A/N: I'm not sure if I managed to get the characters sounding at least a bit IC. Either way, I was eager to put this on. I'm looking foward for reviews, especially constructive ones since I feel I commited more mistakes than the acceptable.

Chapter 3: First Steps

The sea of shadows. Although it is hundreds of kilometers away from the core of Nowhere, distance is another rule that can be broken easily there. By simply walking, a worldless can cross the entire plane in two steps. The shadows that wave like tentacles come from other worlds, and serve as a gateway to them. And every worldless knows the way to wherever they want to go, always landing on a shadow of that world.

The process of traveling through the shadows is called diving, because when you're inside the web of shadows of a world, you feel like you're underwater. Anything that you see from them seems blurred and ondulating, and when you finally emerge from them, you feel wet and cold, even though you are not. Besides that, diving is quite pleasurable, like a mother's embrace. This strengthens the belief that the worldless are creatures made and born of shadows.

Jake and Thorn were standing side by side by the edge of the cradle. They stayed like that for a few minutes, staring at the nothingness of their homeworld, completely silent. She was using the time to plan ahead the execution of her target, which admittedly, wasn't going to be hard. She is a LEP officer, which means she follows a pretty strict routine. There are plenty of opportunities for her to be caught off her guard.

She imagined herself walking slowly into Holly's direction, her face showing fear unlike any other she has ever felt. Death would never be enough for her; she had to suffer. So Thorn grabbed her quarry by the neck, and with her other hand, grabbed her arm. She pulled her arm off in a very painful way, and before that bitch even had time to cry, she started spanking her with her own limb until-

"So, how's the plan coming along?" He asked, after noticing she was smiling gleefully. His words interrupted her fantasies, and made her frown immediately in utter dissatisfaction. She closed her eyes for a moment, holding the urge to spank him, and opened them "I don't need a plan. She's a sitting duck."

He chuckled "Well, I'd like to see that!"

"Too bad you won't. Mind your own business," and she threw herself from the cradle. Like a bird that jumps from its nest for the first time in the life, but she knew exactly what to do. She knew which shadows would take her to her world, and by channeling her will, she created a gravity field around herself that accelerated her towards a specific section of the sea, where she delved into.

Jake was left behind. Worldless are solitary creatures, and there's little space in their broken hearts for anything other than hate. For this reason, they rarely establish bonds of partnership (but mainly due to the lack of a common objective), and never become friends with each other. They do chat sometimes, though. "Just like someone I know…" He said to himself. He finished his cigar and delved at the same shadows as the elf did.

Thorn was swimming through the web of shadows of her world. She was aiming for Holly's apartment in Haven. The trip was relaxing, and she saw all sorts of things from the shadows: a mudman pub, where a lot of big fat road bikers were messing around, a goblin meeting in a dark warehouse in the outskirts of haven, a mudman couple having sex in their bedroom and a few dwarves having a toast to celebrate the completion of a rather large tunnel. The web of shadows really don't have a straight line to somewhere…

She arrived in the house around 12 o' clock. Holly wasn't home. She stretched her hand out of the shadows at the corner of the sofa, which made them crack like a broken mirror, and slowly she pulled herself out of the shadows. The little shards of shadows she broke quickly rearranged themselves in order to close her passageway.

The room was dark, and the only light sources were the windows, from which the solar panels could be seen clearly at the top of the city. Thorn didn't feel so well by looking directly at the light. She wandered directly to the bedroom, where she could "borrow" a few things. First of all, clothes. She was still naked, her shadow was once again sticking to the ground. She could grab it at any moment to cover her, but outside Nowhere, that would require some effort on her part. She was saving her energies for the right moment. She quickly dressed a LEP bodysuit and then reached for the drawers under her bed. Hidden among some pajamas, there was a Neutrino 3000, which she quickly holstered.

"Nice gun," someone said by the door. She immediately turned around and shot, but the lucky peeping tom managed to take cover behind the door. "Whoa, calm down, will ya? It's me!" The figure said while coming out of the cover, hands up. Of course it had to be Jake; what other human would be able to enter that place at this time of the day? Speaking about human, now he really looked like one, without his shadow over him.

He seemed wet, which means he just arrived. His short brown hair was all messy, as if a monkey had combed him. He was wearing a sleeveless blue shirt along with black jeans and shoes, and had sunglasses on his face. Even for a human, he seemed pretty slim, although a bit muscular.

"Don't do that again," she said while holstering her gun, and turning back to search for more useful gadgets.

"Hell, I won't, I'm not suicidal," he mocked.

"But you're acting like you have a deathwish." Her expression was still serious, although what she said could be considered a rather good joke for some worldless. "Why are you here, anyway? Don't you have other stuff to-"

"I thought it wouldn't hurt to give you a few hints before you start causing trouble. Did you at least stop to check yourself on the mirror?"

Before she answered him in a rude way for caring about vanity at a time like this, she instinctively looked at the nearest mirror, that was on the wardrobe's door. He had a point: her eyes are almost as shiny as a pair of incandescent lamps. She would need something to cover that, something like… sunglasses.

Since they live in the underground, fairies have no need for those accessories, so her only option would be to wear a LEP helmet full-time, which was plain silly.

She looked back at him shyly, but didn't say anything. Instead, she resumed her search for more useful apparel. He interpreted her look as thanks, and grinned.

Without much effort, she found a locator, an electric baton and a helmet. She turned off its locating systems before leaving to the station plaza "Don't you dare to step outside. We're in Haven city, there are no humans here, and you'll cause a huge fuss if you are seen around," she warned him before crossing the door.

Jake had to walk around the apartment a bit curved due to his height. Looking through the window, he noticed the exquisite architecture of Haven, as well as another detail that surprised him "What the hell..? We're underground?!"

At the surface…

Fortunately for Holly, she wasn't in Haven at that moment. The full moon was shining brightly over the irish sky, and since she had to replenish her magic, she traveled there off-duty to perform the ritual and visit a good friend, which she was calling right now "Arty?"

"Yes, Holly? Where are you?" Artemis answered through his communicator. Since they came back from the past, they have been working together to track down the fugitive Opal, who was proving to be extremely sneaky. The other one was still rotting in prison, for everybody's sake.

"I'm flying over the ocean, almost at the Irish coast. Gotta perform the ritual today, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I dropped by to search for any illegal activities you've been working on." She teased him. Once a criminal, always a criminal.

"Telling me of your intentions is not going to guarantee the success in your mission, captain Short. It's quite the opposite, since now that I know it, I'm getting rid of all the proofs that would incriminate me," he answered in the same playful tone.

She smiled "Then I guess I'll have to mesmer you until you tell me everything, mud boy"

"I still have my glasses."

"I'll take them off you!"

"I'd like to see you try with Butler by my side."

"Piece of cake, I'm sure he wouldn't try to stop me!"

He looked at his bodyguard, who seemed to be quite amused with the dialogue. Even though he could only hear Artemis' side of the conversation, it wasn't hard to deduce what Holly was saying. "Very well," the Irish boy continued "I concede. Perhaps you would like to have some tea while you're here as well?"

"Of course! I'll arrive there in 20 minutes." That said, she turned off the communicator.

The mud boy gave a brief chuckle over that completely useless, yet amusing chat, then looked again at Butler, eyebrows raised.

"Okay." he immediately answered, and left the room to make the said drink.

Back to Haven…

Thorn had just arrived at the Station Plaza when she realized her mistake: she was so eager to find and kill Holly that she didn't think about how things could go wrong there: her enemy could identify her and throw the LEP forces against her, or the commander could ask for her presence and notice her strange eyes, or even Foaly could notice two Hollys walking around the station on his many screens.

Oh well, better do what she does best: improvise. Having nothing to lose, she headed directly to Foaly's lab.

"Hey Foaly! It's me!" Someone said outside the door. There are only two ways to get into the centaur's laboratory: the first one is having his DNA, which he used as his own key to enter, and the second way was by opening the door from inside. He looked at the outside camera's screen and saw it was captain Short. 'Weird, I thought she was still at the surface. Time sure does fly while I'm concentrated…' and opened the door.

"You know the station is pretty safe already, do you really need to shut yourself from the outside world?" She asked in a deceitfully gentle voice while walking inside.

"Oh, please, you know how I am. And the last time people said I was paranoid, we had the Bwa'kell revolution." He finally turned away from the wall of screens to face his friend. "So, how's our favorite mud boy doing?"

"Excuse me?"

He frowned. "What? You forgot to pay him a visit? That's cruel!"

"Oh no, sorry, of course I went over his place," she tried to elude him "my head's still shaking from the landing, you know..." She smiled shyly.

"Ah, I see. I thought you would be used to it after all those years, but I guess it's not something that gets old, eh?" He turned back to the screens "I forgot, Fowl was going to send me a few results of his research today, they should have arrived by now." At this moment, he saw the clock. 12:30, the time Holly should be arriving at the Fowl manor. He let out "Wait a second Holly, it's 12:30 now, what are you doing here?" He turned around again, only to find a neutrino pointed at his nose.

"Meeting at the Fowl Manor at 12:30, uh?" She grinned "I knew I could count on you!" And she pulled the trigger. The intensity of the gun was adjusted to the non-lethal one, so the centaur just fell unconscious to the ground. She still had feelings for Holly's friends, so she wasn't going to kill anyone unless extremely necessary.

She turned off the lights in the laboratory and delved into the newly created shadows, speeding towards the manor.

A/N: Many thanks to The One Called Demetra, for pointing out specific mistakes that I already took care of!