AN: Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed, I'm so glad I've kept you all as fans and I hope you stick with this through the end, which I've just recently worked out. Sort of. This chapter will be much longer than the last in order to make up for everything I'm going to put you through in it. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to recommend this story or whatnot, I don't demand reviewers, but I do work best with lots of encouragement. That's just a hint for you though… And anyway, on with the story!

Artemis Fowl: The Enigma Complex

Chapter Five

Catching and Falling

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death? ~Plato

New Zealand

Artemis stepped on board a rather posh private jet and looked around before finally deciding on approval and moving to sit in one of the soft leather chairs. The boy, James, could hardly withhold his enthusiasm at flying first class in a private jet. He was still in shock of his situation, true, but he was the type of person to be enthralled by the moment rather that the overall picture, making him a rather poor plotter or planner.

Artemis found himself observing him, wondering what was so off about the boy other than his rough pupils and sick pallor. He had used the fairy Mesmer, true enough, but there was something about the older child Artemis couldn't place, which was an odd thing indeed. Perhaps it was how young his face looked for his tall build? No, but it was indeed strange, and Artemis filed it away to ask later after he got all his information from Holly and Foaly.

James himself was a rather cheery boy and, though Artemis did not know it, he was much older than he looked. Boyish blonde curls strung across his face and cast him anywhere from thirteen to eighteen in age, his height leaning toward the younger. He was small in all human standards, only a measly 5'1" at full height, but compared to his sister's 3'4" he was a relative giant. And thus Artemis concluded without realizing it, that this blonde and appeasing boy reminded him very much of his younger brother Beckett.

Sitting back to enjoy a long flight in the overdone interior of the jet, Artemis leaned back and began to think, waiting for a good plan to snake its way through his head. Within only three minutes of this brilliant relaxation he was interrupted, but not by James as he had expected, but by the ferocious blaring of the alarm.

Tara, Ireland: Landing Bay

Holly stepped forward onto the Tara landing bay and was rushed to be greeted by a stony silence. Something in her automatically told her to run when she heard none of the usual business of an aboveground terminal as popular as Tara. That was the part of her she beat down.

Something was wrong, and now she had her proof, some hundred or more travelers had now disappeared. Her boots even made a slight echo on the bedrock floor. She tried to patch through to Foaly and instead found static waiting for her, the same kind that had occurred at Stonehenge. He was probably busy experimenting on the new discovery anyway, Holly told herself over and over, trying not to think about what lay ahead of her. She suddenly felt very weary and alone.

Her mind seemed to be consumed with all the darkness around her and Holly couldn't help but wonder what happened to all the people. As if in an effort to answer her question, the bay's announcement board flickered to life behind her and she made a mental note within herself to buy a tinfoil hat from Foaly.

Dark red lights pulsed through the dark and pierced it like a sword, relentlessly beaming through. Holly squinted up her eyes to see it all properly, 'HELLO CAPTAIN SHORT.'

The lights pulsed back and forth from darkness to fire red and back again, so she found that she was dizzy from shock and the amount of light flashing. Paranoia got the best of her and she even stepped back as she looked around. 'WHAT'S WRONG? AFRAID ALREADY?'

Holly gave an involuntary shiver, but she had no idea how to handle a situation of this nature, and as her hesitation mounted within her the board replaced itself once again.

'THAT'S A SHAME CAPTAIN, I HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN TO THE SCARY PART YET. THERE IS MUCH MORE GOING ON THEN YOU REALIZED SHORT. WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THAT YOU ONLY HAD FIVE MINUTES LEFT TO LIVE? YOU DON'T WANT TO WASTE PRECIOUS TIME BEING AFRAID, DO YOU?'

Holly's eyes darted around the dark chamber, a cold fear seeping into her small body, all judgment and ideas of controlling the situation completely. The fact that it was a board telling her this and not an ego-maniacal villain did nothing for her disposition. She bolted toward the far end of the dark cavern and swooped around with her Hummingbirds, her sight catching on a spot on blue in the eerie clash of red darkness.

As she approached the blue it formed from a spot into legible numbers and began to flicker, and Holly recognized a countdown on its small face. She was surprised at the bomb, which was altogether the size of her fist; but nothing in her mind doubted that it was indeed the same as the one that had blown apart underground Stonehenge.

'YES CAPTAIN, THAT'S RIGHT,' the screen flashed like that for several moments until it had Holly's full attention again, obviously whoever was behind it was watching her through a small camera, not that she cared at this point, 'IN A FEW MOMENTS YOU WILL DIE A DEATH SO AGONIZING THAT EVEN YOUR PRECIOUS COMMANDER ROOT WOULD BE PROUD.'

The letters danced and taunted her, waking up her misery and self-doubt along with a deep sated anger. But she doubted that that anger would do her much good, so she forced herself to calm down and try to focus. The message board once again flashed more information.

'IT'S A PITY YOU SHOULD HAVE TO BE THE FIRST TO DIE ALONE, BUT YOU WILL BE JOINED SHORTLY BY THE MUD BOY AND HIS COMPANIONS. TOO BAD YOU CAN'T SAVE YOURSELF OR HIM. GOOD LUCK CAPTAIN SHORT, YOU'LL NEED IT. YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES.'

The light and buzz of the screen flickered off to leave Holly in the darkness, and she felt utterly alone despite being watched. Left in the afterglow of the blue numbers she glanced down at the tiny bomb in her hands and watched it flicker toward her doom.

Somewhere Over the Southern Ocean (Or Antarctic Ocean)

Artemis Fowl did not panic when presented with a problem; instead he looked it over from the most rational point of view. Now he was presented a problem that was a life or death situation and was turning out to be very difficult to handle.

He had handled outsmarting fairy technology before, but normally it had been under much more peaceful terms than this. And now, Artemis was stuck at twenty thousand feet and lowering on a plane he was unfamiliar with, an unconscious pilot, and a fairy heat seeker following them to a surely fiery death. He had defiantly taken his working situation for granted.

In the state of things, the loud warning peals of the alarm sounding through the passenger area were keeping him from meditative thought, so he did what he could and went with the best available option to him, not knowing it would cost him dearly.

Artemis threw himself into the cockpit to find the pilot had now gracefully landed on the floor and was snoring like a stuffy pig. Clambering over him Artemis allowed his hands to assume their positions and guide the plane toward the icy water and silently hoping that his plan to throw off the heat sensors with the frigid temperatures. He called back orders to Butler, but even he was unsure they made it to the bodyguard though the wind forces.

The ocean came to meet the plane solidly through a veil of mist and Artemis had no time to pull up, his control lost with the huge quantities of turbulence. The plane crashed heavily into the dark abyss and Artemis had no time to see if his plan worked or not before the impact shook him unconscious.

Butler was not a man who needed to be told many things twice, and though Artemis's words were lost in the din of wind and metal vibration, Butler could read the young master's lips as he turned to Butler in the frenzy and commotion. Brace for impact.

That order alerted Butler to the urgency of the situation, if he hadn't already known beforehand. So Butler followed the youth's orders and grabbed the other boy by the collar, snatching him into a bear hug and running toward Artemis, only a few meters away when the ocean met the jet with a fierce rebellion.

The entire structure crumpled around them and sheer force of will and decades of training were the only things that kept Butler from fading into unconsciousness as ice swirled around him and the jet ceased to exist. The Jet slowly began to sink into the depths and Butler could no longer tell if he had Artemis in his hand or not as he pushed his way through a gap in metal.

He tossed the boy onto an extra floating piece above, gasping for air in his compressed lungs, already damaged by Kevlar. Almost instantly he realized that he had the other boy, James, and not Artemis, and he cursed himself for not retrieving him before. Butler threw the boy across the floating bay door and gulped in a last rush of air before diving down after his small charge, knowing full and well what it would cost him in the end.

Landing Bay, Chute E1, Tara

Holly looked down at the small blue numbers ticking downward in her hands, a sense of dread somewhat overtook her. But a glimmer of hope shone behind that dread. She remembered something Mulch Diggums had told her once about Tara.

'The wonderful thing about Tara is that, even when they seal off the chutes, the dwarves still have their way in. A thick line of delicious clay up on the roof of the landing bay. Perfect place for a hiding spot.'

Holly sighed, remembering Mulch, hoping that it wasn't just another of his exaggerated tales of escapes from her old commander, Julius Root. But in exactly fifty-two seconds she would find out exactly how much truth her friend had told, at least if the bomb had the same range as the other had.

Throwing the bomb with all the might in her tiny body, she put on a number of theatrics for whoever it was that was watching, though it had Opal's stink all over it. Preserving her self dignity, just in case it was her final moments, she shoved her helmet over her head and sealed it.

In her mind's eye she'd been keeping count, and with an extreme tension she bent her knees slightly and prepared for impact. Readying her wings, she heard a small and shrill beep registering that the timer was done, and in what was a very tumultuous three seconds, the world exploded around her.

After several long and dark moments of silence, she realized that she was indeed alive, and in an even darker than before dwarf cave. But the idea of that didn't bother her quite so much now; instead her head was filled with a need to save Artemis. She made her way through the loamy mud and ignored anything she came across as she dug her way out of her grave.

The Antarctic Ocean

Artemis was amazed he was alive, let alone awake. He could barely feel anything though; every part of him was dangerously numb with the cold. He also vaguely realized that he was being carried to a floating piece of the hull by Butler, but he was unaware of anything really beyond that.

Butler swam with great strokes, pushing them closer to the float with the last expels if his energy, and as he reached the glaring white metal, gleaming in the sun, he threw down his charge. Artemis had gone from the weight of a pin to the weight if an anchor as Butler had dragged him from the plane and a watery death.

Artemis lay unmoving for a moment, his only fascination being how wonderful the air felt in his lungs. Then he noticed something unusual, Butler was barely griping him, and he had relinquished his hold on the float.

"Butler," Artemis began, his own weak and thin voice rather surprising to him, "What's wrong, climb on, we have to signal out a distress call. If we are to escape the cold alive we must get help immediately."

Butler smiled, but just shook his head, "Artemis, were I to get on there or anything else floating, I would surely sink it and in turn, kill you. No Artemis, I am afraid that I have spent the last of my strength rescuing you. But that is what a bodyguard does."

Artemis could tell from the tone of his voice that he didn't like what the guard meant by this, "Stop this nonsense Butler, you're just fine. Get up here this instant, we can't be wasting time with sentiment like this."

Butler chuckled, "Same old Master Artemis. I am done Artemis, consider this my last job for you, I am already feeling dizzy from the inability to breathe. Please Artemis, do not let me die in vain, save yourself, find out what you must for the People. You've grown up under my care, don't waste it. Tell Juliet goodbye for me."

The bodyguard, who was never one for many words, trailed off; his eyes grew distant with his speech, as if some far off goal had come into sight. Artemis recognized it and clawed at the giant's hand with numb weakness, protests falling limply from his mouth, the cold piercing into his mind and toying with it.

Butler smiled at Artemis once more, and gave a weak pat to the boy's shoulder as he let go of the floating door, "Goodbye Artemis, my regards to Holly and the People. I have no regrets."

And with that, he gave up his lifelong struggle of clinging to life itself, and the man of giant proportions and few words fell into the icy abyss, having used all his energy to save Artemis Fowl one last time. As he faded into the inky, frozen depths, a smile graced his features, a peace he'd never known before settling upon him.

Artemis stared at where Butler had been, disbelief marching through his mind. He must still be unconscious, or he must've died in the plane crash, for he'd never know Domovoi Butler to just give up. On anything.

His hand rested where Butler's had been and the Halfling went ignored beside him, his mind too full of the impossibilities to recognize anything else. Even as his world faded to black, all his thoughts were on his manservant's last moments and how unreal they were. And even while he fell into that blackness pressing the fairy communicator, it was a subconscious thing, and he had little doubt he would soon follow in Butler's wake. Who could possibly save him now?

AN: Alright, so there we have it… I don't know if I like it, and I may go back and rewrite it when I have more time, but for the moment, voila. I know Butler went a bit OOC at the end, but who wouldn't in cold that fierce and knowing you're going to die. I think that's the whole point of this chapter. Sorry again to all my A/H fans out there, I promise I have some fluff to lighten the angst up soon, probably next chapter when Artemis and Holly team up again. So yes, sorry if it sucked, I love you all though!

~Tamdiu