Kit situated himself on a nearby park bench and buried his face in his hands, vowing to himself never, ever, to mess with transport spells again as Ginny and Ron fastidiously examined Nita's manual, Nita being preoccupied in wrestling Hermione for possession of Legolas's arm.
"Hey, what does this do…?" Ron inquired, curiously poking at a page of the manual.
Kit didn't even look up at the reverberating explosion that followed.
"I told you not to touch it," he muttered as Ron staggered up to him and collapsed, his chalky white face covered in soot and fossilized llama manure.
Hermione somehow managed to pin Nita down and reassure the whimpering elf at the same time.
"There, there, darling Leggypoo… everything's going to be all right," Hermione cooed, eliciting another nauseous expression on Harry's face.
With all the concentrated mass chaos taking place, Kit was surprised the NYPD hadn't clapped them all up in cuffs and dragged them to the nearest psycho ward.
"Uhhhhh," he moaned, tearing at his hair in frustration and accidentally removing a quarter-inch's worth from his right temple. "How did I get myself into this mess…?"
There suddenly came the squeal of tires somewhere off in the distance, and all activity instantaneously ceased.
Blessed silence fell.
Unfortunately, Kit's relief only lasted for the space of ten seconds, after which, satisfied the cops weren't closing in on them, Nita went back to antagonizing Hermione while Legolas inconspicuously dragged himself towards the nearest tree. As inconspicuously inconspicuous as an elf can inconspicuously be while trying to inconspicuously escape the Wrath of the Female Hormones.
Dairine had been sitting quietly through all of this, it was only after Kit took his face out of his hands that he realized she was staring at Ron, her face a vivid red.
Her embarrassment became apparent when Kit looked down at Ron's limp form, and realized that Ron was drooling onto Dairine's jeans, upon which aspit pond had already formed.
Dairine looked up at him, her gray eyes pleading with Kit to please, stop bemoaning your own stupid life and get him off of me.
Kit obliged hastily, having no desire to have an angry Dairine to deal with.
He had just settled back down on his bench for another round of sulking when a large black car appeared out of nowhere and almost smashed Legolas flat as it careened through the campsite, narrowly avoiding all of the assembled people, stopping just short of a large tree.
Dairine squinted at the car. It was a newer Aston Martin, but its trunk lid and rear window were perforated with clean, still-smoking holes Dairine seriously doubted were meant to be there.
The driver-side door popped open.
All eyes turned to the large, hulking figure that emerged, dusted the dirt off of his Armani suit, and pulled out another, smaller, figure.
The smaller of the two, a pale, raven-haired boy of about Dairine's age, stared around at his surroundings with keen eyes, taking in everything he saw, though not without badly concealed amazement.
Dairine immediately blushed and tried to make herself as small as possible, without really knowing why she was doing this.
The boy cautiously approached Kit, who was pale, and looked ready to pass out.
"Hello… my name is Artemis Fowl," the boy intoned in a quiet, strong voice. "Could you possibly be as kind as to inform me of where I am?"
Kit gaped.
And gaped.
…and gaped…
Artemis scowled. "Unless you're interested in catching and eating insects, I would shut my mouth."
He turned, scanning the crowd, until his eyes fell on Dairine, who was huddled up against a nearby tree.
"Miss," Artemis smiled, offering her his hand. "Would you like a hand up?"
Dairine turned bright red.
"Uh… erm…" she started, suddenly painfully conscious of her position on the ground.
Artemis grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.
"There, miss…"
Dairine complicated her immediate problem by tripping and falling into Artemis's arms, causing him to overbalance and fall backwards.
As it was, this probably saved both of their lives, as a postal truck suddenly roared over their heads, spewing dirt and gravel, and slid directly into the rear of the Aston Martin, totaling it.
"My car!" Butler screamed.
"My back!" Artemis wheezed from underneath Dairine.
"My sanity!" Kit moaned from his position on the bench.
The side door of the truck slid, and a tall, tall figure with shiny, shiny eyes stepped out.
"Oh, goodness me," he purred in an apologetic voice that didn't fool anybody. "I am so sorry about your car… now, if you will kindly provide me with transportation out of here?"
Artemis, pushing Dairine off of him, scowled. "Well, now, sir. Seeing as you have recently destroyed my vehicle, does it look like we have transportation?" he snapped.
The tall, tall man, whom we shall now call Count Olaf, responded by whipping out a switchblade and advancing on Artemis.
Kit chose an even bigger path of hair to pull out.
"Yes, it does. It appears to me in the form of a certain impudent youngster who will pull this truck through this damn forest to the- gaaagghagaaaagggg…"
Olaf didn't get a chance to finish, because Butler had lost his temper and zapped him with a stun gun.
"First you destroy my car, then you ask a stupid question, and THEN YOU THREATEN MASTER ARTEMIS?"
Kit pulled out another patch of hair and stuffed it in his mouth.
Ginny looked up from Advanced C-S Class Weld Matrixes and frowned.
"That mail truck seems to be screaming," she informed Kit.
"Mmmragglefatschkrr."
"I think I will."
Ginny stood up, yawned, and walked over to the immobilized truck, and with some difficulty slid the back panel up.
"Hey, there are kids in here!"
Kit giggled, rocking back and forth and mumbling something about a large white whale that looked like James Bond.
Ginny clambered into the rear of the truck, fumbled around for a moment, and stepped back.
Three very bewildered-looking children, two girls and one boy, stumbled out of the back and looked around.
"Who are you?" the eldest girl inquired. "And what have you done with Count Olaf?"
Artemis shrugged from a distance away. "You mean that idiot who tried to threaten me? He's over there somewhere."
He made a sweeping gesture with one hand and turned his attentions back to watching Kit's breakdown.
The boy laughed. "Thank you for saving us. My name is Klaus Baudelaire, and these are my sisters, Violet and Sunny."
Ginny shook all three hands in turn. "So who is this Count Olaf guy?"
Violet replied. "He's this villian who tries to kill us, kidnap us, and other things so that he can get his hands on our fortune."
Artemis looked around hungrily. "Did somebody say 'fortune'?"
Butler, apparently sick of Kit's analogies of a clock to the white snow of the Serengeti, zapped him with the tazer too.
Blessed silence fell again as Legolas dragged himself up the tree and collapsed onto a thick branch.
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A/N: Yeah. It was late. And I was tired. Hahahaha.
Hmm. I'm surprised at how few reviews the second chapter of Walls has gotten. 2. Thanks to Shima and Tempis and mamoru21!
Will update as times allow. Starting high school... bleh.
Thanks for your time people!
-vyper