EPISODE 2.07.5: TIME OUT

The world has just changed, and Artemis Fowl is nowhere to be found.

-x-

Even with his newly gained ability to bend annoying clumps of paramedics, assistants, fangirls, and hotel staff to his will with even more ease than usual for somebody of his celebrity, it was close to midnight by the time Dorian found his way up to the penthouse suite. He'd given instructions to be left in peace for the night, and everyone had been very happy to comply. Except, apparently, for the short hairy creature already waiting inside the room beside a messy hole that looked like it had been eaten out of the wall.

The instant this creature noticed him, it threw its hands into the air and shouted with glee, "DORIAAAAAAN! I can't believe it's really you! Finally! You probably don't know this, but I am your number one fan. Actually number one. I'm the dwarf who went to all the trouble of smuggling your Deluxe Edition sophomore album tin box set belowground! You know, the one that came with the limited edition t-shirt? I'm wearing it right now, actually!"

The creature spread its arms wide and beamed, revealing alarmingly large teeth. This, combined with the gleeful monologue, was a frankly embarrassing display. At least Dorian had seen it before from numerous fans, if not from a three-foot-tall hairy creature with huge tombstone teeth.

To Dorian's credit, he hid his surprise well. "You've, uh, got something on it."

The dwarf made a halfhearted attempt to brush away some of the dirt and drywall.

"Listen," Dorian said, crossing the room to lay his guitar case down on the hotel bed, "I'm always willing to sit down and chat with fans, and I've got an autograph session planned for tomorrow morning bright and early, but it's been a long day. I kind of just want to go to sleep. I can give you a pass to skip the line, if you want." He frowned, debating if he should try again to use his strange new power to encourage this particular fan to leave.

The dwarf started talking before that decision could be made. "Look, buddy. I was tunnelling my way up here and keeping an eye on you, and I can see and hear what you're doing. While I appreciate your initiative and determination, mesmerizing everyone you come across is kind of really sketchy for a number of reasons. Ethics, for one. I don't really object on a personal level, unless you're trying to mesmerize me, but I'm one of the good guys now which means I'm obligated to point out that mesmerizing others is a faux-pas. Just about as bad as clearing out tunnel air inside the home, you know? Also, you're human. You really shouldn't be able to mesmerize anyone. It's disturbing on a number of levels."

Dorian blinked, the majority of that lecture on the ethics of mind control going over his head. "Tunnel air?"

The dwarf gave a lively example, pirouetting in the air with unlikely nimbleness before landing on his toes and dropping into a bow. Then he reached back to button up his bum flap.

"Ah," Dorian said. He still had questions, but they were vastly outweighed by his regrets. He decided to keep any further inquiries to himself - at least, until the smell cleared. "I… am not using mind control. That's impossible," he said, voice layered with magic.

Mulch (for of course it was he) shook his head. "No, see, now you're trying to mesmerize me into thinking that you're not mesmerizing me and that's really not cool. Devious, is what that is." He reached up into his hair, struggling against the tangles for a moment before a thick pair of sunglasses began to emerge. With a final tug, the dwarf yanked them free and dropped the glasses onto his nose. "There," he said with satisfaction.

"It's midnight," Dorian said, baffled. "Dark outside. You don't need those. Are you trying to look trendy?"

"Mirrored," said Mulch with pride, tapping at the lens. "Your mesmer can't get through them. Now we can have a civil conversation."

"Ah," said Dorian, still making a concerted effort to breathe through his mouth as he sat on the edge of the bed. He was careful to keep himself positioned between Mulch and the guitar, as though that could protect the instrument from smelling like tunnel air for the next six weeks. "I understand."

The dwarf shook his head. "No, kid. You might be smart, but I think it's safe to say you barely understand the tip of this iceberg. Haven was a chaotic mess when I left, and it's bound to be ten times worse by now. The world above can't be doing much better now that you humans know about us."

"Actually," interrupted Dorian with a thoughtful hum, "I don't think it's really sunk in yet, up here. Last I checked, people were still playing Twitter games. I'm sure we'll get there eventually."

Mulch perked up. "Oh, those are great! Like the #replaceamovietitlewithfairy one, right? That's still going? "The Fault in Our Species" was my favourite. What do you think of "Fairy Potter and the Centaur's Stone?" Because that one was mine."

"Very witty," Dorian conceded, sweeping his bangs out of his face. "Wait, you Tweet?"

The conversation paused momentarily as they exchanged Twitter handles, pulled out their respective personal devices, and followed each other's accounts.

"Right," said Mulch, beaming with a gruff sort of pride at having his favorite pop star now among his online followers. "I'm actually here for a reason."

"I figured you might be, and I'm assuming it's not because somebody down there realized that I never got mind wiped at the end of this adventure? Please tell me that's not it. Because for one, that seems like a waste of resources for your People at the moment. And two, I'd feel really weird about following your account if that's what you were here for, and I'm pretty sure that's some kind of unethical."

"That's 'kind of unethical,' says the human who just discovered mind control," Mulch muttered, followed by something under his breath about Changelings. "Listen. I'm here because I think we've got some common interests, and we can probably work to help each other."

Dorian perked up. "Oh, good. I'm guessing you're a friend of Apollo's, then? Did he ever turn up?"

"Apollo? Who - oh, you mean Artemis. I get where you got confused there, but yes, he does have a girl's name." Mulch shook his head, fondly reminiscing. "He's so touchy about it, too."

"He is alright, then? We separated in the park, and I lost track of him after that. His elf girlfriend seemed worried when I saw her."

"It's not just you, kid. Everybody lost track of him. Like he vanished into thin air. Holly found and arrested Becquerel Jones, and some of Arty's things turned up, but there's no sign of our Mud Boy."

Dorian's face turned contemplative as he considered the challenge dangling before him. "They're not blaming him for any of this mess, are they? Because from what I saw, he was most definitely trying to stop it. I don't want to say that he panicked when he found out this was happening... but he was definitely freaked out. Tried to hide it but I could tell. I don't think Apollo's somebody who rattles easily, but he was shaken."

"Yeeaaah," Mulch said, drawing the word out, "Kind of why I'm trying to find him. The thing you need to understand is that Artemis Fowl has got a history with the fairy folk. They don't trust him very much at all, which is why they'd never admit that they need him on their side right now. There's a manhunt on at the moment - they're trying to put together exactly what happened, and it'd be a lot easier if he were around to set the record straight. But as soon as the LEP figures out that he's innocent on this one, there's no way they'll spare any further resources to look for him. Not with everything else that's going on. Which is why I'm here."

Dorian read between the lines. "You're his friend. You think he's in danger, and you're worried."

"We go way back, him and I," the dwarf conceded. "Met when he was a child, watched him grow up, and I'd rather see him live to a ripe old age. Either he's in trouble or he's hiding from something, and neither one is a good sign."

"And you need my help to get to the bottom of it, either way."

Mulch shrugged. "I figure if there's anyone who can find Artemis Fowl, it's someone who thinks like Artemis Fowl." He appraised Dorian critically, clearly evaluating the truth of that statement. "Or at the least, another Changeling. The more of you kids I meet, the more I can tell you're all alike."

Dorian nodded, not about to object. "I'm your best bet. And in exchange, you're willing to teach me how to use my mind control."

"Mesmer," Mulch corrected, before cluing in. "Wait, no. That's not the deal."

"That's the deal," Dorian said firmly.

"I'd love to help you, but I actually gave up my magic so I can steal things from people. And anyways, I'm going to be busy. Only way interspecies peace is going to work is if we have people on both sides of the law seeing the advantages of our kinds getting along. That's why I came to the surface in the first place: diplomacy is a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it." He beamed and rubbed his hands together eagerly.

All of which sounded odd to Dorian considering how recently Mulch had given him an ethics lecture, but (given the recent consequences of asking questions) he decided not to point that out. "So, what do I get in return?"

"The satisfaction of a job well done, and the knowledge that you helped a friend? And you've got to be feeling guilty about this - other than Jones, you were the last person to speak to Arty before he disappeared. And Jones isn't talking; he's in LEP custody, but human governments are already sniffing around to protect him and get him released. Until that happens, he's keeping his mouth shut."

Dorian considered the offer and decided it would have to do. Besides, he already had some ideas for where to start. And if this new goal just so happened to coincide with his need to understand what had happened to him when he passed out on stage, all the better. "No promises, but I think I know who I can get to help. We'll see what we can do."

-x-

dormaslov tweeted:

(a)slendywho2 (a)cafedecosta (a)raimooo Drop everything, call me NOW.

-x-

raimooo tweeted:

(a)slendywho2 (a)cafedecosta (a)dormaslov Maaaaaaaybe we should meet up face to face. I think I know what you want, and this is gonna be tricky.

-x-

It took an entire week for Holly to finally make it back home. Three days in Dublin, running damage control on the surface and trying to help Butler coordinate an entire missing person's investigation out of Fowl Manor. The next four, after she could no longer evade being recalled back to Haven, were spent in a haze of crisis reaction and response coordination with LEPfoul. Finally, the interns and operatives had teamed up and refused to touch another lightscreen until she went home for at least eight hours of proper rest.

"Six," she'd argued down, and the bargain had been struck at seven.

Which meant that she could no longer dodge the need to return to her empty apartment.

MoriarTEA met her in the front hallway. It was almost like deja vu, and this time she waved a hand to encourage it to give her room to slip around the chassis and into the living room beyond. "I don't have the energy to deal with you right now," she said once she was clear of the mechanical arm. "Go away."

"I am sensing you are...exhausted," the robot replied in a cool, detached voice as it struggled to turn around and follow her. "May I offer you some tea, Holly? Or a soothing herbal smoothie? My program tells me you prefer….nettle...in times of distress."

The elf flopped down on the couch with a groan, "No, I - hang on." She sat up again, flicking a wayward strand of hair from her eyes. "He fixed you. You're not locked up anymore, and you're talking. He fixed you."

The face on MoriarTEA's interface blinked happily in acknowledgement, but the robot did not speak.

Holly cupped a hand around her mouth, rising from the couch to call down the hall as she made her determined way to the guest room, "Artemis? Mud Boy, are you there? Arty, why didn't you -"

She paused at the door to his room. The door had clearly been lasered off its hinges from the inside out (note to self: disable the dishwasher's laser weapon); the bed was still neatly made; there was a thin layer of dust on the bedside table. Artemis obviously hadn't been home.

Holly sagged.

Behind her, MoriarTEA gurgled. She turned to be met with the robot's arm extended at stomach-height, a glass of water held in place by suction cups at the end of it. "Proper hydration is very important, especially in times of stress," the machine told her with authority.

Holly accepted the glass to placate MoriarTEA's programming, though she was far from trusting it enough to drink. Instead, she set the glass down on the hall table with a frown. "MoriarTEA? When did Artemis fix you?"

Those, it turned out, were the magic words. The robot's light-up face vanished, replaced with the image of an old-fashioned rolling tape cassette. "Contingency message activated," MoriarTEA announced, and the recording began to play with a click.

It was alarming, at first. The background noise was a cacophony of screams and yells - it sounded something like a riot. It took her a moment to piece together that, threaded through and above the aural crush, a human voice sang in a language she did not need magic to understand.

Dorian's concert, she realized.

"Hello, Holly," said a second, much more familiar voice. He was closer to the speaker, clearly audible over the flood of sound. "Forgive me the cliche, but if you're hearing this message...if you activated this recording, it means that I never made it home."

"Artemis Fowl, always with the melodrama," she muttered. A half-smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she realized that he had stopped intentionally, to allow her to respond and thus for this exchange to qualify as a conversation. He could grow taller all he wanted, but it was oddly reassuring to know that certain things about her best friend were never going to change. "But where are you now?"

"In this case," Artemis continued, "you likely have more questions than answers. I can tell you that I'm going to confront Becquerel Jones - he is responsible for the exposure of the People. I've sent corresponding proof to MoriarTEA's disc. Have Foaly retrieve it, as it will corroborate this claim. I will do what I can to ensure Jones does not evade the consequences of his actions. I promise you, Holly, that he will not get away with this. Not if I can do anything to prevent it."

"And we found him, right where you left him," she said, folding her arms. "Well done, Mud Boy."

As though he could hear her through time, Artemis had paused again to let her speak. After a moment, he kept talking. "I have left a contingency plan in the LEPfoul offices. The bottom drawer of my desk - Caltrop or Dodo should know the access code, seeing as they're the only ones who actually read the handbook I drafted. What happens now, Holly, is going to be complicated. The world just changed. We'll have to change with it. This is not a war plan - it provides the foundation for sound foreign relations. Who to trust aboveground, and how to position LEPfoul to work as an intermediary agency between species. In particular, the Changelings are no longer the enemy - they may be young, but they are brilliant. Given the correct handling, they could become some of our greatest allies in this new world. I've outlined the best ways I can think of to approach each one, though of course your judgement is better than mine on that front."

"Clearly," the elf said, leaning back against the wall. "Since I'm pretty sure you recorded this before the part where some of them started shooting fireballs."

"Holly," Artemis argued, imagining her objection even if he hadn't been able to hear it, "If interspecies contact leads to war, you and I both know how it would end. We can not let that happen, not at any cost. Use every advantage you can get."

Holly rolled her eyes, though her gut churned at the thought. "No need to tell me that, Mud Boy." She distractedly reached for the glass of water and took a drink before it consciously registered what she had done. It tasted fine - clean, filtered, pure.

Artemis swallowed hard, the sound loud against the small speaker of the cell phone he was talking into. "Oh, and you wanted to know when I fixed MoriarTEA? In Russia, the safehouse, using a remote data link. I did it after we spoke about - about the squid. And just so you know, and because if you're hearing this I may not get another chance to say it - on the topic of that conversation, I am not mad at you. Thank you for all that you have done for me. You are my closest friend, and I - " He cut off abruptly, the words choked in his throat. The human never had been any good at speaking from the heart.

She lowered the glass.

Artemis coughed. "I need to go. Jones is on the move. Farewell, Holly Short. I hope we meet again."

The recording clicked off. MoriarTEA's face blinked back into existence. "Recording finished," the robot said unnecessarily.

She rubbed at the corner of her eye with her free hand. "But where is he now? Where did he go after sending that message? Is he - d'arvit, can you tell if he's even alive?"

"Question does not compute," MoriarTEA told her and, if she didn't know better, she'd think it looked sad.

-x-

Three Changelings stood in a circle in an alleyway behind a small cafe in Dublin, shoulders hunched against the rain as they studied the last known location of Artemis Fowl the Second. Dorian, as their unofficial leader on this particular investigation, was frowning at the clock on his new phone. Humidity didn't agree with his hairstyle or temperament, and he found himself regretting not bringing an umbrella or flat iron. He'd been in Ireland nearly two weeks now, and it'd managed to rain at least once every single day. "Where is he? I told everyone to meet right at three, didn't I? I've got a plane to catch at five, my new music video drops next week and I can't delay the press tour any more than I already have - my publicist is already having kittens over it, poor woman. I've been a bit of a PR nightmare recently. Told her I've got it all under control, but apparently even the mesmer has limits."

"PR nightmare is an understatement," said a voice out of thin air, and Ray shimmered into view. "Hey, guys," he said, waving a gloved hand in a sheepish greeting. His hair was short, brown, and curly today; his eyes were green, and his cheekbones were sharper than Maeve remembered them. "Sorry I'm late, I just didn't wanna be the first one here."

As the most familiar with Ray's personality and habits, Maeve took the initiative to sock him in the arm. "How long have you been there just watching us?"

"Not long," Ray said unconvincingly.

Maeve tapped her toes.

"No, seriously, not long! I get the weirdest headaches if I stay invisible for too long. I can only handle all the vibrating for a couple of minutes, if I'm lucky. Messes with my teeth, too." He grinned widely, displaying two chipped front teeth. "And I bit my tongue the other day in the worst kind of way when I tried to talk while shielded. Ow. I'm still talking funny."

"I believe you," said Maeve quickly, before Ray could stick out his tongue to demonstrate.

The fourth member of their group was much more sympathetic. "Oww," echoed Vedette, wincing at her former employee's plight. "Remind me to mix you up some tea to keep you from developing tooth sensitivity or root problems in the long-term, if you're going to be that hard on the enamel. I think I know exactly the thing I can synthesize to help with that."

Ray smiled, genuinely touched by the offer. "That'd be great, bosslady! Thank you. Your tea is the best!"

Dorian paced back and forth along the brick wall, hands shoved down into his pockets and steps matching a beat only he could hear. "Can we focus, please?" he sang in time with it.

"Yes, focus," agreed Maeve.

Ray pulled a device from his pocket and began fiddling with the buttons, explaining as he did so that he'd borrowed it from Artemis's younger brother. No one bothered to ask whether Myles Fowl had been aware that he was lending the tool out.

"What's that, then?" asked Vedette, peering over at the small, metallic cube.

Ray shrugged, lifting the box to display the readout. "Myles built it to measure magic in the air, when he first started investigating Fowl Manor. I thought it might give us a clue to what happened here, but I can't tell what it's saying. Something about the currents being wrong. It's all very mathy - Maeve, take a look?"

Maeve blinked. "That can't be right." She jabbed at the screen with a thumb, heart racing. "When I was researching the Slenderman myth, I found a series of mathematical equations that seemed to imply the existence of a very particular kind of magic. This kind of data matches what you would expect those formulas to produce, and it does so with a fairly low margin of error, but I was told those were a hoax and given fairly definitive proof of their origin."

Ray rocked back on his heels, handing the cube over. "I'm - uh. Pretty sure it wasn't a hoax. I looked into it, too. Some things didn't feel right when we were in Barcelona, so I kept poking around. Hey: if I said demons are real and they can time travel, would any of you guys look at me like I was crazy?"

"Ray, we already look at you like you're crazy."

"Okay, then. Demons are real and they can time travel. What if I told you that I knew that on pretty good authority?" Ray darted a glance over at his fellow Changelings, paying particularly close attention to the look on Dorian's face.

The pop star crinkled his nose. "Who's authority? That's a stretch, even for a world where fairies live under our feet."

"Uh. Artemis Fowl's authority? I may have had access to his computer at one point, and he might be in the habit of keeping a pretty detailed journal."

Maeve was fascinated. She'd always loved the thought of time travel, and found it both conceptually and mathematically intriguing. "He's time travelled before? I wonder….Vedette, would you say your magic fits you well as an individual?"

"I'm a chemist above all else," the barista said, tugging at her hair. "So yes, I know a lot about fire. It's just chemical reactions. Easy enough to control, if you know what you're doing and can manufacture fireproof textiles so you don't set yourself aflame."

"Dorian?"

The pop star winked. "Showmanship, charisma, mind control. Boil it down far enough, it's all the same: how to win friends and influence people."

This was alarming, but Maeve persevered. "Ray is well suited to being able to turn himself invisible because it makes it easier to stalk people - yes, Ray, I'm not over that yet - and my interest in scientific and mathematical research on a global scale is strengthened by the gift of tongues. I propose that it isn't a stretch to assume that, having travelled through time before, Artemis might have suddenly found himself with the ability to do so again."

"One plus one does equal time travel," piped Ray. Dorian made a mental note to save the turn of phrase, as it sounded like something that could become a clever lyric.

Vedette raised a hand. "I feel like I should point this out: If Artemis did use his newfound magic to travel in time, it would obviously have been to change the past. He was very committed to helping his friends stay hidden - we had a long talk to exactly that effect, when he visited my cafe. Artemis would have stopped what Becquerel Jones did if he could. But history is still history. The Reveal still happened. The world is still feeling all the consequences. Which means that whatever he tried to do, it didn't work."

"Or he managed to change things and created a parallel universe where the fairies are still hidden, and that's where he is now. In which case, we might never see him again," said Ray, sounding almost cheerful at the prospect. "Which would also be cool, but probably a bad thing for our world, overall."

"And that doesn't change what happened here. We're all still magic," added Dorian.

To emphasize the point, Vedette held a finger in the air with a candle-sized flame hovering above it. The fire held steady, buffeted only slightly by the rain. Ray's outline shivered as if he was about to vanish, and then solidified again when Maeve grabbed him by the arm. "Don't you dare," she muttered in Czech.

Dorian hummed a concerned note under his breath, harmonizing exactly with the frequency of the drizzle as it ran down the nearest gutter. "So if Apollo travelled back to change this situation but didn't succeed….what went wrong?"

-x-

He woke sharply in the pitch black with a crick in his neck, a horrific headache, a stone jabbing awkwardly into his back, and the sound of heavy breathing overhead. It was an ominous sort of breathing: thick and guttural and accompanied by the stench of raw meat and sour eggs. He didn't know what was causing the sound, and didn't particularly want to know either. All he knew was that he would much prefer it if the breathing were to move away, and soon.

It's okay, whispered a voice in his head. You've woken up in worse situations before. Like the time when…

But he couldn't actually remember any situations worse than this. Couldn't remember better ones, either. Squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath, he tried to conjure some kind of memory - anything -

It was no good. Everything before this darkness was a blank. It struck him that he did not know how he had gotten into this mess. Worse: he had no idea who he was.

Priorities, he told himself firmly, fighting back panic. I'll deal with this situation first. A real threat to life and limb is more important than any existential crisis.

Having a plan helped. He noticed that, while he was taking stock of his surroundings, his hand had lifted to touch the small coin that hung on a cord around his neck. The necklace was important to him, he knew, even if he had no idea why - the metal was warm against his fingertips, and he found to his surprise that it made him feel better to know it had survived intact.

Survived what? No, I need to focus. First order of business is to escape.

Deep breaths. He took four of them, tapped his finger twice to the coin, and decided he was as composed as he was going to get.

Of course, "composed" was a matter of relativity when there was something else in the near vicinity still breathing along with him. He released the coin and slid his hand down his front, feeling for pockets. After some fumbling, he pulled out a pen. Fantastic, office supplies. I'm saved, he thought, and then realized belatedly that he might be a bit of a smart-ass.

It felt heavier than a pen should, though - he weighed it in his hand and then rolled it between his fingers, considering.

When his thumb slid over a switch embedded on top of the pen's cap, a sharp cyan light illuminated the area. The pen also began blaring a shrill, high pitched whistle that echoed right on the edge of his audible hearing range. He was temporarily stunned by the sudden burst of sensory input, squeezing his eyes shut - but not quickly enough to avoid seeing the thing that loomed over him, all razor-sharp tusks and murderous eyes.

Both he and the troll screamed in unison.

The sound of the creature's agony cut off the human's comparatively pitiful wail almost immediately. He peered up cautiously to see that the troll was completely incapacitated, flailing wildly so that its giant claws raked the air mere inches above its potential prey's chest. Then, probably from sheer luck alone, it stumbled backwards instead of forwards.

The human took advantage of the space this bought him, rolling sideways to put further distance between himself and the claws before scrambling to his feet. He pushed himself upwards, pen still clasped tightly against his palm, trying to get traction against the loose rocks. It was alarming how practised the motion felt.

The light flashed against cavern walls as he moved, revealing a large open space crossed by a stone bridge off to his left. He decided to give that feature of the tunnel a wide berth; something about it gave him a very bad feeling.

In the other direction, the path leading down from the bridge disappeared off into a dark tunnel. He glanced back once more to the troll to check that it was still occupied in its self-pity, saw something else move in the dark behind it, and decided that it was time to go. It was a surreal moment; he almost felt like he was supposed to say something witty.

The second troll roared. He held the light out blindly behind him in the hopes of fending it off, and decided that his breath would be better served by running.

It quickly became apparent that he was not the athletic type, though sheer adrenaline carried him a fair distance before he was forced to slow to a jog. From there, his pace devolved into a tired limp. Thankfully there were no sounds of pursuit, although he still braced himself at every turn for disaster. The tunnel was long and winding, though easy enough to navigate: there was only one path to follow. One foot in front of the other.

He was starting to realize that his exhaustion was from far more than simple physical exertion. His entire body ached, and the ongoing high-pitched buzz was making his thoughts spiral aimlessly. At least the blinding blue light at the end of the pen had faded to a soft red glow, a color he knew instinctively was invisible to the rod cells in a troll's eye (though how he knew this, he hadn't the faintest idea). Lifting the pen in front of his face, he noted that his vision was blurred and his hand couldn't hold the metal cylinder steady.

That's interesting. However I got here, I might be going into shock from it, he thought dully, taking stock of how rapidly he was fading as though it were happening to somebody else.

That mental distance was good - it kept him from panicking.

So when the light caught a metallic glimmer in the distance that resolved into a shape that could possibly be used as shelter, he didn't have much choice in the matter. By now he was barely able to walk in a straight line.

At the edge of the debris field, he paused to evaluate his find. Some kind of transport device had crashed here, the craft's metal outer shell shredded by velocity and impact. Behind the wreck, jagged rocks had caved in completely. A dead end.

He was too dazed to care. I just need a moment to catch my breath, he thought, knees giving out. I'll find a way out of here as soon as I've taken that moment. He tried to catch himself, missed the wall due to a failing sense of depth perception, and landed hard against a scrap piece of metal. The impact was jarring; he was pretty sure he'd cut his knee open, but didn't have the energy to check. It was all he could do to pull himself the last few feet to put his back against the most intact side of the ruined shuttle.

Now, there was nothing left for him to do. His last thought was to hope the high-pitched whining sound that still came out of the pen would continue to keep the trolls at bay while he was unconscious.

If it didn't, he was fairly certain he would not have the opportunity to wake up.

-x-

Luck was on his side this time.

-x-

When awareness of the world began to return, it could have been minutes later or it could have been hours. Without the jolt of adrenaline to aid him, swimming back to lucidity was much harder. His mind was thick and sluggish, and his whole body hurt in a way that ran far deeper than muscle and bone. He felt like he was made of thin rubber bands and light cotton threads. At the slightest strain, he was certain he would either fall apart entirely or dissolve into nothing.

Something is incredibly wrong with me - I am not well. It was the closest he could get to articulating the sensation of every single atom in his body spiralling deeper into magical shock.

Pain lingered at the forefront of his attention for a long time, blocking out everything else. In this condition, it took much longer than it should have to figure out what had woken him. By the time he registered the danger, it was much too late to do anything about it. Somebody was coming, picking their way gingerly through the rubble. He tensed for a fight where he lay, though he doubted if he could even sit up. The laser pointer in his hand still whined, the sound burrowing around his brain and giving away his position.

The approaching girl held a cell phone that emitted a surprising amount of light, and when she turned the beam his way it momentarily blinded him. He squeezed his eyes shut as an undignified sound escaped his throat, and she lowered the device with a quick apology. "Artemis? Is that you?" she called softly, creeping forward to investigate.

He cracked his eyes open again. The girl in front of him was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a full tulle skirt, and her brown curls had been clipped back from her forehead with artfully arranged barrettes. She couldn't have been older than fourteen. Her face turned briefly solemn as she considered the situation, but then she apparently reached a decision and smiled warmly at him. Two pink rainboots squeaked against the gravel as she stepped forward.

None of this detail sunk in fully, as he was already starting to lose consciousness again.

"You look absolutely awful - I'd say you look like you handle adventure even worse than Bec. Easy, don't try to move just yet," the girl said soothingly, crouching to get a better look at the injured time-traveller's face. "Calm down, Artemis. It's just me. Did you hit your head? I'm Demia - don't you remember me?"

He didn't remember the girl, and tried to tell her as much; the words fell apart in his mouth, and the blackness swallowed Artemis Fowl once more.

-x-

End of Season Two

-x-

Author's Note:

Right. So.

Hi. Still with us? Still breathing? Okay, good. Because, like Artemis said in his message, this world just changed.

For those keeping count: the People have finally been revealed to humans, thanks to Becquerel Jones. Changelings are now capable of magic, thanks to Myles Fowl. Artemis has gotten himself lost in the timestream again, thanks to his own questionable brand of luck (kudos to everybody who predicted that one, by the way). And Dorian's favorite guitar now smells like someone lit a fart inside it, thanks to the combination of a burning safe house and Mulch's tunnel air, but at least he's made some new friends.

Clearly, due to all of the above, LEPfoul and friends have some significant challenges ahead of them.

Oh, and MoriarTEA can now talk properly - maybe it should hang out with Icky sometime? The two of them would be very happy together.

All things considered, season three is going to be a wild ride. Thanks for sticking with us this far! We're awful at responding to messages, but every single follow and review makes our day. And a special thanks to everybody who played our Twitter game last episode - we hope you liked the callout here!

This world just changed, and we can't wait to show you what's going to happen next! - Freud and Winged