I'm Fowl now. Suddenly you don't like me any more. So what happened that makes you so sensitive to an intelligent debate?"
Artemis saw it coming, but it didn't matter. Holly slapped him halfway out of his seat.
They sat in their chairs for a while, smoldering. Artemis tried very hard not to whimper as he slowly traced his burning cheekbone. Steely Self-Control wrestled with Shocking Pain, Anger wandered in and seethed, while Remorse skulked from its dusty corner to see what all the noise was about.
"So why was I drugged in the first place?" Artemis asked after a while.
"Shut up, mud teen."
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JadePrincess: This is sooo going to get us reported. Besides, there are no centaurs in LOtR.
Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale: There are vampires in the Silmarillion. And Sauron is Lord of the Werewolves. It'll work.
JadePrincess: Silla... Isn't that some kind of bacteria?
Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale: Very funny. You should be a stand-up comic.
JadePrincess: Yeah, I'll tell jokes and people will give me money!
Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale: No, that's called being a humor prostitute.
===========================================================
Water seeped out of the cracked tank while a bewildered bogglefish floated upside down and blinked. Apparently the World was shrinking. The fish did not know much, but he did know that this wasn't a Good Thing.
The tank was less than half full now.
Bob was in a Lurch.
Holly had left her fish in the lurch once before. When Artemis Fowl had kidnapped her that first time -- was it just two years ago?-- Bob had been left in the apartment, alone and forgotten.
Thankfully Caspian from the Netherworld Flamingo had noticed that Holly hadn't been coming in for karaoke night -- and Holly sang very good karaoke. Rather concerned for her customer's safety, Caspian had sent Mel Thorn to check up on the Captain.
Mel Thorn, the beloved chef with the frying pan and Bogglefish-In-Trouble sensing powers, had broken into the apartment by looking at the door menacingly until it fell apart. She had burst into the apartment spy-style, humming "Mission: Impossible" and gazing around paranoically, noticed that Holly wasn't there, shrugged, cheerfully fed Cheerios to Bob, and left.
Holly had caught it all on tape, from an old camcorder she used to have mounted on the kitchen wall to monitor burglars with; on the off chance that someone should poke down her door and try to steal her stuff, she would know who did it.
Holly didn't have the camera any more; someone had stolen it.
Still, she was NOT going to give in and ask Foaly for a new key. She had her pride to think of!
At any rate, Mel's Bogglefish-In-Trouble sensing powers were drumming in her skull. As the quakes subsided, the crew of the Flamingo were picking themselves up and putting themselves back together. Mel was already gone, dodging rubble and pedestrians in a noble effort to save Bob the Atlantean Bogglefish.
It was a race against Time.
Thankfully, Time has been getting rather overweight lately and doesn't fly as quickly as it used to.
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All this time, Takaban had been Lurking in the Shadows, feeling horribly depressed. After a while, depression became a hobby for him. He began to enjoy lying in the same place for days, not eating, barely breathing, and being generally pessimistic. It was rather enjoyable, if that was the word for it, to molder quietly away, thinking morbid thoughts about eternity. Scraggled feathers fell off him like leaves from a dying tree.
"What the hell-- Takaban?! Are you dead there?"
"I am contemplating the hopelessness of all existence as I sink deeper into a severe and mind-numbing depression. More or less, yes. Why?"
"I need you to help me again." Said the sweet, feminine, flowery, yet also strong and imposing voice. Carrying sugared undercurrents of silvery flute, gentle harp, and the dulcet and honeyed song of a choir of angels -- all of which, miraculously, wrapped up in one delicate set of vocal cords, and none of the vastly different tones contrasting -- the voice of a creature which is so impossibly perfect that the forces of good cannot escape its gravity, and are sucked into it to their doom.
(The author will pause from retching over her own fevered imagination to wonder if she could use that sentence again, in a Mary Sue parody. Nobody would notice, right? It's... recycling. Good for the Earth.)
Takaban's cynicism saved him from falling into the white hole. "I don't owe you anything. I just want to die now."
"I've told you, I'll heal you when you've finished." The voice -- like Lili Frond's, but much more cunning; like Opal Koboi's, but waaaay prettier -- began to sound annoyed.
"Look." Takaban sat up and looked at her with feverish eyes with dark circles under them. "I've lived for too long already. It's been almost fifty-nine years and I just can't take it anymore. There is no hope." He flopped back down on the bed and recommenced moldering.
There was a brief silence. Then the dainty creature of perfection hissed in anger, showing a pair of milky-white fangs that would put snow to shame for all their... milky-white snowy color.
... although, when you think about it, snow is more blue-ish...
... but logic and cynicism do not hold up in the vortex of silvery flutes and gentle harps...
... ack...
Takaban hated it when the Tooth Fairy was in one of her "Mary Sue" moods.
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This was written under influence of Painkillers, and waaay too many Mary Sues in the LOtR section. "Somebody hit these authors with a very heavy writer's block. PLEASE God," has now become my war cry. After all that, no wonder the chapter came out more than a little skewed.
Cheers to Tie Kerl and the Seasyngr, who have won the "Spot the Rowen" contest. He is kidnapped from Ronin Warriors, which is the most deliciously awful-but-we-love-it-anyway anime around. He will be returned safe and with only mild emotional scars. The 'Netherworld' of the Netherworld Flamingo is another tribute to the show. Dark Warlords rule! (waves little banner)
Thanks to Maiden Genisis and her character Mel Thorn, who volunteered to save Bob. Go Mel! (Bob waves a little banner taped to his fin)
Anyway, because I'm a gimmicky Japanophile -- guess what's the deal with Takaban and you will be praised as a remarkably intelligent clue-finding type. And you can have the squid.
Squid: ;.; (What did I ever do to anyone?)
Bob: O. (Get this freaking -- thing-- out of my tank!!)
By Caspian Nyghtvision
Jiu the Weatherperson is mine, and like all my things, can be borrowed with granted permission. Jiu was actually born of an interesting coincedence involving cousins, chaos and Carinna's IM, so she does have a claim in everything Jiu-esque; also the humor prostitutes bit is half hers. Ivy's Amazing Hyper-Reactive Pan-Galactic Blend belongs to Intrikate. Because I am a lazy slacker and I steal from my friends.
Take it away, Jiu.
Jiu the Weatherperson: (pointing to graphic of the fic) As you can see, there's 80 percent sarcasm in the air today, with the dry humor continuing throughout the fic. Later on, a biting wit will drive derision towards us at very high speeds, while we can look forward to random showers and possibly even hysteria.
... Thank you, Jiu. And without further ado:
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Chapter Twelve: Just a Little Unwell
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"All day staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
Feeling like I'm headed for a breakdown
And I don't know why
But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me..."
"Unwell," Matchbox 20
===============================================
Back at Fowl Manor, at a convenient distance from any trouble or strife that might have caused discomfort, Mulch Diggums was having the time of his life.
There were bottles, and splashes, and beetles, and a squid.
Bottles lay strewn carelessly around the multi-million dollar kitchen -- empty bottles, broken bottles, bottles filled with dirt and earthworms, bottles filled with mud and garden beetles, and bottles that bore a proud black label with gold ornamentation and strange lettering surrounding the image of a superbly ridiculous, long-legged pink bird with a beak like a deformed banana. The substances in these black-labeled bottles were unlike any substance on this earth.
Splashes of unknown things were puddled along the Italian-tiled floor. Splashes of sticky things clung to the expensively painted walls. Splashes of something else entirely stuck to the ceiling.
Beetles scurried about desperately, trying to hide under appliances that cost more than the average fanfiction.net reader could afford in a year.
And, sitting despondently (and rather limply) in the stainless steel sink, with its lovely round eyes looking damp and depressed, was a single squid.
In the middle of it all was a middle-aged dwarf, wearing an apron that said "Feed the Cook." Mulch stood on the counter, chugging something from a dusty bottle marked "Terribly Expensive Vodka" as he fed earthworms and beetles into the blender. He turned it on cheerfully, neglecting to put the lid on. Splatters of brownish goo joined the rest of the crud on the walls.
It was this scene that Artemis Fowl the First stumbled into, looking for a midnight drink. He might have been a noble man, but he liked his Terribly Expensive Vodka more than he would admit.
"Good God! What the hell is the meaning of this?!"
Mulch promptly fell off the counter, the bottle of Terribly Expensive Vodka smashing into a lot of Terribly Expensive Pieces and forming a Terribly Expensive Puddle on the floor. "Oh, 'ey, what's up, top o' the morning and all that!"
"Who the hell are you?" Artemis Fowl the First demanded in frosty outrage, waving his walking stick in disbelief. This wasn't the best idea for a crippled man; he fell sideways and had to catch onto a bar stool.
"Oh, I'm the new help," Mulch said breezily, clambering back up.
"ARE you." Artemis Fowl picked up a bottle and squinted at the strange, hieroglyphic letters that decorated its black label. The liquid inside was dark pink, and the bubbles inside it were going downwards, rather than up. A good head of foam had already collected at the bottom of the bottle. "And what, pray, are you doing?" he asked, icy blue eyes straying towards the depressed squid in the sink.
"Snacking." Mulch had a long soup ladle, and was spooning the blended earthworms into his very large mouth. "Ish verra good. Wanshome?"
"Ah, nooo. And the squid?"
The lavender inverterbrate held up a tentacle and waved it around hopefully.
"Oh, that? It was on sale."
"You are aware that Fowl Manor is a tightly run affair," Artemis Fowl said in a voice that could chill wine at ten paces. "We do not spontaneously hire new help. I have reason to believe that you, sir, are an impostor. And impostors are not tolerated here."
"YOU'RE a tightly run affair," Mulch remarked. "Want some a' thish? It'll looshen your ash..." He held up another black-labeled bottle; this one glowed a radioactive green.
"If I want my 'ash' loosened, I will inform the family physician. What is your business here?"
"The kid hired me."
"WHAT kid?"
"Artemis kid. Ya know, black hair, blue eye, yea high--" Mulch waved a hand in the general direction of the squid, but he couldn't see straight -- "Oi, that rhymed..."
"I demand to see your references."
"Tight-ash-ness runs in the family, I notice," Mulch muttered, rummaging about in his apron. He held up a grimy, muddy piece of paper.
Artemis Fowl peered at it from a distance. "Ah. It appears you are indeed legitimate. That being said... you are fired."
Mulch shrugged. "All righ' with me. Wanshomma this?"
"Dear God no. It's... wiggling."
"Feh. Try thish then." Mulch held out the glowing green liquid again, wiggling it enticingly.
Artemis Fowl snuck a quick peek around, on the off chance Angeline was going to leap out of the woodwork and discover him. "Well..."
Five minutes later, Artemis Fowl was happily plastered without a care in the world. Humans just aren't up to Ivy's Amazing Hyper-Reactive Pan-Galactic Blend, bottled exclusively by the Netherworld Flamingo.
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Grub was literally up against the wall. His scaly, lizard-looking captor was keeping him easily pinned there with one massive hand. Or paw. Or... whatever was politically correct to call the mottled, hideously strong *thing* that was currently strangling him against a building. Because an LEP officer should never be politically incorrect, oh no, it made for bad feeling among the masses.
Grub would have liked to be dropped, so he could breathe again, but it was a freaking long way to the ground. About five feet. It was just his luck that his captor was a massive creature and a real giant among the former B'wa Kell. Since goblins are enormously imaginative when it comes to naming their kiddies, his name was Snot. Because -- and this is the creative bit -- he had an unusual amount of snot. Grub noticed this, from his handy vantage point way up on the wall. And when Snot conjured up fire with the one hand that wasn't casually pinning Grub there, and inhaled it into his nose, the effect of the flaming mucus was just a lovely sight to be hold. Like Mozart and his symphonies. A work of pure art.
Tongue firmly in cheek here. Whatever the hell that means.
"So whaddaya think of that, ya mangy pink-haired point-eared nancy?" Snot wheezed snottily with little bits of fire and mucus dripping down his face in a lovely display.
"Um. What do I think of what?" asked Grub, who hadn't been paying attention. It was hard, with a roaring in his ears and his lungs feeling rather squashed, and the rather distracting circle of goblins leering up at him like starving wild-eyed penguins eyeing a particularly juicy bit of penguin food. Some of them had long knives. Some of them had long forks. Grub did not like the looks of this.
"Our revenge. For years of being downtredden- downtredded- Cerebellum?"
"Cerebellum?" Grub choked. Even he didn't know what that was. Something to do with the brain. Brains involved thinking. Thinking involved intelligence. Snot and his gang were not big on intelligence. And the word had four syllables, for crying out loud.
"Not you, idiot." Snot gave him a light shake which almost did the poor corporal in. "Cerebellum, what am I talking about?"
The gang member who answered looked to be some kind of cross-breed, with a very large head. When he spoke, he sounded like a weary British gentleman of the David Attenborough type. "Our revenge for years of being downtrodden, sir. And then you were asking the mangy pink-haired point-eared nancy what he thought of it, sir."
"Ya, what he said." Snot appeared to want an answer.
Cerebellum coughed discreetly; turning to Grub, he said almost apologetically, "We would like closure, you see."
"Oh. Um. It's. Lovely?" Grub tried. Because an LEP officer should never be politically incorrect. Oh dear me no. It would be bad PR.
"What a waste of time. Well, I'm terribly sorry," Cerebellum stated very English-ly, "But I'm going to have to shoot you."
Apparently there was no right answer.
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At the LEP Headquarters, things were returning to normal. Rescue teams were sent out in all directions to dig trapped fairies out of crumbled buildings.
Artemis Fowl the Second woke up and abruptly wished he hadn't. His eyesight was blurry, his mouth was dry, and he had a nagging feeling of having been, however briefly, vulnerable. The last thing he could remember was making a crash-landing in Police Plaza and then arguing with Holly about something. He remembered it being rather important at the time.
Foaly's face slowly swam into focus, a strange, dreamy smile on his horsy face. "Oh, he's awake."
Artemis opened his mouth to retort and made the highly intelligent sound of "Whi."
"Oh, I'll expect you'll be a little dehydrated after the drug." Foaly stretched out his words, giggled lovingly, and offered Artemis a glass of clear liquid. The young man blinked, running his tongue against parched teeth, and accepted the glass suspiciously.
"I presume this is water?" he said dubiously, but it came out of his dry throat more like "...eh, water?"
"Ah, water," Foaly agreed tenderly, helping himself to a glass from a handy cooler. "The lifeblood of the planet. Did you know that most of our water is from the Ice Age? Gushing and rushing and slushing and plushing and qushing and flushing and tsushing and ... now I need to pee."
The same glazed calm smile on his face, the centaur swung his hindquarters around and clopped off dreamily.
Artemis looked around. Holly was sitting in a human-sized plastic chair against the wall of the dingy room; Artemis recognized it as last year's interrogation room. Apparently it had not been vacuumed since then. The young captain had her buzz baton laid across her lap and was watching him with a kind of weary alertness. He caught her eye and held up the glass.
"Water," she told him curtly. "Drink it."
He did. "... Foaly?"
"We've given him horse tranquilizers. He's under a lot of stress. If we didn't inject it into his carrots he'd be kicking the walls down," Holly stated casually.
Artemis digested this. "Butler?"
"In the next room over, sleeping it off."
"Medic?"
"Who? Oh, the kid. We sent her home."
"Commander?"
"Having a triple bypass," Holly said calmly in the same tone she'd used with the other sentences. "He had a heart attack when you showed up."
Artemis blinked.
"Oh, it's no big deal," Holly said hurriedly, noticing his reaction. "Well, it is, but not for Beetroot. He's like a veteran. Legend has it he's got his own special bed in the Emergency Surgery Ward, and the medics take bets on his next cardiac arrest."
"So open-heart surgery has become commonplace among the People?" Artemis mused aloud.
"Not commonplace, but definitely not as risky as it is for you humans," Holly replied with a spark of pride in her eyes.
"Hmn. Do you ever have... ethical dilemmas with that sort of thing?" Artemis questioned.
"Ethical dilemmas?" Holly snorted. "Oh, that's rich, coming from you."
"Well, you can't deny there is one. Perhaps some of the lives you save should have run their natural course."
Holly stared at him for a bit, then remembered to close her mouth. "What on earth are you talking about, Fowl? What's with this sudden moral interest?"
"Oh, no real reason. I was just pondering." Artemis templed his fingers and Pondered. "You know, I don't think it's right, you being able to just magically fix everyone who has a heart attack. It takes something out of life. It takes the edge off. Perhaps--"
"Stop it!" Holly bolted up, the buzz baton clattering from her lap. "Shut up, you ignorant little--"
"What? I'm just speaking my thoughts aloud--"
"Shut up, damn you! Shut UP!"
Artemis and Holly fell silent and stared at each other. Artemis looked calm and vaguely interested, Holly's face was a mixture of outrage, disgust and horror. Like he had just suggested that they go murder puppies.
"So you'd just have Root die? Is that it?" Holly said, her voice starting to shrill. "After all we've done for you, and our magic--"
"So that's it, then." Artemis sat back. "You fairies have a real fear of death."
Holly wasn't expecting that.
"You fairies have this desperate need to be in control," Artemis went on. "You absolutely love being superior and having the means to make everything bad go away. You can have whatever blood pressure you want and not have to worry, because your magic can even cheat death--"
"You are one twisted kid, Fowl."
"Or perhaps it's not all fairies. Perhaps it's just you, Holly. Have I hit a sore spot? Something personal?"
"Quit it with the damn mind games, Fowl."
"Oh, so I'm Fowl now. Suddenly you don't like me any more. So what happened that makes you so sensitive to an intelligent debate?"
Artemis saw it coming, but it didn't matter. Holly slapped him halfway out of his seat.
They sat in their chairs for a while, smoldering. Artemis tried very hard not to whimper as he slowly traced his burning cheekbone. Steely Self-Control wrestled with Shocking Pain, Anger wandered in and seethed, while Remorse skulked from its dusty corner to see what all the noise was about.
"So why was I drugged in the first place?" Artemis asked after a while.
"Shut up, mud teen."
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JadePrincess: This is sooo going to get us reported. Besides, there are no centaurs in LOtR.
Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale: There are vampires in the Silmarillion. And Sauron is Lord of the Werewolves. It'll work.
JadePrincess: Silla... Isn't that some kind of bacteria?
Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale: Very funny. You should be a stand-up comic.
JadePrincess: Yeah, I'll tell jokes and people will give me money!
Evilly_Brilliant_Femme_Fatale: No, that's called being a humor prostitute.
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Water seeped out of the cracked tank while a bewildered bogglefish floated upside down and blinked. Apparently the World was shrinking. The fish did not know much, but he did know that this wasn't a Good Thing.
The tank was less than half full now.
Bob was in a Lurch.
Holly had left her fish in the lurch once before. When Artemis Fowl had kidnapped her that first time -- was it just two years ago?-- Bob had been left in the apartment, alone and forgotten.
Thankfully Caspian from the Netherworld Flamingo had noticed that Holly hadn't been coming in for karaoke night -- and Holly sang very good karaoke. Rather concerned for her customer's safety, Caspian had sent Mel Thorn to check up on the Captain.
Mel Thorn, the beloved chef with the frying pan and Bogglefish-In-Trouble sensing powers, had broken into the apartment by looking at the door menacingly until it fell apart. She had burst into the apartment spy-style, humming "Mission: Impossible" and gazing around paranoically, noticed that Holly wasn't there, shrugged, cheerfully fed Cheerios to Bob, and left.
Holly had caught it all on tape, from an old camcorder she used to have mounted on the kitchen wall to monitor burglars with; on the off chance that someone should poke down her door and try to steal her stuff, she would know who did it.
Holly didn't have the camera any more; someone had stolen it.
Still, she was NOT going to give in and ask Foaly for a new key. She had her pride to think of!
At any rate, Mel's Bogglefish-In-Trouble sensing powers were drumming in her skull. As the quakes subsided, the crew of the Flamingo were picking themselves up and putting themselves back together. Mel was already gone, dodging rubble and pedestrians in a noble effort to save Bob the Atlantean Bogglefish.
It was a race against Time.
Thankfully, Time has been getting rather overweight lately and doesn't fly as quickly as it used to.
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All this time, Takaban had been Lurking in the Shadows, feeling horribly depressed. After a while, depression became a hobby for him. He began to enjoy lying in the same place for days, not eating, barely breathing, and being generally pessimistic. It was rather enjoyable, if that was the word for it, to molder quietly away, thinking morbid thoughts about eternity. Scraggled feathers fell off him like leaves from a dying tree.
"What the hell-- Takaban?! Are you dead there?"
"I am contemplating the hopelessness of all existence as I sink deeper into a severe and mind-numbing depression. More or less, yes. Why?"
"I need you to help me again." Said the sweet, feminine, flowery, yet also strong and imposing voice. Carrying sugared undercurrents of silvery flute, gentle harp, and the dulcet and honeyed song of a choir of angels -- all of which, miraculously, wrapped up in one delicate set of vocal cords, and none of the vastly different tones contrasting -- the voice of a creature which is so impossibly perfect that the forces of good cannot escape its gravity, and are sucked into it to their doom.
(The author will pause from retching over her own fevered imagination to wonder if she could use that sentence again, in a Mary Sue parody. Nobody would notice, right? It's... recycling. Good for the Earth.)
Takaban's cynicism saved him from falling into the white hole. "I don't owe you anything. I just want to die now."
"I've told you, I'll heal you when you've finished." The voice -- like Lili Frond's, but much more cunning; like Opal Koboi's, but waaaay prettier -- began to sound annoyed.
"Look." Takaban sat up and looked at her with feverish eyes with dark circles under them. "I've lived for too long already. It's been almost fifty-nine years and I just can't take it anymore. There is no hope." He flopped back down on the bed and recommenced moldering.
There was a brief silence. Then the dainty creature of perfection hissed in anger, showing a pair of milky-white fangs that would put snow to shame for all their... milky-white snowy color.
... although, when you think about it, snow is more blue-ish...
... but logic and cynicism do not hold up in the vortex of silvery flutes and gentle harps...
... ack...
Takaban hated it when the Tooth Fairy was in one of her "Mary Sue" moods.
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This was written under influence of Painkillers, and waaay too many Mary Sues in the LOtR section. "Somebody hit these authors with a very heavy writer's block. PLEASE God," has now become my war cry. After all that, no wonder the chapter came out more than a little skewed.
Cheers to Tie Kerl and the Seasyngr, who have won the "Spot the Rowen" contest. He is kidnapped from Ronin Warriors, which is the most deliciously awful-but-we-love-it-anyway anime around. He will be returned safe and with only mild emotional scars. The 'Netherworld' of the Netherworld Flamingo is another tribute to the show. Dark Warlords rule! (waves little banner)
Thanks to Maiden Genisis and her character Mel Thorn, who volunteered to save Bob. Go Mel! (Bob waves a little banner taped to his fin)
Anyway, because I'm a gimmicky Japanophile -- guess what's the deal with Takaban and you will be praised as a remarkably intelligent clue-finding type. And you can have the squid.
Squid: ;.; (What did I ever do to anyone?)
Bob: O. (Get this freaking -- thing-- out of my tank!!)