Disclaimer: Do I really have to write it down? It's really painful to admit that I don't own Artemis Fowl...
Chapter 24 – In which things seem more confusing than ever
"And here was me thinking that we could all be such great friends." Sighed the impossible Artemis, for indeed, he should be impossible.
Kat peered at the new Artemis, and then at the Artemis that she was having an argument with just a few minutes ago, frowned, then eyes widened at the sight of Ivy. Abandoning all pretences of self-control, she hurled herself at Ivy, crying out,
"Oh my God, Ivy, where have you been? I don't care that you've got Fowl's clone behind you, or that we may be stuck here forever…"
First signs of Kat-hysteria. Ivy rolled her eyes, cursed silently and slapped her long-time friend hard across the face. Everyone in the room, except for Piccolo, blinked in surprise. Kat shook her head slightly, and smiled.
"Thanks, that was probably called for, wasn't it?"
"Yes, indeed. Kat, I did say once that I'd never let you run into a full blown mass-hysteria phase again. I'm still keeping to my word."
"For me?"
"No. For the sake of human survival." Grinned Ivy, before hugging her friend tight. "Frond! It's good to see people from home!"
The two Artemises were staring at each other, although neither gave away any sort of outward indication of their surprise. Of course, one knew that this was going to happen, and the other just wasn't going to let anyone see his true emotions, point blank.
Ivy extracted herself from Kat's grip, and made her way towards the two teens. Stopping in front of them, she laid a hand on the first Artemis that she knew.
"Fowl, meet your other half. This is the part of you that you've been missing for so long. Meet Artemis Fowl."
Now, you're probably all wondering where the (censored Gnommish word) Butler and Nubi were. Understandably, they were not exactly stopping to smell the roses.
"I should never have let Ivy get near to that Fowl boy in the first place!"
"Oh, that's rich, that is, you're accusing my charge of being dangerous, when it's your charge that can shoot lightning out of her fingers." It was a cold statement. There was hardly any emotion in Butler's voice as he concentrated on flying the private jet.
"Yeah, but…" Then Nubi realised that she had nothing else to throw back at Butler, and retorted, "Well at least my charge has managed to keep her dealings with the People on a sensible scale!"
"And look where that's led her."
"Point taken. But Fowl is also in the predicament."
"Right. So the best thing to do is to get to America and find where they are. That disturbance at the prison where Spiro is being kept is hardly coincidental – not with Artemis on the loose there."
The rest of the journey was made in silence. Neither aviator felt like admitting their concern for their charges to the other, and neither had a good feeling about what was happening either.
"Convict…" Root's colour darkened slightly, his grip on his cigar almost squashing it to a pulp. His voice contained an unconcealed threat.
"Careful, Julius. I'm a free dwarf now, remember? Doing harm to my person would qualify me to report you to the authorities, and you don't want that, do you?"
Root gave a slight noise that sounded like a strangled troll, and threw his arms into the air, letting out a string of long phrases in Gnommish, switching from time to time to different Mud Languages, sometimes even the odd animal language. Trouble and Mulch stared at the outburst, then Kelp smartly saluted, and Mulch collapsed into laughter.
"If word of this ever gets back to Haven, I'll know where to look."
His characteristic elfin eyes then clouded slightly, and he started pacing. What was going on with Ivy? The gods knew that the People needed her and her special… abilities, especially now when humans were so busy trying to get to the Earth's core. Humans had taken inspiration from Zito, and that meant more scientists than ever were trying to get into the Earth's core. Not even Foaly's shield would be able to sustain against so many people's attacks.
He noticed that Trouble was now peering at him with curiosity, and, glad of a break from thinking, Root turned on the LEP Retrieval Major and yelled at full blast,
"What are you gaping for, Kelp?"
"You've never paced, Commander Root." Even though Root wasn't technically part of the LEP anymore, it was still Trouble's instinct to reply using the formal address. His heels clicked together promptly, and even his right arm twitched, as if to salute.
Mulch, being who he is, collapsed onto the floor and twitched with the effort not to laugh.
It was at this moment that Trouble's helmet indicated that he was receiving a call from Holly. Pressing the projector button on the side of his helmet, he allowed everyone to see what was going on. After all, if it was a call from Holly, then it must be urgent.
"Holly?"
"Hello there, Trouble. I apologise if you were expecting Holly on the line, but she's slightly… indisposed at the moment." Came the clipped, Irish accent that could only be Artemis Fowl.
"Fowl again. How is it that you and Holly always end up together on some crazy suicidal missions?" Snapped Kelp, not very happy that a human had managed to somehow crack into Holly's address book.
"I'd rather not think about the implications. Anyway, as you are the first person in her address book, I will make a guess and say that she trusts you the most out of all of her friends. I've come to inform you of an unexpected… predicament that has turned up."
"Why isn't Holly on the line, Fowl?" Asked Root, his eyes fixed thunderously on the Mud Adolescent in front of him.
"Weren't you listening, Root? I said that she is indisposed due to an unexpected predicament over here."
"Holly? Unexpected?" Mulch snorted, "Holly got knocked out because of something unexpected? Wow, I would pay to know what it was…"
And the next thing couldn't have happened. Because the next thing was that another blue eyed, raven-haired boy popped into the screen, grinning maniacally, with a slight glint in his eyes,
"Seriously? You'd pay to see me? Let's see if we can make an arrangement, shall we?"
And with that, Mulch's beard stood on end. Right before he fell backwards onto his posterior.
"Is this unexpected enough for you, Mulch?" Sighed the original Artemis, shoving the second, albeit scarier, Artemis out of the way.
"I told you not to scare them…"
This came from a very familiar and welcome person. Root immediately took charge of the holographic screen, ignoring whatever else there was on the screen that caused the convict to faint.
"Ivy! Status report, pronto!"
The effect was immediate. Ivy's heels snapped together, her right hand saluted in the fairy manner, and said crisply,
"Sir, Corporal Ivy Kestrel reporting, sir!"
That earned two very curious looks.
"Corporal? I would have thought that you'd have risen through the ranks rather faster, Kestrel…"
"Corporal? What are you doing in the fairy army in the first place? And could you recommend me?"
Ivy predicted that some explanation was going to be demanded. But that wasn't important at the moment. What was important was that her superior officer was demanding an explanation…
And that was when it hit her. With a large troll club over the head.
"Un… uncle Julius?"
Suffice to say that some people were very interested in this colloquial address of the red-faced commander of LEPrecon who famously ripped off anyone's head if they called him by his first name.
"Uncle Julius?" The smirk on Artemis's face was almost too large to be contained on his face.
"You ever mention this again, Fowl, and I'll…"
It was perhaps unfortunate that it was then that the other Artemis, albeit the less devious one, took the screen in his hands, focused it onto him and his double, and grinned maniacally, thoroughly enjoying the effect he had on people.
"Which one?"
Root promptly joined Mulch on the floor.
Trouble, who was still deadly white, took over communications and demanded,
"Who cloned Artemis Fowl?"
Over on the other side of the communicator, two of the room's occupants lightly smacked their heads repeatedly on the surface of the ship, whilst one smirked with amusement.
Ivy groaned, and dragged both Artemises into a corner, and ordered them to try and become one again. When the original, sarcastic Artemis Fowl opened his mouth in protest, she silenced him with a finger.
"No. Not now, Fowl. Just let… erm… Holly explain it, would you?" Ivy grumbled on her way back to the communicator, where Holly had (thankfully) recovered from the two Fowls. As Ivy approached walked towards Kat, Kat turned around to face her.
"Look, Ivy, I know that you may think that Fowl is great, but don't you think having just one of them is enough?"
"Well, I do admit that having two Artemis Fowls is idiotic, but would you stop implying that I like him?"
"Which one?" Asked Kat, "In case you didn't notice, you brought the other one."
Ivy glared at her long-time human friend, and scowled,
"I know. And now I'm wondering why I ever did that in the first place…"
Trouble, Root and Mulch were shaken, but still breathing, and Root didn't look as if he were about to have a coronary, so both Artemises were trying to keep out of the way, lest they risk the wrath of Holly (or Kat, or Ivy, they weren't really fussed about which one).
"…so you see, Commander…"
"Yes, I see. This is going to take a heck of a long time to explain to the Council. So many humans who know the existence of the People? I wouldn't be surprised if the first reaction was to terminate all of their lives and then do a worldwide scan."
Everyone shuddered, apart from one of the Artemises who looked as if he didn't even know what a 'scan' was.
"Look, the Elements told me that the two of you need to get back together, so that's what I'm trying to do. The problem is that we have no idea how to do it." Here, Ivy turned to the Artemis on the right, "So, what do you think?"
"How should I know? Ask my genius half."
"You are your genius half, Fowl."
"How do you know?" Asked the Artemis from her left.
"You mean, apart from the fact that he's not slouching, has perfectly manicured nails, combed hair and isn't wearing clothes that could have come from a human museum? No, I never would have guessed…"
"Oh."
"Alright, so I'm the one with the brains, apparently. Glad to see that you haven't lost your edge, Kestrel." Smirked Artemis, his eyes flashing dangerously.
"Right. Just tell me how to get the two of you back together." Ivy demanded, but glowing slightly from the compliment paid to her.
"My guess is that we're just too different." All eyes locked onto the Artemis on Ivy's left. "I'm surprised that we didn't manage to merge the second that we got here."
"So… what do you suggest?"
"Somehow get the two of us into harmony with each other. If we can somehow manage to get onto the same emotional scale…"
"I think you mean brain frequency. And I don't see that happening anytime soon." Blue eyes regarded each other disdainfully, "You don't seem to be anything like me."
"The split made it complicated. We were totally separated, but we're still one person."
"Sounds like St. Patrick to me."
"But we're not the Holy Trinity."
Ivy interrupted here, before the two adolescents managed to attack each other, "Look, you two aren't the Holy Trinity, but it's the same principle. What we need to do is to somehow merge the two of you, and restore the eternal balance, etc. etc."
"Why were we split in the first place?" The people stared at the Artemis in the Armani suit, "What, I get split into two and I don't have the right to know?"
"Long story made short, Fowl, you're an entity called the Keeper of the Balance and unless we manage to get you and the other you back together, there's going to be trouble."
"What trouble?"
"I don't know. The Elements weren't exactly specific."
Artemis Fowl frowned. He was used to dealing with the People, so magic had seemed to become something trivial. But this… this was something that he had the feeling that even his genius could not solve.
The feeling rendered both raven-haired, blue-eyes teens helpless.
A/N: Okay, I'm really really REALLY sorry for the wait, but you've got to admit that I'm getting better :)
Now, I really need to go now - I'm meant to be revising for my RS GCSE right now. FOr those who don't know, A GCSE is sort of like the SATs over in America, (I think) and it really counts because I'm aiming for ten As and an A in my first AS level (English) so wish me luck and do NOT ask for another chapter until in about a month's time.
In the meantime, I'm going to try and upload some ideas I've had for the next couple of stories I've got in mind.