AN: Thanks so much to everyone who has read this! Especially my reviewers! This has become my most reviewed fic! So now this story is now my only project, I've put everything on hold other than Tokka week next week, and I'll be working on this too. For anyone who reads Avatar fanfics, I'll be starting a new fic for it soon, and I'll give spoilers to anyone who wants to collaborate with me on it. Or my next AF fanfic, I've already got plot bunnies for it. As for the OCs I'm incorporating in this story: I'm not going to have a super genius come in and steal Artemis's spotlight, but they play a big-ish role. Arty is still my love though, so no worries, okay? Also, I am so sorry about any rushing and lateness, we had a power outage, and I haven't been online in days, and I'm so tired I don't know if my writing will be any good… But an update is an update… not a long chapter though.

Artemis Fowl: The Enigma Complex

Chapter Four

Button Twin

To win without risk is to triumph without glory. ~Pierre Corneille

Artemis Fowl rarely had tea with people who had tried to attack him in the past twenty-four hours, let alone in the past two. Butler, in most cases, would promptly have forbidden it under the statute that it was a generally bad idea, but he'd been a bodyguard to Artemis for a long time. But then again, this wasn't most cases anyway.

Artemis picked up the almost empty cup of hot tea and shifted himself in a rather uncomfortable wooden chair, feeling rather trapped by the small clutter of the house. His attacker busied himself apologizing and letting off a stream of excuses, and all the while Artemis pondered on the true meaning of this individual.

At this point though, some explanation probably is needed. After being forced into an air deprived unconsciousness, Artemis was saved from a rather nasty scar by Butler who had come in through the back to scope the property. Strangely enough, all the poor boy needed was a good scare from the bodyguard to shock him out of his actions. Upon hearing the deep and foreboding voice of the bodyguard, and quailing in wake of his mass, the guy had dropped Artemis hard enough to rouse him and began spouting off different apologies like his life depended on it. To do the boy justice, in his mind his life did depend on it.

So now, thirty minutes later, Artemis was waiting on another brew of tea and had hardly gotten anything out of his would-be murderer other than a sorry. Needless to say, the boy genius was growing rather impatient.

Butler cleared his throat as menacingly as he could manage at his charges pert look, and their 'host' suddenly seemed to get the point. Grabbing a kettle off the stove he set it down murmuring a last few apologies, and then looked his would-have-been victim right in the eyes. Blinking, Artemis began slowly, "We have come on behalf of higher authorities, we've been given the task of finding and destroying any materials deemed harmful. We were given a complete report on the owner of this house, and you were not to be found in it. So my first question is simple, who are you?"

The boy (though that is a rough description of him) shrugged in a rather vulgar statement of his opinion, "I don't know why you wouldn't have gotten anything on me, I'm the one whose name is on the contract to the house, and my sister is a dependent. My name is James Button, though I hardly believe any introductions are necessary for a famous boy like you Artemis Fowl."

Artemis smirked, he was becoming too well known these days, he would have to do some background hacking on himself. But he turned his attention back to the matters at hand, "Mr. Button, I'm afraid we received none of this information on you, and I currently am unaware of your sister's condition. I just know that we were assigned to come perform a search and I was nearly killed in the process."

Butler sighed stiffly, feeling his age weighing upon him, typical Artemis; banter on with the opposing party until something interesting happened. His bodyguard instincts were hounding on his brain that something bigger was going on here, but he could do nothing about it yet.

James continued to look at Artemis, shame tingeing his darkened skin. Rubbing lightly calloused hands through his hair, the boy replied, "I had no idea what I was doing; it was like waking out of a dream or a nightmare, and everything is all hazy since I got that phone call a few days ago. Something about people coming for my sister's things."

Artemis felt a sudden eagerness rush through him, as though he were a mind given a new puzzle to ponder. And so it was, he had a plot coming together, and the poor boy had been mesmerized through it all. But Artemis frowned again; Mesmer could not be channeled through people as far as he knew, and so that left a pile of unanswered questions as well. Artemis shoved those thoughts down, questions could come later, but some things had to be taken care of first.

"So we may proceed with the search?" Artemis asked, ready to leave the oppressive and caving little home that presented itself around him. James nodded and Artemis waved Butler off, entrusting him and his ever-watching eyes to find anything they may be looking for. Artemis kept his attention on their host, "What was it you said you did again?"

"I'm a columnist for the local paper and I have a foreign countries special on the local news, I'm pretty popular with older women and groups around the island."

Artemis pulled out his handheld computer out of his pocket, and typed in some tidbits of information. He looked up into the quizzical eyes of his host and found himself somewhat met in those eyes, not in intelligence, but daring. Glancing down at his computer screen he almost was shocked. Almost. But Artemis had been somewhat prepared for anything, and he managed to keep his voice relatively even as he said, "I'm sorry to tell you this Mr. Button, but you don't exist. Or rather, you're supposed to be dead."

At this point, those who don't know about the two individuals in question, I'm sure you would like to understand. The nature of Halflings is to not have anyone know you are one, so naturally they tended to live with the less observant of their species. Occasionally the interbreeding is so immense that people have no choice but to accept the extra species under a different name altogether. This never happened with fairies and humans.

So naturally, when Pico Button fell in love with a human, he never spoke of it, or risk losing all ability to go topside. For a Sprite, losing that was like losing a wing, it was almost unbearable. He mesmerized her to never mention him, and felt so bad about it that he left her and forced himself never to see her again. He never knew that he had children with her, or that they managed to survive a painful birth. So Celes and James Button were born as one of the rarest twins of all, Halflings.

Foaly lifted his head from his subject to look on the screen opposite him, blinking slightly from the contrast in brightness. He had strapped his Reti-Mager (AN: Spelling?) to the Halfling girl's head and was flicking through a general database of things one might associate with fairies and the People as well as anything dealing with bombs, but so far everything had come up completely negative.

Trotting back to his workstation he let in the gnome medic, one of his new apprentices in the field of police technology, and one of the only ones that knew about the girl's existence. They'd so far healed any excess trauma and scarring done, but she was comatose at the moment, her neural scans showing various migraines and brain activity, but he couldn't bring her out of it with technology unless an emergency arose. Somehow Foaly found that going through a few thousand eye scans a day was not going to help anyone's position, certainly not his.

That was until Commander Trouble Kelp came knocking on his booth door, demanding to be let in, which Foaly gladly obliged to do. The Commander looked exhausted and rather winded, but he stood tall and allowed himself to be heard well, "Foaly, how's the captive? Has she woken up yet?"

"Not yet Trouble, as of yet we've just been doing routine eye-scans. Why?"

Trouble sighed heavily; his work catching up with him as he felt what must have been Julius Root's stress flowing into him. "We just got a patch in from Artemis, he was retrieving the information for us topside but he ran into some trouble. We're going to need information from that girl if we're going to proceed any further with investigations. I already issued Holly a special visa to go and get Artemis, but we need as much information as we can get as soon as we can get it. Can you handle that Foaly?"

Foaly whinnied in anticipation of getting to test a new invention and stamped his hooves in centaurian agreement, "I have just what you need commander, and it's about time I got to test it out! We won't even have to pull her out of her coma for this one."

Trouble chuckled and groaned at the same time, knowing full and well how Foaly got in one of his moods, and partly knowing he'd brought it upon himself. Deep in the recesses of his mind he wondered if he would ever have a peaceful day again.

Okay, I know it's shorter than the last few have been, but I've been really stressed and busy with the power outage and the snow and my work. And on top of all of that is my pinnacle of a social life. I still can't feel my legs from the party I went to. So anyway, I'm sorry this is late in coming, and I hope you don't mind this filler chapter and its boringness, but let me give you fair warning: CHARACTER DEATH AHEAD. And it'll probably be sad too, obviously. In the next chapter or two it'll com up, okay? So be prepared. I love you all, and thanks to everyone who has reviewed and faved and alerted this, I love you guys!

~Tamdiu