Ok, I know that its short, and the Butler/Holly pairing is weird,but I wanted to get the main ideas out first. This story is set after the first AF book. Artys mom is better, but still oblivious. Artemis still remembers the LEP, and so does Butler and Juliet. Meg Finn is in Heaven and Belch is in hell. I'll work the characters more in later chapters. Ok, here it is. oh and by the way, the title is working. it might change.
Chapter one: The Gates to Butlers heart.
Peter sat outside the gate. Nothing new. He manually tallied up people's points. He wasn't being friendly. The happiness that he had felt when Meg Finn had walked through the gates of heaven had worn off after a year. Now he was pissed off again. Lucifer had gotten two new computer programmers in the last year. His tech system was more advanced than it was at the White House. Yet still, Peter was left doing long division with a HB pencil! (He did have a computer but it had developed a glitch and he found it was much easier the traditional way. You could tell he did not know how to use computers.) What Pete needed was a programmer. He needed someone so smart that they could hack into Lucifer's system and steal his surveillance techniques. But whom could he get? Who could do something like that and still come up to heaven?
Reaching down, into a cloud, he withdrew his logbook. He went to the C's for computer and started reading down the list. The only people who had any chance of arriving in heaven did not fit not what Peter wanted. The computer animators and graphic designers were mostly good-hearted, but all the hackers and geniuses were going straight to hell. His eyes stopped when he got down to the F sub-section. There was a boy who knew everything that he wanted, his aura was red, but it was riddled with blue. He could still be saved.
"Yes!" He whispered under his breath.
Now all he needed was a soul man, someone who could turn the boy's aura blue. He needed someone who knew how to be creative, someone who could relate to the young boy. Peter knew exactly whom he was going to ask to save the soul of Artemis Fowl. He was going to ask Meg Finn herself.
Meg Finn was sitting in the park with Tracy and Freda. They were two girls who had died when they had been fourteen as well. Meg hated their spiritual guts. She wanted to take their auras and bleach them out and streak them red and dump them in hell where their perky souls belonged. They were ecstatic to be in heaven and were not the least bit ticked off that there was nothing to do. Meg wanted change. She wanted too try new things. She wanted to eat new food, meet new people. She wanted to make mistakes. She wanted heaven to make mistakes. The eternal perfection that surrounded her was really very obnoxious. It was, frankly, boring. Everything was perfect, so there was nothing to do to make it better. Everything stayed the same. There was nothing to do except bask in the perfect sun that never gave you skin cancer. All right, that was in part because nobody had skin, but still. If they did have skin, it wouldn't burn. Her mother was just as bad as Freda and Tracy, if not worse. She didn't feel the longing Meg felt to go home, back to earth.
"This is your home now, my darling. You don't seriously want to go back and to live with Franco, do you?" Her mother said to her when she got especially depressed.
Her mother did have a point. She really didn't want to live with Franco. She wanted to have her own life, her own house, and her own job. Meg wanted to be free in every way. Heaven certainly wasn't allowing her that freedom. She wanted to take action, but what could she do? She was in a prison of love and happiness and all she could feel was hate.
Artemis walked into the kitchen.
"Is Juliet here?" He sounded eager. It was very unlike the young Fowl to show any emotion aside from contempt.
"Outside of the pantry, shucking corn. Is there a situation?" The cook, Myna, was surprised by the boys' tone.
"No. None at all." He hurried out, passed the sunflowers that growing along the side of the kitchen, running towards the outdoor pantry.
"Juliet, guess what!" He almost ran into the girl. She was siting on the ground beside a huge basket of corn.
"What's up?" Getting out of the dirt, Juliet dusted off the back of her bright-pink shorts. It was August and even Artemis was wearing summer clothes. His white legs stuck out under a pair of beige Capri pants.
"Butler is pinning!" He laughed, not in contempt as usual, but in amusement. Juliet snorted.
"What are you talking about? Who would Butler pine after?" She was slightly bug-eyed. Her baby-blue tank top wrinkled as she leaned forward to listen.
"It's the greatest thing! You'll never guess!" Artemis didn't wait for the girl to answer. "Its Holly! The fairy we kidnapped! He misses her! He mumbled something to me about contacting the LEP again, and then I saw a few drawings in his sketchbook. He had drawn Holly, in the manor! He even wrote a little poetry!"
"Artemis, were you snooping in Butlers stuff? That's really awful."
"Don't worry Juliet, he had left it in the jeep. I wasn't snooping, I was trying to figure out who it belonged to. Although I'll tell you now, it was hard to understand whether it was his or yours."
"Hey!" She raised a manicured fist. "I'm not that bad! Just because I pay attention to society…" She stopped talking. Nobody wanted to accuse Artemis of being a freak. Especially since he was trying to be more civilized and into-it. He had even secured a girlfriend, for a time. Not that she had lasted long. Not after she saw what Butler could do to the man who had tried to jump them. Juliet cringed.
"I'm sorry, Arty. You know I didn't mean anything by it."
"I know Juliet, just never mind." For a moment he looked sad, then determination washed over his face again. "So will you help me?"
"Help you with what?" She really hoped he wasn't going to say what she thought he was going to say….
"I want to bring Holly Short back. I want to let my bodyguard live his fantasy. At least for a time. I also want to show that centaur something I've been working on, see if he has any suggestions."
Inwardly Juliet groaned, this was not going to be a simple mission.
Later, Artemis sat in his padded computer chair, hacking into his schools web site. He was absolutely oblivious to the fact that the people in paradise were soon going to be interfering with his life.
Changing his B mark in cooking to a B+ and his C- in gym to a C, he stroked the cat sitting on his lap. He totally felt like the evil genius. He totally was. Moving over to the next monitor, he checked the progress meter on the information hack into the CIA's storage banks. It was an utter waste of time, Artemis already had most of the relevant information from informers, but it was still nice to see whether he could do it or not. 63 complete. Excellent, it should be finished after supper. Speaking of supper….
"Hey Myna, is dinner ready?" He spoke into the intercom.
"Just setting it on the table now, master Fowl. Come down when you're ready." Really the cook meant that he should come immediately or else it would get cold. Artemis wasn't one for cold corn. Putting the cat, Logan, on the floor, he pushed his chair back and went to wash his hands.
"Artemis?" Butler spoke from his spot in front of the security screens.
"Yes."
"Did you mention something about another lower-levels mission?" His face revealed nothing about his feelings. Not even the slightest curiosity. But then of course, he had been rigorously trained.
"I might have." Artemis said no more than was necessary.
"All right, see you at supper then." Butler would come down to eat once he put the monitors on automatic.
"Yes." Slipping out of the room silently, the trotted down the stairs and into the dining room.
"Hey Arty, want some corn?" Artemis had long since given up telling Juliet not to use his pet name. It was fruitless.
"Sure" Sitting down, he helped himself to a scoop of mashed potatoes and a cob of corn. Forking two slices of roast beef onto his plate, he complemented Myna on her cooking. The entire staff ate with him and his mother. It consisted of Myna, Juliet, Butler, the maid named Eli and the gardener Trent. Two years ago they would not have heard of supping with the help. (Two years ago they had also not had any help aside from Butler and Juliet. The gold now paid for the others.) Then the Fowls realized that two people dinning alone at the large table was terribly sad. Seven was much more companionable.
Butler came in, his huge body dwarfing the chair when he sat down. Serving himself a large portion (almost as much as Juliet ate.) he pouted through the entire meal.
"Is there something wrong, Butler?" His sister finally got up the nerve to ask.
"No." He said shortly. Holy Shortly. Artemis thought. Hiding a grin, the boy thanked Myna for the meal and went back up to his room to read the fruits of the system hack.
Review it please! Constructive Criticism is welcome! So is anything else. Try not to flame me though.