Disclaimer: See chapter one. I no own, you no sue!

A/N: … I got nothin'.

Review response time!

I should be Studying- Thanks! Updating, hope you like!

El Shabang- Thanks! Yea, you could say that…

VampirePeaches- O.o Is it possible to write a longer review than the one you sent? lol. I'm sorry that you don't like my spelling, but you're right, I'm American, so that's kinda the way I spell things… It would be confusing to do it any other way, I'm sorry. Besides, my computer says it's a spelling mistake whenever I copy something written that way into Word… So I really am sorry that you don't like the spelling, but there really isn't much I can do about it. Sorry! Heh, I had already written this chapter before I got your review (it was a project! I had no choice! lol) so the Jon accidentally shooting himself isn't gonna happen… But something eerily similar will. Lol. Scary, really. Oh well. Thanks again for reviewing, and hope you like this chapter!

hypergirl15- OMG! It's like you and VampirePeaches are psychic! Again, I wrote this before I got your review cuz I had to get it done, and here you are predicting a repeat of episode… What, twenty something? When I already have something so close it's scary in there! Lol. I also like your spelling of protection… Ekeltricity much? Lol. I noticed you changed your account to SnuffHiFoot… How do you change that? JW… lol. Well g2g… Bye!

IMPORTANT!!!!! I realize that you people who leave signed reviews think, oh, she can just get to my profile page and get my email and email me when she updates. I used to think that too, and maybe it's just because of my retarded comp that I can't, but I can't get to half of your emails and some people don't even have their email on their page. So please leave your email in your review, regardless of who you are (excluding you KK, I'm no that stupid) so I can email you when I update! Thankies!

Chapter Three: Elemental Magic

Opal smiled at the way things were progressing as she viewed the scene occurring at Fowl Manor through her spy cameras. Things were going exactly according to plan… She picked up her walkie talkie and said, "They're gone, Jon. You can come out now." She smiled as he stood, leaving the security of the bush he had been hiding behind, just as Artemis and crew walked around the corner. Their eyes widened and Holly tackled him, Root not far behind.

Butler came up and tied him tightly before hauling him to his feet. "Spiro," he said, his voice cold, emotionless. "How dare you show your face here. You have no idea what kind of trouble you are in now, do you?" His tone never lost it's stoicism, causing Jon to gulp in fear. How could he be so calm as he spoke of someone else's untimely demise?

Artemis came up and placed a hand on his shoulder. Butler looked at him quizzically as he shook his head. "Not now, Dom. There's no time. We'll bring him on the shuttle with us and deal with him later."

Butler slung him over his shoulder as they continued to walk towards the car, but Jon didn't like the emphasis Artemis had put on the word 'deal'.

They all climbed in, Jon securely between Root and Holly, Artemis next to Butler, who was driving, and Foaly in the trunk, and drove off to the shuttle port at Tara.

The terminal was mercifully empty when they arrived, and they immediately hauled Jon off to a questioning room. Holly put the mesmer on him and asked, "What dealings have you had with one Opal Koboi?"

He answered a moment later, voice slurred. "You mean the pixie lady? Yea, I know her… She paid me a lot of money to take out the Fowl kid. I hate the guy, so it wasn't a big deal…"

"Where is she?" Root asked impatiently, intent on getting some answers.

"I dunno," he replied. "Somewhere out in the Amazon… By a really big river."

Artemis sighed. That helped a lot… Now they only had a whole stupid jungle to search! "Anything else?" he inquired, hoping to get a more specific answer.

"Yea-" Artemis' heart leapt- "there's a lot of trees around."

The group released a collective sigh. This was getting no where. "Do you have the coordinates?" Foaly asked, going out on a limb.

"Yea," Jon replied. "Let me think for a sec…"

They all looked at him incredulously and rolled their eyes. 'Uh… I don't know where it is, but here are the coordinates…' Smart. Really smart.

Jon told them where it was and they returned to the shuttle dock and took the pod that led them as close as possible to the coordinates Jon had given them. After a short trek through the jungle, Foaly told them that his newest gadget had sensed an invisible shack nearby that was exploding with electrical energy. He took out some kind of small laser and aimed it a few feet in front of him. The pink beam stopped abruptly, and the building returned to the visible spectrum.

Foaly pulled out his latest patent, an 'inflate-a-cage' and pushed a small button on it. It expanded and they locked Jon inside, a meter or so from the door.

Root took out a Neutrino and trained it on the door. With one quick blast it fell off it's hinges. They were in.

Opal wryly viewed the scene outside. So much for structural integrity, she thought sardonically as the fall of the door caused the house to shake a moment and no small amount of dust to fall from the ceiling.

She sat contentedly in her chair as she saw and heard the group come up the stairs and down the hallway, searching for her heat signature. She would let them find her, of course. How else would she reap the benefits of revenge?

Just as they were about to break down the door to her control room, she pushed a button and it slid open on it's own.

She turned to look at the group standing at the door, smiling slightly. "Welcome," she told them, "to my humble abode. What can I do for you? I have given you my conditions, and I happen to know they have not been met. So I am curious, to what can I attribute this unexpected visit?"

"Surrender, Koboi," Root snarled, "before you are met with a very timely end."

Opal merely laughed. "And if I decline?"

Artemis, seeing a firefight pending and not wanting to take any chances that his daughter would get involved, intervened. "That is not why we are here, commander, and you know it."

Opal looked at him questioningly. "And what, pray tell, is?"

"I want my daughter and Captain Kelp to be released. Then you and Commander Root can argue all you want about what your… punishment will be."

The pixie in question laughed. "You're kidding, right? What's the difference between that and surrender?"
"I stated it much more tactfully…" Artemis muttered.

Opal shook her head in amazement. "You really are too much. I thought you would have at least come with a plan… No, this will be all too easy." With these foreboding words, she snapped her fingers, disengaging the invisibility technology in the room, and pulled Ebony out from behind her. The others gasped, shocked at her appearance. Her eyes were blank, unseeing, her skin pale.

The pixie smiled and knelt down beside the child. "These are the bad people, understand?" The girl nodded her head, and Opal continued. "You know what to do, right?"

Before she could say another word, a voice rang out from the other side of the room. There was a deafening crashing sound, and they all turned to see a extremely ticked Jon Spiro holding a Neutrino, hands shaking with rage. "You tricked me," he said softly, accusation clear in his voice. "You let them take me. You betrayed me."

Opal raised an eyebrow. "And this surprises you, Jon? Really, I thought you were smarter than that." She smirked. "Then again, I suppose your gullibility helped my plans quite a bit, didn't it Jon?"

The man growled. "I'll show you," he snarled. "You'll get what you deserve."

The other went up. "And how do you plan on doing that, Jon? With that old laser? In case you didn't know, those type of things don't work in here. Really, did you think I'd just leave it lying around where you could get at it if it could harm me? Think about it, Jon. You may be stupid, but I most certainly am not."

"What do you mean they don't work?" Root cried. "We just blasted your door apart with one!"

Opal rolled her eyes. "Yes, commander. Now would you care to define the word 'inside' for me?"

Root bristled, and Jon decided to take advantage of the group's distraction. In a flash the Neutrino was on the ground and Spiro had drawn a pistol from his pocket. He pointed it at a very flabbergasted Opal Koboi, who attempted to jump out of the way in time. The bullet sliced through the air where Opal would have been had she not moved, but continued on, as there was nothing there to stop it. It kept going, going…

And struck a wide-eyed Ebony in the shoulder.

"EBONY!" Holly and Artemis called, rushing to her side, forgetting everything around them in their haste to aid their child. Foaly was shocked into silence, for once in his life, and Root had turned a frightening shade of ashen gray. Tears were streaming down Holly's cheeks as she repeatedly cried "HEAL! HEAL!" and they all watched helplessly as the blue sparks of magic poured from her body, but avoided the wound. They stared on in morbid fascination as the life drained from her body, her eyes looking up at them, crying silently for help.

She took one last, shuddering breath… And she was gone.

For a moment, all Holly could feel was shock… And then came the rage. Pure, unbridled anger possessed her, unlocking the ancient magic within her. A blue fire blazed around her, contrasting sharply with the green of her eyes, enveloping her body with it's might and strength. There were a million things she could have said, a million threats she could have uttered, but she chose three, simple words that sent shivers up the spines of those she was speaking to…

"You will pay."

Artemis sat on the floor, stunned, holding Ebony's lifeless form close. It wasn't possible. All these years, all the dangers, all the chances he could have lost his life… And it was now, now of all times, and she of all people, who had to suffer… All she had ever done was be related to him, but that had been enough to seal her fate. She was gone now. And Holly would soon follow. She was being foolish, standing up to Opal. She could never win, not without a weapon. It was hopeless.

But he was more than willing to go down with her.

He got up, gently lowering his daughter's prone body to the floor, and stood beside his wife. She was emitting more magical energies than he had ever thought possible, and had it been anyone but Holly he would have been horribly frightened by this unrestrained display of raw power.

A sword of fire appeared in her hand as everyone in the room looked on, amazed. Was it possible that she had gained control over the elemental powers that no fairy had harnessed for millennia?

At the moment, however, they all admitted that this line of questioning was irrelevant. The important thing was what to do about Opal…

The shocked and frightened pixie picked up the pistol Jon had let fall to the floor when the power of Holly's magic had sent him into a dead faint and fired. The others watched in shock as she merely waved a hand and conjured an icy shield, effectively forcing the bullet to rebound against its master.

Opal Koboi was dead, but the wrongs she had committed were not undone with her belated demise. There was still Jon to deal with, and Ebony… The thought of her contorted the features of all present- and conscious- into expressions of deep sadness and hurt. They had all loved the girl, in her own special way she had touched each of their lives irreversibly. She had meant the world to them, and now she was gone…

A small sound from behind them brought them from the reveries, and they turned to see a small girl, identical to the one before them, at the doorway, tears in her eyes. "Mommy?" she asked softly. "Daddy?"

They were to overcome with emotion to speak, they merely ran over to Ebony and embraced her tightly. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, you got that?" Artemis chastised the girl, clutching her and Holly to him as if his life depended on it.

The girl nodded. "What happened, Daddy? I remember the mean lady taking control of my mind, and then it was dark… I think she cloned me, Daddy, because I felt something evil in my mind, trying to take me over, but it didn't work, and then the voice said that it would have to find another body to inhabit because I was too difficult… Am I difficult, Daddy?" The innocence of her simple statement startled them into laughter, tears of joy streaming down their cheeks.

"Yes, baby, you are. And I'm glad."

The child beamed at her father's praise, hugging her family happily. They loved her, they had come to save her… They cared, and that was all that mattered. It was of no consequence that the voice had been stronger, that it had overpowered her long enough to extract all her memories and mannerisms, that she hadn't been strong enough to stop it… Everything was fine now, because her mommy and daddy were there to protect her. And it would stay that way.

Oh how wrong she was.

Yay! Another chappie done! Sorry it's so short, really… For the project I'm doing I added on a couple pages and concluded the story, but that isn't the way I want this story to go. I won't be over for a while, this fic will be around 30 chappies or so. I just might post slower later, since school starts tomorrow. Is that a cliffie? Kinda, I guess… But no one is in immediate danger, so it's okay, right? Heh… Well, I have to write the next chapter now… Bye!

Torina