"Alright, everyone sound off!"
"One, here!"
"Two, here and not dead, sir!"
"Three, here!"
"Four, here! Hey, does anybody know if a dwarf would be willing to come and eat the flower for us?"
In the Section Eight laboratories, Foaly snickered as that particular suggestion reached him through his earpiece.
"Don't be stupid, Corporal. Poor dwarf would probably get indigestion or something. Keep sounding off!"
"Five, here!"
"Six, alive sir!"
"Seven, still in one piece!"
Foaly waited until the last of the jocks called in, then quipped, "Hey Captain, don't I get a number?"
"For the last time, no! If you don't have anything useful to say, then get off the airwaves!"
Foaly rolled his eyes. Sticks in the mud, the lot of them.
For once, though, he didn't really blame the fairy. It had to be stressful, having to relocate to a stifling hot cavern in Hotland because of a homicidal plant. It had probably been especially stressful to find out that there were operational cameras scattered all over the Underground that nobody had noticed until Foaly hacked into them and started broadcasting the camera feeds to the team's helmets.
Tapping his fingers impatiently, Foaly took his eyes off his plasma monitors to glance through the lab window. Most of the warlocks had packed up what little equipment they'd brought with them and left, but No.1 and Qwan were still hard at work – the younger frowning at his hands, the older absently sending strings of purple light flying through the air to pick up random objects and send them whirling on a little orbit around him.
Well, that was boring.
Everything was boring right now.
D'Arvit, something happen already!
A voice barked over the coms. "Centaur! Anything new?"
That wasn't what I meant! Groaning melodramatically, Foaly turned back to the monitors.
"No, Captain, nothing new. Unless the Mud Boy somehow added more data to my system, which isn't possible, since I literally just re-encrypted my codes."
Someone else, one of the other jocks, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like you shouldn't need to encrypt your system at all.
"What was that, Private –" Foaly checked his screen. "Private Leech?"
"Nothing!"
"Didn't think so."
With an explosive sigh, the technical consultant leaned back in his specially modified chair.
"D'Arvit, stop making those infernal noises!"
"But I'm bored," Foaly groaned. "There's nothing happening, and I've already crunched all the numbers I can crunch, I've finished the coding, there's nothing interesting going on in the labs, I've already figured out how that flower detected a shielded fairy, and I've nobody to talk to except a bunch of –"
"You've what?"
"As I was about to say, Captain –"
"You've figured out how the flower detected us?"
Foaly paused, considered this, realized that yes, he had said that, and proceeded to explain.
"Well, duh." He said. "It couldn't see the officer it encountered, judging by the camera footage, and it's a burrower. A lot of tunneling creatures can sense vibrations – I mean, look at dwarves! So, one vibration sensing flower plus a fairy vibrating at high speeds equals something that can detect a shielded fairy. Simple."
"Dwarves can't detect shielded fairies like that."
Foaly made a note to check with Mulch the next time he called, to see if that was true or not. "Well, I don't see you coming up with anything else! Anyway, it's just an educated guess at this point. We won't actually know for sure unless the flower turns up and proves me right!"
There is a human epigram by the name of Murphy's Law, which essentially states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This epigram was practically a proven fact for anyone who was, or had any kind of acquaintance with, Artemis Fowl, so, in retrospect, Foaly really should have known better than to say that out loud.
"Well lookie here!" A high-pitched, childlike voice said. "I thought there'd be someone here! You're the boss, arent'cha?"
In the moment it took Foaly's heart to stop beating, the Retrieval captain cursed colorfully and whipped around, a hand coming into view to with a Neutrino leveled at the voice's source and firing. Instead of hitting it's target, the energy beam apparently hit thin air, and at that exact same moment, the MagiScanner on the fairy's wrist went berserk.
"D'Arvit!" The captain yelled.
Directly in front of the fairy, and safe behind the invisible barrier that had sprung up, the flower monster beamed at him with a disturbingly angelic grin, a grin so sickeningly innocent that it couldn't mean anything but oncoming hellfire.
"Tsk tsk!" The flower tutted. "There's no need for that! I just want to talk, that's all!"
"D'Arvit," the captain repeated. "Foaly, you getting this?!"
Finally recovering from his sudden heart attack, the centaur sent his fingers flying across the keyboard. "You mean the murder-flower? How could I miss that?!"
"No! I mean –" The fairy gestured around himself with his gun. "This! The white lines on the ground, the blackness, the glowing thing floating in front of me!"
Foaly glanced at the officer's bio-readings. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, save strange brainwave spikes originating from the officer's visual cortex.
"No, I'm not getting anything like that!" He switched to a different channel, and immediately ordered all the fairies in Hotland to bring their leader backup. "Nearest fairy, ETA three minutes!"
Onscreen, the floral monster's grin grew even wider and even more terrifyingly innocent. "How about you stop vibrating so much, friend? I can't talk to you if I can't see your face, that's just rude!"
Foaly mentally noted that down to crow about later – I was right again! Ha! – and started talking.
"Okay, listen Captain, according to your MagiScanner, you're completely surrounded in monster magic. Nothing's happening yet, but if I were to guess, I'd say there's a barrier keeping you in place, and that's what your Neutrino hit earlier. You're probably not gonna be able to leave until it's gone, which means either until backup arrives and chases this weed off, or until it gets what it wants from you, and since it apparently wants to talk to you, that means it's going to stay there until you start talking. My advice is to play along until help gets there, so unshield!"
"There's no other option?"
The flower's face twitched, and Foaly flinched. "Unless you want a repeat of what happened to your Corporal earlier, then no! There isn't! Unshield!"
There was an audible intake of breath on the other side of the line, and the fairy unshielded.
The monster's face twisted into something even more disturbing than the cherubic smile – a truly monstrous twisted grin that was somehow even more horrifying than it'd been when he'd seen it in the footage before.
"Well well well!" It said. "You're a new one! I've never seen anyone like you before!"
The captain reached up and pressed the button that would broadcast his voice through the helmet speakers.
"What do you want, monster?" He demanded, in English.
"Wow, rude! I told you, I just want to talk!"
Foaly started chewing anxiously on his nails, wishing he had a carrot to calm his nerves instead. Or Caballine! That would be even more comforting.
"What do you want to talk about?" The captain growled through gritted teeth.
Please don't say what I think you're about to say, you little –
The flower beamed at him again. "I want to ask you some questions!"
D'Arvit!
"What. Sorts. Of. Questions?"
"Oh, you know, just questions! Like, for example, what are you doing down here?"
Foaly glanced at the other camera feeds. The nearest fairy was still two minutes away.
"Sightseeing," the captain deadpanned.
There was no warning. One moment, his vitals were fine. The next, sensors went off, and the captain yelped in pain, looking down to see a Frond-damned vine sticking up through his reinforced boot, surrounded by gushing blood.
"Don't try play games with me!" The flower hissed. Gone was the innocent smile, and a leering glare that promised fire and brimstone had replaced it. "I asked you a question, and I want a real answer, or that vine isn't coming out any time soon!"
A moment of hesitation. Again, Foaly glanced to another feed. Nearest fairy was a little over a minute away, and closing fast, but not fast enough!
"Well?" The vine twisted in the captain's foot, but this time the fairy didn't react audibly, even though his bio-readings were spiking in all areas.
"I told you," he growled. "We're sightseeing."
The flower's snarl grew more pronounced. "Is that so? Well, then, Mr. Sightseer, if you think you're so smart, answer this one!"
It leaned forward, and, in a voice that would haunt Foaly's nightmares for weeks to come, said, "What are you?"
D'Arvit!
"I'm human," the captain lied. Another vine burst through his other foot, and vitals spiked again.
"Don't lie! I can see your soul, right there in front of me! Human souls don't look like that! Neither do monster souls!"
He couldn't take it anymore. "Mesmer!" Foaly hissed. "Try the mesmer!"
The captain didn't answer verbally, but lifted one hand and raised his visor. When he spoke next, his voice was layered with crystalline, bell-like tones.
"You don't want to ask any more questions," he intoned. The flower blinked once, twice.
"I… I don't want to ask any more questions?"
Yes! Foaly pumped his fist in victory. The mesmer works on it!
"You don't want to ask any more questions," the officer repeated. "You want to leave me and my team alone, and never bother us again."
"I..." The monster frowned, obviously confused. "I want to… leave you alone?"
"Yes. You want to leave us alone."
"I..." And then it's face twisted. "Hold on a second!"
Luckily, for every fairy involved, the flower never got a chance to react more strongly than that, because that was the point that the backup arrived, Neutrino blasting. One beam of energy, set to the highest stun setting available, hit the monster right in the back of it's head, and sent it careening.
"Fly!" Foaly blurted. "Get out of there!"
And before the monster could recover, the fairies were gone.
"Frisk?"
Frisk started as a small reptilian hand tapped them on the shoulder, and quickly turned their head.
"Is something wrong?" Alphys asked, wringing her hands. "It's just… you seem a little out of it?"
They blinked a couple times at the worried monster, before glancing back around. Nothing seemed amiss – the horses drawing their cart were still trotting along at a fairly fast pace, the emerald countryside passing them by. Behind them, the other carts followed, each sporting their own passengers – a caravan of monsters, all dressed in their finest formal wear. There were no gunshots, no sign of a Reset, no dust on the wind, just the sound of excited or nervous chatter.
Nothing was wrong – so why did they feel like something was?
"No," they managed. "Everything's fine. Sorry, I guess I'm just a little overwhelmed? I mean," they gestured pointedly at themselves, at the formal black dress and bright purple-and-white shawl that they'd put on for the occasion, and their normally messy hair drawn up into a french braid. "I've never been to a… a ball, you know?"
Alphys gave them a timid smile, and was quickly distracted by an enthusiastic slap on the back from Undyne. Frisk didn't pay attention to the conversation that came next – that feeling of dread was only getting worse, and that dread had never let them down before.
*Okay Spiderman, leave off with that for now.
They wished they could, honestly, but they knew that they were an obsessive worrier once they got started. It would take something pretty big to distract them.
The cart was trotted around a long, meandering bend, and Frisk got their distraction.
"WHOA!" Undyne sprang to the front of the cart, eye wide. "Look at that! That's so COOL!"
The other monsters murmured agreement, and Frisk nodded, gawping at the manor that had just come into view. Despite being surrounded by a wall of towers and stones, they could see the building clearly through the metal gate – it was huge, a veritable castle made of cut stone, an epitome of gothic architecture with all it's arched windows and huge entrance hall doorway, and elegant carvings adorning every inch. A smattering of carts and carriages were already "parked" along the driveway, and light was seeping through the open doorway, along with the soft background noise of music and chatter.
Fowl Manor. We're here!
Frisk's spidey-senses are tingling ;P
And WOOOOOO, the gala's about to start! There's gonna be some really important stuff happening at this party, but like a good (or horrible, depending on your POV) author, I shall not spoil anything for you guys, save for this: Frisk's poker face isn't as good as they think it is!