User:Fairfieldfencer/Sonic Meets Artemis Fowl

Sonic Meets Artemis Fowl, or Artemis Fowl: The Future Chase, is a Sonic and Artemis Fowl fan-fic about Artemis Fowl in the Sonic universe. Copyright owned by SEGA, Sonic Team, Eoin Colfer, Puffin books, 4Kids Entertainment, Archie and Dic.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl is off on another daring mission to find one of the greatest enemies of the fairy people. With help from a close companion, this threat travels into the future where she uses her magic to be protected by newlyweds Princess Sally Acorn and Sonic the Hedgehog. With only three days to complete their mission, Artemis and his team of heroes are going to have to work fast to bring this criminal to justice and return with her back to the past. But what does she want that can only be found in the future? And why enlist the help of the heroic Mobians residing in New Mobotropolis? Read on to find the answers...

Author: Fair field fencer F F F

Prologue
Through the thousands of years the fairy people have lived and strived in the underground of the earth, many events and individuals have threatened to wipe them out of existence. Among those who stand out are Artemis Fowl, Irish teenage criminal mastermind, and Opal Koboi, a once genius pixie with an IQ of over three hundred.

Artemis has since been dropped as an enemy of the People, and has become a valuable ally since he first met Captain Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Division. Opal Koboi, on the other hand, has remained a constant threat to her fellow fairies.

During her lifetime, the pixie with the golden touch has founded her own company known as Koboi Laboratories and used her wealth to fund a goblin rebellion for the B'wa Kell. After that failed, she escaped arrest for a short time and managed to trap and kill the youngest full commander in LEPrecon history and blamed Captain Holly Short for it. It was later revealed that five years before this, she had captured rare animals by mesmerizing the leader of the Extinctionists known as Damon Kronski to further her magical power by extracting their naturally magical fluids and injecting them into herself.

This particular tale tells the story of how she managed to travel far into the future after she escaped imprisonment with the help of a close friend of hers. One so close to her, in fact, that you'd think them one in the same...

Double Trouble
SPECIALLY CONSTRUCTED ISOLATION PRISON CUBE, MAXIMUM SECURITY PENITENTIARY, ATLANTIS, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

Opal Koboi was making yet another plea to shorten her sentence in her cell by writing a letter to a random politician. She was very displeased with her last attempt when Wing Commander Vinyáya had said she would release her, but it turned out to be a wicked trick. She had added her name to her vengeance list, which was just several names on a yellow piece of paper she had taken from the human world before her capture. There were several names on the list, with only one crossed out. That name was 'Julius Root'. The one person Opal had actually managed to get her vengeance on. But he would be far from the last if she had anything to say about it.

For the past three years she had been writing plea after plea to various members of the Council. During that time in between writing letters, she had been thinking over things. Thinking about how she could escape from this prison. Thinking about new plans and schemes for when she was out. And most importantly, thinking about her enemies and how she would exact her revenge on them.

The members of the Council would be sure to go. Especially that Vinyáya. Then there was the technical genius, Foaly, her school rival. She would have him dipped in the molten metal of his own creations. Then there was the dwarf called Mulch Diggums, who had helped in toppling two of her plans for world conquest. She often fantasised of tying him up in Death Valley and watching his body fry in the sun. Then there was that Holly Short with her pretty features that paled in comparison to Opal's own beauty. Oh how she loved the thought of her being thrown into a boiling pool of lava and watching her sink beneath the molten rock. And above all, that meddlesome Mud Boy, Artemis Fowl. He was the main factor in her plans failing. Opal could not even imagine a fate horrible enough to justify the human's interference in her grand plans.

Opal finished her letter and yawned. She was tired of being in this cell. The only contact from the outside world she had was when the prison guards informed her that it was time for her daily meals through an old fashioned intercom. Opal reasoned that they must have spent so much money on the cell itself that they only had enough left for the intercom instead of one of the more high-tech communicators. She went over to her rather uncomfortable on the side of the cell. On the wall the bed was next to were drawings of sea horses painted in pink, strawberry-flavoured toothpaste. Then, just as Opal laid down her head on the cheap pillow, a feminine voice came through the intercom on the cell's wall.

'Hello?' said the voice. It was strangely familiar to Opal. She could remember hearing it before, but could not attach a face to the voice.

'Hello?' said the voice again. 'Opal Koboi? Can you hear me?'

'Yes?' said Opal, her face barely a centimetre from her pillow so as to avoid the security cameras. 'Who are you?'

'That can wait. I have hacked into the mainframe here to contact you and have shut down their recording. The simpletons will likely think it's just a malfunction. But blabbering about others' stupidity can wait. I've got an ingenious plan to help you escape from here. And you won't have to do a thing in return.'

Opal almost laughed at this. 'Let us not be reticent so early in our relationship. What do you want from me?'

'Nothing,' said the voice coolly.

'And you honestly expect me to believe that? It doesn't take a genius like me to know nothing in the world is free.'

'Oh, but by freeing you from imprisonment, I am earning a great deal. So listen carefully, Miss Koboi. Here is the plan that will set you free and allow you to start a new life. And above all, allow you to regain everything that was stolen from you on the day Artemis Fowl came into your life.'

Opal listened intently to the voice. Her plan was great, evil and sneaky, with just a touch of vengeance as well. Opal smiled when the voice finished telling her the plan. This girl was so evil, that they could have been related.

FOWL MANOR, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Fowl Manor has served as the estate and home of the Fowl family for the past six centuries since it was first built by Lord Hugh Fowl in the 1400s. It has been remodeled and refurbished several times in its existence until it became a stately manor. In recent years, it has occasionally been used as a battle ground by the third latest member of the Fowl line between either high-tech fairies or dim-witted criminals. Though only one other member of the Fowl family is aware of this, and even she doesn't fully know what has been going on for the last five years.

Fowl Manor, with its expensive decor and lavish garden, currently houses five Fowls and one bodyguard who could easily count for three of them.

One of these Fowls currently sat in his study facing a computer screen with his designer jacket over his chair, and his midnight onyx tie hanging loosely around his neck.

Artemis Fowl II had been racking his significantly large brain ever since he had returned from a trip eight years into the past three months earlier. That excursion had been to save Artemis's mother, Angeline, who had apparently been infected with a new kind of disease. But it had turned that going back into the past had caused the disease by creating a time paradox. When Artemis and LEPrecon Captain Holly Short had returned from the past through a time stream, they had brought with them the past version of Opal Koboi, the LEP's most wanted fairy.

Artemis and Holly had dealt with her twice before, but never with the powers she had given herself almost a decade ago. They had barely made it out alive. Opal's new powers included an extreme version of the fairy mesmer, that allowed her to completely control a person's body, and she had done just that to Angeline Fowl to give her the symptoms of the aforementioned illness.

Once Opal's trip to the present had been revealed, she had stolen Holly's standard issue LEPrecon suit, which had highly advanced technology woven into it. Opal Koboi was now using this technology to evade the LEP.

Artemis had dedicated himself to tracking down the past Opal and sending her back to her home time. The walls of his study were plastered with pictures of the village of Duncade and the area around it where she had escaped. Computer monitors were kept on twenty-four hours a day, showing Lower Elements Police reports of surveillance sweeps, illegal satellite footage and news websites should Opal accidentally give herself away. It hadn't looked like this since his father had been thought dead in Russia. But Artemis doubted any of the equipment he was using would help yield the critical results needed, just as he had when his father was missing.

Artemis was currently working on an energy tracking program that could locate Opal's unique magical signature. Once it was complete, Artemis was going to hook it up to hidden LEP trackers referred to as 'Scopes' placed on American communications satellites and it would lead them straight to Opal. But there was one slight hiccup in that plan.

The problem was that Opal's magical abilities came from the bodily fluids and liquidised body parts of endangered animals that either boosted her own powers or gave her completely new ones. Well, they were endangered eight years ago, but now they were extinct. All Artemis had was the brain fluid of a silky sifaka lemur called Jayjay. He was the only remaining silky sifaka lemur and was also the last animal Opal needed to become virtually omnipotent, but Artemis had managed to keep Opal away from him and Jayjay was now in the hands of the fairy people. If there were common similarities among the natural magic in the animal's brain fluid that matched the others, Artemis would be able to use that for his energy-tracking program. But he hadn't been able to find any yet, so Artemis was as stuck in square one as an elephant playing hopscotch.

Artemis got up from his chair and grabbed some new notes he'd just printed and tacked them to his wall with all the others. These notes were all written in a language Artemis himself had created to make sure no one else could read it and steal his ideas. This language he'd made corresponded with the Eternity Code he had created a few years earlier. Back then the language had been only been words spoken aloud and could not be applied to paper, but Artemis decided to match them together since it would take up less thinking time. Time he needed to dedicate to more important things.

Just as Artemis was ready to call it a day and was about to press his finger on the computer's shut down button, a new window opened up showing the long face of Artemis's old companion, Foaly.

Foaly was possibly the only person working harder on finding Opal than Artemis. He was a paranoid centaur and the LEP's technical consultant. The centaur was the main reason the humans had not yet discovered the existence of fairies, with the exception of four who knew everything about them. Despite all his genius and efforts, Foaly felt at a loss just as Artemis did. Opal had managed to steal the centaur's own inventions installed in Holly's LEPrecon suit, and was using it to avoid detection from Foaly and every other officer under the world. So he'd felt a little responsible for Opal's escape.

Foaly had taken to calling Artemis practically every day in case he'd had any new ideas on how to prevent the present Opal from escaping her specially constructed cell. This, adding to his arrogance and love for sarcasm, had made the centaur an even greater annoyance than he usually was.

'Your brain thought up any new ideas, Mud Boy?' the centaur asked.

'It's nice to see you too, Foaly,' Artemis replied.

'Sorry for the lack of courtesy. It's nice to see you again, Artemis. Now, any new ideas how Opal's past self could spring her?'

'As I have said repeatedly, Foaly, if I think of something new, you will be the first to know. The men on security detail have all had thorough background checks, and not one of them has any link to Opal Koboi. The cell is state of the art and the only way you could get into the prison itself where Opal is being held would be with a nuclear warhead. I have had many ideas on how Opal could escape from her cell, and each one of them is even more implausible than the last. Have there been any signs of the past Opal?'

Foaly shook his head. 'We've caught no sign of her. She's even managed to block any system in the suit I could use to track her. It might take another few months before we catch her. I'll tell you, Artemis, the longer Opal's out there, the longer she has to think about her next move. '

'She is but one exceptional brain that has to live on the run. We are two highly resourceful genii who have out-smarted her before. And this Opal has no idea what we are capable of, so we have an advantage.'

'Tell yourself that often, do you?' Foaly quipped. 'But on a more serious note, Artemis, we've had a break-through down here. After Opal was arrested, we were able to get a warrant to search her home and all her computer files. We managed to find her journal amongst all the files. We finally managed to crack it!'

'After three years?' Artemis exclaimed.

'Don't sound so surprised. Opal encrypted her journal with some sort of unique code I've never seen before. I expected it to take centuries to crack, but it looks like we caught a lucky break.'

'That's what astonishes me,' said Artemis, frankly. 'No offence, Foaly, but I seriously doubt an entire division of computer hackers could have cracked the journal if not for your "lucky break." Anything interesting?'

'Plenty. Opal made dozens of illegal experiments to further her wealth and power. There's a lot on here about the animal fluids too, so I'll send that over to you for your tracker. It should help a lot. I think that's all an impressionable mind such as yours should see though. Some of the things Opal went to... She even had a group of greedy elfin warlocks send a probe into the future to see the outcome of her plans and inventions. But apparently the warlocks were inexperienced in time travel and it landed way off course. Like, twelve thousand years into the future. Frond knows what might have happened if it worked and she managed to outsmart us all during the B'wa Kell rebellion. She would probably be queen of the world right now.'

That image sent a shiver down Artemis's spine. Mainly because there was every chance of it becoming a reality right now.

'Oh, and Holly told me to say happy birthday to you,' blurted out Foaly.

'It's a week late in coming, but tell her thank you. How is she fairing?'

'She received her punishment from Commander Kelp for the time-travel incident, but it got cut short because of another Opal being on the loose.'

Artemis nodded. It was wise to pull every available officer in to look out for Opal's past self.

'What about your little side-project?' Foaly asked suddenly. 'Is it finished yet? I've got a bet going with one of my techies if you can actually finish it. Anyone with a good brain would bet on Artemis Fowl. So, naturally, my money's on you, Mud Boy. Don't let me down, now.'

'I won't. Give my regards to Caballine. And Mulch if you see him. Tell him Butler says hello too.'

'Don't worry. I will,' said Foaly, and terminated the link.

OPERATIONS' BOOTH, POLICE PLAZA, HAVEN, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

Foaly terminated the link then consulted his moonometer and realised it was time to head home. Foaly packed up his gear, stowed away his tinfoil hat that hid his brain waves from prying human intelligence agencies, and headed out of the Operations' booth of Police Plaza.

Usually it would take about five minutes to get from the Operations' booth to the parking lot, but security had been beefed up and it now took fifteen minutes to get through all the security equipment.

Haven's Police Plaza for the Lower Elements Police was currently on full alert because of Artemis Fowl and Holly Short's trip eight years into the past three months earlier. Everybody working in Police Plaza had been subject to background checks and regular DNA swabs and no one was allowed in further than the front door without a key-card and the pass code. The LEP weren't taking any chances of someone sneaking in and finding a way of releasing Opal. Though she was kept in Atlantis and not Haven, the LEP had schematics of her cell and maintained constant watch over Opal from the Operations' booth. And it was highly possible that the past version of the genius pixie could think up of some way of freeing the present Opal from Police Plaza that no one else had. That thought alone was enough to terrify the higher-ups of the LEP.

After struggling through the crowds of people heading into Police Plaza to either complain about the recent goblin lootings or the swear toad infestation, Foaly exited through the main entrance and made his way to his personally manufactured MagnaCar.

Previously, fairies had travelled around in cars powered by magnastrips on the roads of Haven. The cars had thin pieces of metal built into the bottom, which absorbed energy from the magnastrips and allowed the cars to be pulled along by them to get the drivers to their destination.

But Foaly, as usual, had come up with an even more efficient way of getting around that used less energy. Using electromagnets built into the bottom of the new MagnaCars, Foaly was able to make to them fly in the air by reversing the polarity of the magnastrips lying on the roads of Haven so they both were on the same frequency, making them repel each other. Foaly then added a nuclear engine that allowed the MagnaCars to be moved forwards and backwards and allowed them to be turned. The newer models with retractable roofs were constantly being snatched up by fairy jocks, though this was not a very sensible option. Because they had been told that the magnets were extremely sensitive due to their power, goblins had been leaving tiny magnets on the roads so as to upset the magnetic fields and make many a said jock get thrown out of their cars. They then threatened said jock at fire-ball point and either robbed him or stole parts from the car to sell in the back-alleys.

Foaly walked out of Police Plaza to the parking lot where he had left his fine invention, only to find the hood of it opened with missing engine parts. Someone had somehow managed to bypass the finger print activated start button for the car and had opened up the hood and stole some of the more essential engine parts. No doubt to sell them on the black market for a fine price.

Foaly stowed his shocked surprise and sighed at the sight of his beloved invention and walked over to get a closer look. Burn marks surrounded a melted hole where the finger print scanner had once been. The only answer Foaly's intellectual brain could think of was that goblins had somehow burned through the finger print scanner, and then hot-wired the car to open the hood. But that was impossible. Goblins barely had enough brain power to light a Glow Cube. Hot-wiring a MagnaCar was way beyond their intellectual capacity.

Foaly quickly took a look around to see if any of the goblins might still be around looking to rob the car's owner, but he instead saw a free taxi driving nearby.

'Taxi! Taxi!' Foaly yelled out.

The cab pulled out to the side-walk and Foaly got in. He hated having to take taxis, or any car that had not been personally designed for a centaur. There wasn't any room for him to sit down, so he could only lean against the seats with both seat-belts strapped around him to keep his large horse body secure. One time he had to share a taxi with a dwarf who was coming home from a busy day in the tunnels and had forgot to release the air he swallowed while digesting through all the clay in the mines. The taxi had flown over a magnet on the road, and Foaly had bumped into the dwarf's stomach. It had taken the centaur a month to get the smell out of his lab coat, and the taxi driver several months before he could get another customer.

Foaly fastened the two seatbelts around his front and hind quarters, tried to get in the most comfortable position possible for him and then told the driver where he wanted to go.

'I swear things are getting worse around here,' said Foaly, making conversation with the taxi driver. Although her face was out of sight, Foaly could tell the driver was a girl by the long hair sticking out of the back of her baseball cap and feminine hands on the wheel.

'Goblins have even worked up the nerve to steal car parts not two miles from Police Plaza,' continued Foaly. 'And they're getting smarter, if you can believe that.'

'Things can only get better and improve,' said the taxi driver. 'Look around! Who would have thought eight years ago that Haven would have such wonderful mechanisms and gadgets like there are today?'

'Oh, they are wonderful. I designed most of them. Pure genius. The Council should really be giving me a better budget for-' Foaly stopped mid-sentence after realising something. 'Eight years ago? Pretty odd number. People usually say ten or five. But you said eight. Something important for you happen eight years ago?'

'You never miss a trick, do you, Foaly?' said the taxi driver, and turned around to show her face. The face of the past Opal Koboi.

'Opal!?' exclaimed Foaly. 'What are you doing driving a cab? Insane-genius-bent-on-world-domination not paying the bills?'

Opal let out a shrill laugh like a harpy at the joke. 'You always did have a sharp wit about you, Foaly.'

While Opal was talking, Foaly was trying to open the door, but it was locked and the windows couldn't be wound down.

'Like my little taxi, Foaly? I modified it just for you,' said Opal in a dreamy little girl voice.

'Well if that's true, then you could have at least put in more comfortable seats,' said Foaly.

'Oh, but they are comfortable. Why, you could sleep like a baby on them,' said Opal, and pressed a button on a hidden control panel. A window came up from behind her seat, cutting off all access to the passenger section. Hidden pipes were then activated and a special knockout gas that, while non-lethal, would leave Foaly in a comatose state was emitted.

'Nighty, night,' said Opal. Once the centaur had been knocked out cold, Opal dragged him from the taxi and dumped him on a side-walk, which was no small effort as the centaur was over twice her own weight.

'Phase One complete. Now on to Phase Two,' said Opal with a devious smile on her face as she drove off.

Back To The Past, Off To The Future
Foaly had been found not too long afterward by a couple of passing gnomes and was immediately sent to the Haven Clinic downtown. The warlock medics there determined that he had somehow gone into a comatose state, and LEP investigators reasoned that goblins had somehow been the cause of it. According to their finds, at least one goblin had burned his way into Foaly's MagnaCar, hot-wired it to open the bonnet and had stolen some engine parts. Then Foaly must have stumbled across them and tried to stop the thieves, but it looked like they had somehow rendered him comatose. Possibly by a very hard blow to the head.

Any human in Foaly's condition would likely never come out of the coma, but humans didn't have fairy friends healing them with magic. With Foaly receiving daily bursts of magic into his system, he would likely be back on his hooves again in the next few weeks. But a few weeks was too late.

Someone had managed to penetrate Haven City's virtual defences and was running havoc on all things electronic. Mobile phones began ringing at all times and when you answered them you were greeted by some rather unpleasant noises that were usually issued by dwarfs. Fairies ordering food at drive-thru windows were greeted by some choice swear words recorded from various talk-shows, and the less said about Haven's plumbing system the better. But if you really must know, let's just say geysers have been spotted in people's water closets at rather inconvenient times. One unfortunate elf had been answering Mother Nature's call while reading the paper and shot straight through the roof when Old Faithful suddenly erupted from his bathroom's waterworks.

It was only time before some of the more essential systems were hit. Like the ones making sure that the Mud Men could not detect Haven and come down to exploit its resources.

The Council were desperately seeking a way to restore order in their city and bring calm back to the People. They had always depended on Foaly during times of technical crisis, and the centaur constantly boasted that he was the only one that kept Haven running. They hadn't realised just how much truth there was to that until now.

Reasoning that desperate times called for desperate measures, the Council voted to make a deal with the only other person under the world who could help them: Opal Koboi. In exchange for restoring the city to normal, they would lift two hundred years off her sentence.

Many of the Council members objected to this at first, but they quickly realised that they had no other option. So Opal would be led from her prison in Atlantis to Haven's Operations' booth to fix the mess by a team of the highest ranking LEP officers there were. One of which had all too many encounters with Opal Koboi in the past...

MAXIMUM SECURITY PENITENTIARY, ATLANTIS

Captain Holly Short walked alongside the new members of LEPretrieval One while Wing Commander Vinyáya led the group towards Opal's specially constructed isolation prison cube.

Many of the previous members of LEPretrieval One had been promoted to cushy desk jobs in the three years Holly had been away in Limbo, but there were one or two faces she recognised. Obviously these fairies believed that they were not ready for desk jobs just yet, or possibly they loved the excitement of dangerous missions when above ground too much. Holly knew about being in that position.

Three years ago she was up for the rank of major, the career turnaround of the century as she had previously been the only fairy in recon history to have two simultaneous Internal Affairs investigations. For a while Holly intended on refusing the position, but her late superior Commander Julius Root, who had opted for her promotion, told her the same words his commander had told him. That the position as a major was not for her, but it was for the People. Holly then changed her mind about it and intended to accept the position, but then Opal Koboi escaped from the Argon Clinic and had the Commander killed, and framed Holly for his murder and she quit once a new commander had been appointed to try and do good without a badge on her shoulder.

Then when she and Artemis Fowl had saved the demons on Hybras and a new commander was appointed during her three year leave, she rejoined the LEP. Then she went and broke a few major rules by going back in time to save Angeline Fowl from what appeared to be Spelltropy, but it turned out it was an Opal Koboi from eight years ago mimicking Spelltropy. When Opal had learned of the time portal Artemis and Holly had used, she followed them back to the present and escaped arrest and being returned to her own time by the LEP.

Holly was then punished for this by receiving LEPtraffic duty for two weeks. It was supposed to be three months, but with another Opal on the loose, the LEP needed every available officer to help on the fairyhunt for her.

Holly couldn't believe the Council was actually willing to shorten Opal's sentence by even a second after all she'd done. Let alone two hundred years. Though, truth be told, it was logical. Opal had one of the greatest minds the fairy people had even known. But just because it was logical didn't mean she thought it the best of choices.

The maximum security penitentiary was roughly as high-tech and security prone as Section 8 Headquarters had been on Holly's first visit. Foaly had personally constructed this wing and had updated it since the past Opal's escape.

As they walked along, security cameras and devices took pictures of all members of the group and their identities were confirmed at least fifty times before they made it to the end of the hall.

Wing Commander Vinyáya pressed her hand against a plate of liquid metal that Holly recognised as flux metal.

Flux metal was another of Foaly's inventions. It was metal saturated with nano-sensors. The nano-sensors would read through everything from Wing Commander Vinyáya's handprint to DNA. It was so high-tech that even is someone cut off the hand of someone who had access to Opal's cell and used it, the flux metal would detect a lack of pulse and fail to allow that person entry.

Opal's prison cube had been designed by Foaly and made with the help of Altantis's top mechanics, technicians and engineers. The cube was air-tight as it was surrounded by six hundred thousand gallons of water, which was roughly the same amount used in Olympic swimming pools. The cell had been given an air supply through a large tank attached to the cell directly opposite the cube's airtight access tunnel. Pipes attached to the cell had been deemed too risky as pixies were nimble creatures and could possibly squeeze through large enough pipes, and they weren't taking any chances with Opal, so the idea of air pipes had been dropped altogether. So they had opted for the tank.

This kind of tank was primarily used on fairy space ships and submarines to ensure the survival of their occupants. The tank was filled with genetically-altered plant life that could produce the same amount of oxygen as an acre of trees within its life-span. The plant life inside could hold in water in a similar fashion to cacti and was kept alive using grow lamps on the walls of the tank. The plant would absorb the carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen for the inhabitants, relieving the need for restocking until the plant died. And if it did, a back-up tank with over two hours' worth of air would kick in until the plant was replaced.

Wing Commander Vinyáya placed her hand on another flux metal scanner attached to a titanium door that separated the cube from the access tunnel made entirely of glass and steel.

Opal sat there writing out another letter and was surrounded by seahorse figurines fashioned from chewed cardboard. Two of them appeared to be broken. One had lost a tail and the other had been decapitated.

Opal's appearance had changed slightly in her three years' imprisonment. The usual height of a fairy was just over three metres, but Opal had been under that height when she was arrested. But thanks to the artificial pituitary gland containing human growth hormone she had had surgically placed in her head three years ago, Opal was now almost three foot four inches tall. Which was quite a towering height for a fairy, and even more so for a pixie.

Her dress attire had changed too. Instead of the traditional stylish and expensive catsuit the pixie usually wore, she had on a blue jumpsuit with a serial number on the back. The standard prison uniform for Atlantean inmates.

'Ah Wing Commander Vinyáya. Have you finally seen the truth of my words?' said Opal in a sweet, innocent little girl voice.

'Stuff it, Koboi!' snapped Vinyáya.

'Oh, my dear Wing Commander. Are you still upset because I took away your precious Commander Root?'

Vinyáya kept her cool, but Holly noticed that her fists were kept clenched very tightly after this. She was similar, but she was squeezing the gun butt of her Neutrino 3000 rather than her fist.

'Just... Get up and come with me,' said Vinyáya in a voice of strained calm. 'I'm sure the exercise will do you some good.'

'What do you mean by that?' said Opal, looking genuinely concerned.

'Well, look at you. Your skin's not as smooth as it used to be and your lips look pretty dry. And, oh, I think I might actually see a few wrinkles coming up. The centuries are catching up with you, Opal dear,' said Vinyáya, patting Opal playfully on the cheek.

This had Opal rushing over to the glass that surrounded them to check her reflection and see if this was true. Holly swallowed a smile at the sight. Good old Vinyáya. Always hit them right where it hurt.

They walked out of the holding facility where they drove in an armoured MagnaCar to the nearest shuttleport and took an LEP shuttle that would take them straight to Haven.

It was a really agonising trip. Opal kept on talking all the way through it about her marvelous inventions and how the efforts of Holly and Artemis Fowl were so feeble that only luck could have allowed them to succeed.

'How they infiltrated Koboi Labs was all because of those stupid dwarfs I hired!' Opal ranted. 'I always knew that those two were not to be trusted, but dwarf help is so hard to get. As for the Zito Probe, that was all the fault of those accursed Brill brothers. They were such bumbling idiots. As for Fowl, he is no genius! He is but a mere Mud Boy who spends too much time with those ancient Mud Man computers. I have analysed over everything in my plans and none of the mistakes that caused them to fail were my fault! It was all because of some idiot with dumb luck on their side. My brilliance and beauty is unmatched and will remain unmatched until after I am gone and I have revolutionised everything on and under the planet.'

It occurred to Holly then that Opal must have been thinking about all these factors during her three years in prison. This pixie was losing her mind to obsession.

Once they arrived in Haven City, they took another armoured MagnaCar to Police Plaza where the Operations' booth that controlled all the city's defences and networks was.

It was a long drive due to yet another traffic jam. Haven was the largest city under the world with roughly ten thousand fairies residing in it. Not very big by human standards, but by the People's it was the biggest city since the original Atlantis and traffic jams constantly clogged up the lanes.

Once they arrived at Police Plaza they exited the car with three armed guards and a techie escorting them to the Operations' booth. One of the guards with her striking pink hair Holly recognised as Nani Bayle, a fellow former student at the LEP Academy. Normally, Holly would have greeted an old friend like Nani with a warm smile and a long chat, but today that was no time for talking, so she just gave her a pleasant smirk, which Nani did not return.

Holly sighed internally. Nani and her had a rocky history to say the least, but one event stood out more than all the others.

The two of them had been assigned the boring work of stake-out a decade back, and a goblin on the run had snatched Nani's weapon and aimed it at her head, threatening to shoot unless he was given a pair of wings so he could head to the surface and escape the LEP. But Holly had quickly come up with a plan and set her weapon to stun, then shot Nani to make the goblin think Holly herself had harmed her, and then stunned the goblin in his confusion. Nani had been less than pleased at being shot by her good friend and refused to talk to her for months on end, but she forgave Holly eventually. She had saved her life, after all. And when she left to join the ranks of LEPmarine for eight years they had said goodbye as friends, but perhaps Holly had been wrong about that.

After five minutes making their way through the crowded Operations' room, the group finally made it to the security glass door of the Ops' booth and the techie leading them pulled out Foaly's confiscated access chip and let them in.

The Operations' booth was an impressive sight. There wasn't even a centimetre free of some sort of high-tech gadgetry within the booth. Most of the work-surfaces were strewn with incomplete inventions that Foaly had been working on or some kind of technological miracle.

Foaly had made it so that if anyone but he tried to use anything inside the booth it would automatically shut down, along with every other piece of equipment there with it. But he had left a back-door for emergencies such as this by installing a secret password in the main computer that he entrusted to only his wife, Caballine, and one of his most gifted and trustworthy techies.

The techie who had been entrusted with the password typed it in on an old-school keyboard and left at once, taking two of the guards with him as temporary escorts to his car, leaving only Nani and Repretrieval One behind.

Opal Koboi walked up to the main computer and began accessing its various tracing systems and code analysers to locate the hacker.

In the corner of the booth watching Opal, Wing Commander Vinyáya was standing with unblinking eyes, rousing up her inner levels of intimidation and anger to show the pixie she had better not try any tricks on her watch. Then her communicator went off with a message. She looked at it and her features suddenly flashed those of concern and slight annoyance instead of those of a testosterone driven night club bouncer.

'I'm needed back at headquarters,' she whispered to Holly.

By headquarters Holly realised she must have meant Section 8, an elite branch of the LEP that used to track the activity of demons. But since the demons had returned, Section 8 had mainly been helping them rehabilitate and was now involving themselves in serious counter-actions involving demons, such as gangs of war-like race planning to head to the surface and hunt down Mud Men.

'Qwan's gone a bit hysterical because he can't find or contact Qweffor,' continued Vinyáya.

Qwan and Qweffor were two peaceful demon warlocks who had assisted in bringing the rest of the demons and their island of Hybras back from Limbo. They were both now living at Section 8 and were helping the latest demon warlock, N°1, with his magic studies.

'It's probably nothing, but better safe than sorry,' finished Vinyáya. 'I'll be back here in time to escort Koboi back to Atlantis.'

'Understood. I'll take care of Opal,' said Holly and Vinyáya left to catch a taxi.

Opal's fingers were a blur at the main computer as they moved over its keyboard, searching for bugs and potential leads to the hacker and creating ways to keep him out. Opal went through all the data-files she could and searched through reams and reams of code that was reflected in her large chocolate brown eyes in ones and zeros.

'Captain Short, I have used one of the centaur's data-programs to search for the Internet Protocol address of your hacker,' said Opal. 'It seems to be coming from Fowl Manor.'

'What?' said Holly and rushed over to Opal's side. Artemis was a dear friend of hers. When they first met they were enemies, but he'd changed. Holly couldn't believe that he could have somehow relapsed and was causing all this chaos. He hadn't even been that bad when he was a criminal.

'I'm not finished, dear Holly,' said Opal, again with mock sweet little girl tone. 'The IP address is being routed through Fowl Manor to leave a hopeless false trail. Why, I know of kindergarteners who could have figured that out.'

'Just button it and find out who this is!' Holly snapped.

Opal followed her orders and kept on searching and after about five minutes, a wide smile came across her face.

'It appears you have a traitor in your midst. The IP address leads me back here to Police Plaza, and I think I can pin it down to an exact location.'

Too shocked for words, Holly let Opal continue her work without passing comment. The idea of an LEP officer hacking into Haven's security system seemed preposterous, but people could be turned. It was even possible that the past Opal might even have the poor fairy under the influence of her mesmer.

'I've pin-pointed the location,' said Opal. 'It says it's right in the- Oh why, Captain Short, I do believe it's- ME!'

A flash of light appeared and Opal took the opportunity to relieve Holly of her Neutrino 3000 and aimed it at her. Holly had expected Opal to have a dozen neutrino charges blasted at her well before this, but then she saw what had happened.

Right where Nani was standing, clad in full LEP gear, minus a helmet, was the past version of Opal from eight years ago. She had blasted LEPretrieval One's Neutrinos with bursts of lightning and they had either melted in their hands or short-circuited from the attack.

Holly immediately realised what the past Opal had done. She must have somehow switched places with Nani and used a shape-shifting spell to give herself Nani's appearance, and used the LEP suit's built-in computer to bypass security checks. She had infiltrated Police Plaza using the LEP's own technology!

'Ah, so you are the famous Captain Short I've heard so much about,' said the past Opal. 'For the past six years you have been a thorn in my future-self's side, and now I think I shall let her have the vengeance she deserves, and let you be killed with your own weapon.'

The present Opal switched the setting on the Neutrino 3000 up to level ten, or crispy charcoal as the guys in LEPretrieval called it.

Opal let a vicious smile rest on her face as she pulled the trigger, but no shot came out.

'What!? Why doesn't it fire!?' Opal yelled as she kept on pulling.

'It won't work for you, Opal,' said Holly, trying to buy more time to formulate a plan. 'That's one of Foaly's Neutrino 3000s and it only works for me.'

'Arrrggghhhh!' Opal screamed at the top of her lungs. 'My vengeance! Snatched from me again by that infernal centaur!'

While Opal was having her tantrum, one of the unarmed officers took the opportunity to press a nearby alarm, activating klaxons all throughout Police Plaza and alerting everyone inside to the emergency.

'D'Arvit!' swore the past Opal and zapped the officer with an energy beam, rendering him unconscious from the attack. 'We must go now!'

'NO!' screeched the present Opal. 'Short must pay!'

'If we don't leave soon, we'll both be arrested! Then this will all be for nothing!'

With great effort, Opal reluctantly threw away Holly's Neutrino 3000 and followed her past-self out of the Operations' booth.

The past Opal grabbed her future-self and activated the wings on her stolen LEP jumpsuit and flew out of Police Plaza at high speed and down into the streets where her taxi cab was waiting. They jumped into the taxi and the two Opals were soon lost among one of Haven's numerous traffic jams.

WAREHOUSE DISTRICT, HAVEN

Haven's Warehouse District was filled with large storage buildings where goods were kept. There was not a house in sight for five miles, and was usually were criminals went to conduct secret meetings in the only blind spot from the surrounding twenty cameras.

The past Opal's taxi slowed down as it approached one of the buildings.

'What are we slowing down for!?' said the present Opal furiously. 'The LEP are probably using the tracker in my arm to pin our location right now! We should be moving as fast as possible!'

All criminals were surgically fitted with subcutaneous seeker-sleepers in their skulls, or the arm in the case of pixies. The subcutaneous seeker-sleepers could both track the criminal's whereabouts and render them unconscious if the LEP realised they were involved in any illegal activity.

'Relax,' said the past Opal. 'This taxi's lead-lined. The lead stops the signals from getting through. You'll only be in danger as soon as I open the door.'

'I really do think of everything, don't I?'

The past Opal pulled up the taxi to an abandoned warehouse with a sign on top. On the sign was a male pixie with a bushy beard and moustache in a sailor's uniform with a wide smile holding a mackerel. Right beside his head in fading yellow were the words "Sturge's Fish".

'Oh, old uncle Sturge's place!' said the past Opal, surprised.

Sturge N. Koboi had previously been the owner of a major fish company. Pixies loved fish. And they especially loved protected shellfish such as lobster. Sturge had been caught smuggling illegal fish only ten years ago and was now serving time in prison. But Sturge had rented out the warehouse for one hundred years in cash, so the lessor was reluctant to rent it to somebody else in case Sturge sued him for every penny he was worth while still in the cooler. So the warehouse was left with nothing occupying it apart from swear toads and rotting fish.

The past and present Opals hurried into the warehouse. It was a dark and damp place, filled with the smell of moldy fish and was as quiet as the grave. Apart from the occasional profanity issued by a swear toad. The leaking fish tanks and broken floorboards added to the seedy appearance of the place. The only light came from the smashed windows and a glow cube on a nearby work table. It also had on it a flower pot filled with earth, a medi-kit and a plexiglass sphere also filled with earth.

The past Opal quickly removed her stolen LEP uniform, revealing a one-piece swimming costume, and threw it on to the table. This was to ease the difficulty of time-travelling. Clothes, and anything else the time-traveller was wearing, could meld with their body in the time-stream and would be stuck with it forever. Better to travel light than end up stuck in the same clothes for all eternity. Opal would be a walking fashion disaster for the rest of her life. How was that for a queen of the world to live?

When she was done, the past Opal picked up the plexiglass sphere filled with earth on the table and passed it to her future-self.

'This sphere has an acorn inside it,' explained the past Opal. 'You can barely see it, but it's in there. I robbed it from Holly Short along with her LEP gear. I can only guess that this is to keep the acorns fresh so you can complete the Ritual at a later date, and a genius like me is hardly likely to be wrong.'

Fairies were bound to certain laws and rituals that were written in their Bible known simply as the Book of the People. One of these rituals allows fairies to replenish their magic by picking an acorn from an ancient oak tree and burying it far away.

'There's a pot of earth here so you can bury the acorn,' said Opal the younger. 'You place it in, and you'll be running hot in no time. Then we can make our escape.'

The present Opal smashed the plexiglass sphere against the worktop and picked up the acorn from the small pile of earth.

Then she placed the acorn in the pot of earth while reciting the ancient words necessary to complete the Ritual. 'I return you to the earth, and claim the gift that is my right.' Not exactly the most phenomenal choice of words, but it got the message through.

Then jolts of magic flowed like electricity through Opal's arm, empowering her until she was full to the brim with magic. Sparks flashed and fizzled all over Opal, driving out the human hormones that had humanised her. The magic restored the sheen to her hair and brightened the devious twinkle in Opal's eyes to a radiant lust for power that could light up the darkest cave like a disco.

'There. Now, on to our escape plan,' said the past Opal.

She walked over to a metal barrel with an oxygen tube sticking out of the side. Opal opened up the lid to reveal a pair of long horns that looked like they could easily gut a pig. Attached to the horns was a muscled creature with skin the colour of moon-dust and a head like a gargoyle lying in a thick liquid the present Opal recognised as animal fat.

Animal fat enchanted with hexes was an ancient way of suppressing a fairy's magic, making it much easier to imprison them. Humans had used this method millenia ago to capture members of the People. This trick was quickly adapted by ancient fairy police forces as a last resort to contain dangerous criminals, but it was soon deemed too cruel to both animal and fairy alike and was outlawed.

'Allow me to introduce you to Qweffor,' said the past Opal. 'He is a former apprentice of Qwan himself, but has since completed his training and is now a fully fledged demon warlock. I ran into him on purpose at a speed-dating event and used my powers to mesmerize him. I can have complete control over him within a twenty metre radius. Even with solid objects acting as barricades. Now, it is time to put him to use.'

The past Opal then summoned her magic and in a voice as beautiful as the stars in a clear night sky, gave Qweffor his orders.

' Step out of the barrel, Qweffor, and stand over there, ' said the past Opal in a purely irresistible voice.

Qweffor then zombie-walked over to the spot Opal had indicated, trailing animal fat in his wake. Above the spot was a large tank of water the past Opal had prepared. She pulled a rope attached to a small hatch on the tank, and two gallons of water fell from it, completely washing away the fat from Qweffor. She then took a syringe gun from the medi-kit on the table and injected what looked like water into the demon's arm.

'Spring water from the fairy well sixty metres below the ring of Tara,' explained the past Opal. 'It will counteract the fat and the hexes and have his magic up and running again in no time.'

Within seconds of saying it, blue sparks came erupting through Qweffor's body, driving out the last remains of the hex stirred into the fat.

'Perfect,' said the past Opal. 'Just one more use of the mesmer and we'll both be back in the past, ready to foil the LEP's attack against us.'

'About that...' said the present Opal, 'I do not wish to return to the past.'

The past Opal's face was one mixed of fury and confusion. 'What? I've been planning this for three months! I've been working out every little detail since I first found out you- I was imprisoned.'

'Calm down. It is a minor alteration. Instead of us both going into the past, you will return to your time, and I shall go to the future.'

'Excuse me?!' said the past Opal in a hysterical voice.

'There is no time for argument. The LEP know we are here and will no doubt be banging down that door any second. You have learned about everything Artemis Fowl and the LEP did to stop my plan. So you must return to the past and I must go to the year 14,016. Trust me. I know what I'm doing.'

The past Opal let out an aggravated groan before saying 'Fine!' in a most irritated manner. 'I'll send you to the-'

'Opal Kobois,' said an amplified voice from outside. 'This is Commander Trouble Kelp of the LEP. We have the warehouse surrounded and every exit covered. Come out with your hands up in the next twenty seconds or we will enter the premises and take you in by force.'

Outside the warehouse, roughly eighty LEP officers were armed with Neutrinos and buzz batons in body-armour were ready to kick down the door to the place and go in all guns blazing, but the past Opal had powers that could fry them like flies in a bug zapper, so they had to be cautious.

'D'Arvit!' swore the two Opals simultaneously.

'Quickly!' said the past Opal to her future counterpart. 'Get in position!'

The present Opal stood in front of Qweffor. Her younger version giving her instructions.

'Just concentrate on the time and place you want to go and the time-tunnel will do the rest. Don't worry. Now that you have your powers back, it should be an easy matter.'

The present Opal nodded, not trusting herself to speak. After all, genius like that was bound to catch on eventually.

Qweffor's eyes closed and power crackled across his talons and horns in the shape of cyan lightning bolts while his power surged. When his eyes opened, they were pure crimson. His power was ready for the time-travelling process.

Because of the mesmer, Qweffor had virtually no hold over his magic and the past Opal, even with her advanced magic, had never handled power like this before and volts of electricity sparked off in various directions.

Outside, the LEP watched this spectacle in awe, unsure what was going on and how to plan their next move.

This was perfect for the two Opals. It gave them the time they need to travel to the past and future.

The past Opal then focused for all she was worth (in her opinion) and twin beams of scarlet energy shot out from Qweffor's eyes at the present Opal, sending her into the future. Where the pixie had once been was a ghost image of herself which lasted for barely a second before flying away into the surrounding air.

The past Opal took up her future self's position and readied herself. This was where things went incredibly bad for her.

Black canisters roughly the size of spray paint cans then came rushing through the already broken windows, and crashing into the ones still intact. These canisters were sonix grenades that generated sound waves that disoriented anyone within a twenty foot radius. This was generally used in hostage situations when someone was holding another fairy under their control using the mesmer so they would do harm to themselves, or worse. The grenades would disrupt a fairy's concentration and thus either allow the hostage to regain their senses and run for it or give the authorities the chance to slap a pair of handcuffs on the perp.

Opal collapsed to the ground, her ear drums aching from the pain of being on the edge of rupturing.

Qweffor blinked away the last traces of the mesmer, completely in control of himself. He summoned a wall of magic in his ear lobes to protect the drums. Then he saw Opal and he knew what he had to do, as Qwan had been instructed to by the LEP not long ago.

He grabbed the tiny pixie by the shoulders with his powerful arms and gazed into her eyes. Twin beams of cardinal magic erupted from his eyeballs and laced their way through Opal's eye sockets just as the LEP came charging in.

Qweffor was wiping the past Opal's memory of the past few months so that she would remember nothing of her trip to the future. When he was finished, a flash of light from his eyes sent her back to her proper time with only a passing ghost image to show where she'd stood.

With his free will restored and job done, Qweffor fainted from exhaustion and was soon making more noise than a legion of chainsaws with his snores.

Fowl To The Future
POLICE PLAZA, WAITING ROOM ONE, OUTSIDE THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS

It had been two days since the present Opal Koboi's escape and the city of Haven was running smoothly again, though all the authorities were thoroughly panicked now that public enemy number one was back on the loose.

Nani Bayle had been found stuffed in a closet in Police Plaza and revealed that the past Opal had come up to her disguised as Holly Short and ordered her to go into the closet using the mesmer. She had hacked into the identification software installed in the suit she'd stolen from Holly and a hair from her recovered helmet to fool the DNA scanners to get into Police Plaza. She had then stole Nani's own LEP gear once she was trapped, dressed up in it and then used her shape-shifting powers to give herself Nani's features and appearance after pulling a couple of hairs out.

Now they knew how the past Opal had got in they could shut down the alert and get things running normally. Security had been beefed up now that hair strands had been deemed too easy to steal and were now running all DNA tests by surliva swab.

On the bright side, Qweffor had woken up late last night and had given a detailed explanation to the agents at Section 8 guarding him, and was due to repeat his tale before the Council today so a Retrieval operation could be planned.

Holly Short currently sat outside the Council Chambers with her commanding officer, waiting to be admmitted.

Her superior, Commander Kelp, famous for choosing the name 'Trouble' at his graduation ceremony, stood stiffly next to the bench Holly was sitting at. He'd been promoted to commander in the three years Holly had been away. Some said he was channelling the spirit of Julius Root and there was currently an office pool going on how long it would take before his face started going scarlet and he began having temper tantrums.

'Feeling OK, Captain?' he asked. This was a rare moment of comfort for him these days. He'd been a good friend to Holly over the years, but he'd become much more stiff in how he treated her and his comrades now that he was their commanding superior.

'Yeah. Just a little nervous,' she said. 'It's like being on trial in there, and not just because of the set-up.'

'Well, keep your chin up and your back straight going in there,' Trouble ordered. 'Show 'em you're confident in yourself or you'll never get on the mission. And a recon officer not being part of a retrieval operation is a slap in the face to your badge.'

'Yessir. Will do, sir.'

A large gnome in a blue uniform then came through the large false wooden entrance to the Council Chambers.

'Commander Kelp. Captain Short. The Council will see you now,' he said.

Before going in, Commander Kelp took on a more pleasant and kindly expression and turned to his officer.

'Don't worry, Holly,' he said, sounding much more like a friend that a commander. 'You'll get your chance to get even. How can they refuse you after all the experience you've had with Koboi?'

Holly gave her thanks with a confident look in the eye and a firm nod. The two then entered the Council Chambers side-by-side.

The chambers were similar to a courtroom in terms of furniture and arrangement, with the chairman at a large stand on his own and all the other members sitting off to the left on raised seats like a jury, whilst non-Council members sat at one of the two tables in view of them all. There were also six rows of seats behind these tables for seating at larger conferences.

Chairman Cahartez sat at the stand, his official conical hat perched on his head. He pushed a button on the stand and buzzed for attention. Hammers weren't used anymore. Except for the last Christmas party when Cahartez had decided to come as a nutcracker. Unfortunately, few fairies celebrated Christmas and even fewer knew much about it, so Cahartez just used his imagination and brought with him a large mallet for work. The stand had needed mending twice that day.

'Please be seated,' said Cahartez, indicating towards one of the two tables.

The two officers took up their chairs and made eye contact as much as possible with their superiors. Holly spotted Vinyáya with her silver hair among them, and the wing commander risked an encouraging wink.

A female official in a dark grey suit walked up to the table and activated a digital voice recorder on it.

'You are Captain Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police Reconaissince unit. Correct?'

'Yes I am, miss.'

'And you are Commander Trubbadias Jupard Kelp of the of the Lower Elements Police Reconaissince unit. Correct?'

Trouble blushed slightly. His real name was rarely brought up, and whenever it was it received a fit of giggles from his fellow officers before Trouble shot them a threatening glare.

'Yes I am,' he said.

'Do you both swear on the Book of the People that you shall tell no lie within these walls?'

'I do,' they both said simultaneously.

The official returned to her seat and Chairman Cahartez took over from her.

'Before action can be taken to deal with Opal Koboi, we must determine our course. We have to know everything that went on, so we must ask you to be present while our main witness repeats his account, Commander Kelp. It is most vital that you listen too, Captain Short. You might be able to shed some light on the matter considering your experience with Miss Koboi.'

Cahartez then looked at Vinyáya and gave a single nod. The wing commander then addressed the gnome that had fetched Holly and Trouble.

'Mr. Gabole, please bring in the trio of demons waiting outside.'

Gabole then hurried to the door leading to Waiting Room Two and brought with him three gargoyle-like creatures. One was siginifacntly larger than the others but showed respect towards the eldest of the group while ruffling the bald head of the smallest creature. These three were Qweffor, Qwan and Nº1, the last three remaining demon warlocks in existence.

Qweffor was larger because of his warped body. Demons usually reached adulthood from being covered in a thick slime that caused them to reach adulthood or 'warp' within several hours. This didn't apply to warlocks as warping was brought on bloodlust and they were peaceful creatures, but Qweffor had been trapped inside the body of a warped demon called Abbot when he tried to kill a group of demon warlocks trying to remove their island from Earth and into Limbo. Qweffor had been stuck in the back Abbot's mind for years, a very dull place to say the least. Finally, Qweffor was freed from Abbot's control and the demon's mind had been transferred to the body of a ginny pig. The scientists studying the strange specimen often threw in toy swords or axes when solving quantum therums became a bit too dull for their taste.

Qweffor approached the speaker's stand next to Chairman Cahartez's, Qwan and Nº1 giving him encouraging looks as he went along.

'This situation is a desperate one,' he said, frankly. 'Koboi is a great risk to the people and must be located. I am giving you permission, Commander Kelp, to put together a crack team of your best men to find her.'

'But how, sir? We have no idea how to track her,' said Trouble.

Wing Commander Vinyáya then coughed before speaking up. 'We have that covered. Computer, activate monitor 002. Bring up link Atlantis Fairy Troll Sprite-001.'

Three sneezes. That's the signal! thought Doodah from his hiding place before giving the order aloud. 'Now, Mulch, go! Ride like the wind that flows out your-'

'I get the picture!' said Mulch hurriedly. Even dwarfs didn't like talking about that specific subject if they could avoid it.

A few years ago, Artemis had arranged a business meeting with the owner of a multinational communications company with mob connections and Butler had accompanied him. The meeting had turned into an incident that almost cost Butler his life, but thanks to Artemis's quick thinking and Holly Short's magical healing powers, Butler survived to fight another day. But Butler's body was forced to also contribute, and gave fifteen years of his life energy to help him heal. So Butler, at the age of forty-four, now had the physical make-up of a sixty-year-old man. Granted, a sixty-year-old man with the stature of a mountian gorilla, but age does terrible things to a body, and it most certainly had done in Butler's case.

The bodyguard had alerted his sensei Madame Ko to his predicament during his three-year-wait for Artemis's return using the excuse that the years were catching up to him. She had recommended a routine of diet and exercise she'd learned from an old Tibetan man that would make Butler feel as if he were thirty years younger. The Tibetan man was currently ninty-seven and was living in Jamaica for the tropical fruit. Every day he would climb up banana trees for food and would knock down coconuts and crack them open with his head for drink. His body was as youthful as that of a twenty-year-old, but he often suffered from terrible headaches due to the coconuts. And aspirin was hard to come by in the tropical islands.

The dieting was easy enough. All Butler needed was the necessary fruits and vegetables and a few ancient herbs mixed into a protein shake. It was the exercise that was the tough part.

A normal person at Butler's age might have a little trouble with exercising, but for the manservant it was terrible. Especially when jogging or on the treadmill. Another thing happened to Butler when Holly had healed him. She had accidentally replicated some kevlar fibres from Butler's bullet proof vest that had sunk into the gunshot wound that had nearly killed him, and now his breathing was constricted and a fifteen minute jog now seemed like a marathon for the Eurasian. But apart from that, everything was A-OK.

Butler had stuck to this routine of diet and exercise for the past three years. He hadn't felt so alive since Holly had saved him from a troll's attack. Right now, he felt as if he could take on a dozen trolls. Not necessarily in medieval armour though. Perhaps if he just had a really big machine gun.

'Complete genius, wouldn't you say, old friend?'

'Indeed, Artemis. It looks like we can now add Dr. Emmett J. Brown to your long list of aliases,' said Butler with the merest hint of humour in his voice.

'Oh, I'm so proud of my little smarty Arty!' said Angeline, and she hugged her son tighly.

Inside the embrace, Artemis frowned deeply. He hadn't been called 'smarty Arty' since he was seven when he'd passed his first nuclear physics test.

Holly secured herself in the pilot's seat while Doodah took up the position of co-pilot. It made sense. Though Doodah was an excellent driver and could operate anything with a working engine, Holly was built for flying. An analogy between the two of them would be like comparing a claw hammer to a nail gun. A hammer is good for a fair few jobs around the house, but a nail gun was built for precision and did its job better than any other tool could.

Artemis On The Hunt
Butler put on a trench coat that, surprisingly, hid a vast amount of his bulky frame and a cloth cap atop his head.

'How do I look?' he asked.

'Like a tall Del Boy,' said Holly, barely concealing her fit of giggles.

'Thanks.'

Butler was out searching in the city of Soleanna for the next several hours, leaving his comrades to sit in the ship and develop cramp. It was worst for Mulch, who got up and walked around every few minutes in fear that his lower half would get numb, and when you're a dwarf in the tunneling business, a numb bottom could prove fatal during mining "procedures".

Holly decided to pass the time with some conversation, so she asked Artemis a simple question to get them started.

'How's life?' she asked.

'...What?' asked Artemis. The boy had been dropping off when Holly had blurted out her question. You couldn't blame him for dozing off. They'd all been getting tired. Artemis deserved it especially. The Irish youth had not had a good night's sleep since his mother became Opal's unwilling slave.

'How's life?' Holly repeated. 'Anything new?'

'Not recently.' Artemis then thought for a moment or two before smiling at a memory and speaking up. 'Although, there is this one incident that's amusing to look back on. Before mother got ill, she sent me off for a week at a normal school for a trial run. I tried to make some friends there, nobody on my intelligence level, of course. Especially the physics professor. Most of the equations he gave to us didn't make sense and several times I had to correct him. He said it was the first time in twenty years anybody had corrected him. Not surprisng, really. Every other student there was barely able to grasp the subject. Anyway, I was talking with this girl and mentioned I liked opera. Her reply was, "Oh, I love her show too!" The scatter-brained Delinquent thought I was talking about some American talk-show host called Oprah Winfrey.'

After having a bit of a giggle over this, Holly asked Artemis another question. 'Finally started talking to girls your own age then?'

'Not in that sense. The girl in particular was the boyfriend of an exchange student I thought was stealing from my locker. I was making casual conversation to find out more about him.'

'And you thought talking to a teenage girl about opera was casual?'

Artemis shrugged. 'It seemed reasonable at the time. Though that was before I realised how low on the IQ scale she was. Anyway, instead of trying to catch the culprit, I came up with the more effective solution of having Butler escort me to school. Butler eyed the crowd there in his usual terrifying glare, the thief panicked and my belongings were returned to my locker before the bell rang.'

'Because of Butler? He's scary and all, but you've faced worse.'

'You're comparing a criminal mastermind to a teenager reduced to stealing from lockers so he can get his hands on the latest computer games,' said Artemis, his eyebrow raised. 'Surely you think better of me than that, Holly.'

'A thief's a thief no matter the crime. You still steal things. Just things that could buy you all of Ubisoft instead of one of their video games.'

Their playful conversation was interrupted by a burst of sound on the shuttle's communicator. Butler was on the other end.

'Artemis!' he cried out. Through the fairy speaker, it sounded as if the manservant was actually in the room with them. 'I've got her!'

'You've captured Opal?' asked Holly.

'No, but I've got her in my sights,' replied the bodyguard. It was now night time in Soleanna and the streets were packed with people due to some sort of local festival. Stone torches lit up the streets to give the city a feel of how it was like six hundred years ago when it was first built.

Opal was moving her way through the crowds, trying not to attract too much attention to herself, but the bodyguard had once spotted an assassin at a rock concert while protecting the teenage daughter of a British lord. It had been easy, really. The man had made no attempts to blend in whatsoever. He hadn't even dyed his hair some bright colour, for heaven's sake.

Butler jumped on to a particularly large boat resplendent with dancing girls, and startled many of them, but they did not let out screams as to alert the authorities.

'Never a gondola around when you need one,' said Butler, matter-of-factly, and jumped off the opposite end of the boat and on to left side of the canal.

'Hey, big guy, you know that those big stone things called bridges work too, right?' said Mulch. The spout of humour was the dwarf's way of concealing stress. If Opal got away now, things could get really bad really quickly.

'Argh! Aliens!' screamed the solider. Two illegal immigrants ran for it on the spot.

Crashing The Casino
'Anything else I can take with me?'

'Nothing much. Although, there are these.'

Holly pulled out from the kit two gloves that looked like a pair of human hands. But there was something odd about them. The palms, for example, were

'Gloves made out of memory latex,' explained Holly. 'They have an added middle layer of impact-gel inside them to cushion blows you receive. They're also fire proof and heat resistant. Fairy fire fighters use entire suits made out of this stuff when looking for civilians inside burning buildings. You could punch a wall of solid steel wearing this stuff and your hand wouldn't even have a scrape. They're brilliant for fist-fights. Professional boxers even use them they work so well.'

'Handy,' admitted the manservant.

'Please tell me that gag wasn't intentional.'

'Anything to drink, sir?'

'Yes. Err... Do you have a rum and coke?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I'll have one of those without the rum in.'

'So... Just coke then?'

'Well, yes. I suppose you're right. I've been ordering those wrong for years.'

'What was that about?'

'I was acting stupid, Artemis. The latest infiltration techniques show that people tend to let their guard down when around someone who they think can't threaten them. Thus, I act stupid so it seems I am a complete imbecile so I won't arouse suspicion.'

'But you are acting like a maniac who will be arousing men in white coats with butterfly nets. Stop it at once.'

Mogul was in his office sitting at his desk, throwing Oakmund cookies to Ixis Naugus tucked away in his basket in the corner when Coconuts came crashing in with the light on his head flashing.

'Mister Mogul! Mister Mogul!' he said urgently. 'The Crabmeat at the bar just saw this big human going for a gun when he got spooked by the laser blasts. He thinks it could be someone from G.U.N., sir.'

'Preposterous,' said Mogul. 'A representative of the Guardian Units of the Nation would bear knowledge of the satellite laser testing grounds, and would therefore remain calm in their presence. Unless they issued a consummate dilettante to observe me, which I find dubious. Even the humans are not that incompetent.'

Coconuts's headlight flashed again as he had an idea. Well, a new thought. But to the mechanical monkey it was an idea, and those did not come along very often.

'But it could be someone else, sir,' he said. 'There have been a lot of bounty hunters after you. What if this human is another one?'

'For once, Coconuts, your train of thought actually wields intellectual results. I shall deal with the depilated apes myself.'

'He's much more than an ape, sir. From how the Crabmeat described him, he's more of a gorilla.' Coconuts smiled. He'd said 'described'. He was picking up more and more big words from Mr. Mogul.

'Greetings, my human friends. I trust you are procuring an exuberant time at my petite establishment?' said the mammoth.

'Why, veritably,' said Artemis, eager to engage in a verbal battle. 'The amusement of the gamble is most joyous, the pabulum delectable and the entertainment meritorious. This entire establishment is to be exalted.'

In the LEP shuttle outside the casino, Holly turned on her translator.

'Ha ha! At last, an individual in possession of a vocabulary tantamount to mine. I have to resort to using the words of a commoner so these uneducated rubes can even comprehend me. But what of my decorum? I am Mammoth Mogul, manager and owner of this establishment. Do tell to as to your own identity?'

'Henry Wahl. Or H. Adrian S. Wahl as I'm often credited.' Artemis had used this alias several times to deliver papers in various archaeological magazines. Most recently he had submitted a lecture on Egyptian hieroglyphics to The Trowel regarding a mis-translation he'd discovered that could render everything learned from hieroglyphics as worthless. The ancient Egyptians had based their language on Gnommish, the fairy tongue, and according to Artemis's translation, what most archaeologists believed to be the tale of a powerful curse actually said, "To get to next lavatory, go two floors up and take a right as the third sarcophagus."

Typical, thought Artemis. No matter where you go, there's always some titchy idiot pointing a gun at you.

'What's with the car?' Sally asked Shadow.

'New G.U.N. make. It's a battle vehicle with strong armour and twin missile launchers on the sides. We're testing it in fake war zones right now, but we'll be giving it a trial run for car chasing at the Station Square Annual Motor Derby next week.'

'Oh yeah. Rotor said he was going to try out something of his own there too. Now that I think about it, Amy was also talking about the race. But hey, A five thousand credit prize is a hard thing to pass up.'

'I guess. We only get to keep half of the money if we win, which we'll split between us. The other half goes to G.U.N. to help with the war effort.'

'Nice to see you're thinking about others.'

'Ha!' piped up Rouge. 'We have to donate half of the money if we want to use the car. I'd spend it all on this diamond necklace I've got my eyes on if I had it.'

Shadow just shook his head with the ghost of an amused smile on his face. 'Some things never change...'

'Age before beauty,' said Rouge curtly to Shadow.

Shadow then went first and he and Rouge followed the princess inside without a problem, but Omega was too big to get through the door.

'Oh, sorry, Omega. We made the entrances smaller so that Mobians could get in, but not any of Eggman's robots,' explained Sally.

'You really are taking every little precaution,' noted Rouge. 'Making the doors smaller. You must have been thinking of everything that Eggman could dish out and how to stop it.'

'I have. But once we've finished here, a small door will be the last thing that amazes you. Come on, you two.'

'Hang on,' said Shadow in his usual grumpy demeanor. 'Omega, please give me your arm,' the hedgehog instructed, clutching Omega's arm by the thin part attaching the arm to Omega's shoulder. The arm was then released with a pneumatic hiss and Shadow caught it in his hand before it dropped to the floor.

'Omega's arms can be detached from his body,' Shadow explained, a touch unnecessarily. 'You can then carry the arms around as your own personal weapons. If you have the strength, of course. You just twist the spikes on the wrist to switch between weapons and to fire.'

'That's the second time I've been reduced to so much charcoal in twenty-four hours!'

Butler's gun hand drew his modified Neutrino 2000 faster than Mulch confronted with a bar of soap. He took aim at Nack and fired the Neutrino within a flash. This caught the weasel completely off guard and the beam stunned him before his eyes had time to widen.

Butler was about to fire on the Destructix when a metal hand grabbed him by his gun arm. It was a SWATbot in nothing but the top half of a black suit. The SWATbot pulled the Neutrino out of Butler's hand with surprising strength and threw it right across the room. The SWATbot then raised its arm and Butler could clearly see a building laser beam from the top of the robot's wrist.

'Surrender,' it said the utterings of a cheap radio.

Butler promptly batted the robot's arm aside and knocked its head clean off with one swift punch.

Drago threw a punch at Butler, but the bodyguard caught it easily and then pressed his thumb to a specific area of the neck that would render Drago unconscious. But the wolf was still standing.

Drago then attempted a spinning kick at Butler's chest, which was the highest point he could hope to reach. Butler blocked, then tried another pressure point, but still had no luck. The wolf's anatomy appeared to be different to that of a human. But Butler had one trump card that was guaranteed to work.

The Eurasian forced Drago back a few yards with a quick push, then the wolf came charging at him. Just before Drago was within Butler's kicking distance, the bodyguard drew back his leg and threw a well aimed kick at the area underneath Drago's stomach. Paralysis due to excrutiating pain was immediate.

'Where'd you learn those moves from?' growled Sergeant Simian.

'My sensei.'

Butler then grabbed the gorilla and lifted him above his head and started spinning him with his hands. Once the Destructix member was dizzy enough, Butler grabbed him by the ammo belt slung across his chest and spun in a circle, building up momentum and let go before he lost his balance, sending the gorilla flying into Flying Frog and Lightning Lynx.

'That I learned from my sister,' said Butler once the room had stopped spinning.

Butler grabbed the dial of his watch and then tugged out a line of garrotte wire with a sound like dental floss being pulled from its container. He quickly made the wire into a loop and placed it around Sleuth's neck.

'Don't move, or your buddy gets it!'

The rest of the Destructix froze on the spot, while Artemis merely rolled his eyes at the clichéd statement. Don't move, or your buddy gets it! Honestly.

'You really do enjoy yourself too much on our little excursions,' Artemis commented drily.

'Mister Mogul is particularly intelligent, though it is little surprise. If mammoth brains are any similar to those of elephants, then I should expect such mentality. As you know, old friend, elephants have the largest brains of all land animals and are on par with primates on the intellectual scale.'

'Urgh... You reckon that egg-head will still pay us for the job?'

'No way! And I'm not going back to find out. The last time we were alone with the maniac, we walked out as shiny and metal as my coffee pot!'

An Opal For An Emerald
'OK, guys,' said Sally. 'Here's our mission. Two nights ago when Sonic and I were on our honeymoon, NICOLE sent out some spy-eyes to check up on Eggman, and she found some things that I'm concerned about.'

Spy-eyes was the term the Freedom Fighters used for the hovering nanite-powered cameras NICOLE had made. They were based on designs made by Robotnik Prime that NICOLE had found on previous adventures with the Freedom Fighters. She had discovered blue-prints Robotnik had made for devices called Surveillance Orbs but never put them into production and saved them. After New Mobotropolis was created, NICOLE had decided to make her own version of the Surveillance Orbs using nanites as power-sources.

'The spy-eyes went to Eggman's Iron Jungle base above Eggman's underground factory called the Lava Shelter, only to find that the facility has grown significantly and is being called the Egg Factory,' continued Sally. 'In just two weeks, Eggman has used the Egg Factory to make more robots and build a new city called Metropolis and the Iron Jungle now acts as a sort of defensive network for the Egg Factory. You have to get through Iron Jungle and all the robot guards to get to the factory. This place is making 'bots by the second. NICOLE's spy-eyes saw them being spewed out faster than you could believe. This means his robot-creating machines have become much more faster and efficient, and he could probably have an army ready to take over the entire planet within hours.'

This part caught everybody's attention, especially Opal's.

'What is even scarier is that one of the spy-eyes caught Eggman putting in plans for another one of his battle mechs. All he did was put in the plans he'd made, and within minutes the thing was complete. The mech was called the Egg Mammoth and we know little of its abilities, but you can be sure Eggman will put it to use soon. We've got to destroy the Egg Factory at any cost.'

Rouge raised a hand in question. 'Princess, would you care to explain just how the creation of an entire city went unnoticed?' she asked. 'I haven't heard anything about this, and G.U.N.'s satellites would have picked it up.'

'I have no idea how he managed to keep this a secret. I can only guess he used some sort of cloaking technology. Maybe Eggman made a force-field that could bend light so we couldn't see it with the naked eye or satellite. I guess we just got lucky with NICOLE's probes. The Council of Acorn is fully behind us on this one, so we don't have to worry about any trouble from them. They want this place destroyed as much as we do.'

Butler then walked up to him and bumped into the crocodile with his shoulder.

'Why don't you watch where you're going?' Butler yelled.

'Hey, you're the one that bumped into me, Gramps!' said Vector.

'You're the one that bumped into me, you over-grown handbag!'

'Watch it, buddy, or I'll put your head between my jaws and bite down. Hard!'

'Oh! Does the croc' with the big mouth want a fight?' Butler was getting Vector so worked up that Foaly would have been proud had he been there to witness it.

'That's it! You're going down, pal!'

'OK. I always did want to Crocodile Wrestle,' said Butler and removed his trench coat, revealing a chest rivaling Mammoth Mogul's. 'Come on, scale-face. My sister's birthday's coming up, and I want to give her a pair of crocodile-skin shoes as a present.'

Vector had had enough, and charged at Butler, as did the Eurasian so that they were soon locked in a battle of strength. Each trying to overpower the other. Soon there were Mobians, Overlanders and humans of all kinds placing bets on the crocodile and manservant for who would win. A couple of "Mes Braves" Battalion soldiers saw all the commotion and considered stopping it, but who was going to get in the way of an over two-metre tall human and a near six-foot crocodile who both had chests roughly the size of houses?

Butler quickly moved between the buildings for cover, and when he was close enough, ran straight for the armed buggy Team Dark had come in and jumped into it. He didn't even need to hot-wire the car. The keys were still in the ignition.

Butler floored the accelerator and the car zoomed off towards the Egg Mammoth with surprising speed.

The buggy was armed with twin missile launchers for these kinds of situations, but Butler didn't know this. He did, however, spot a red button with the word 'boost' on the gear stick, and pressed it when he was only two metres away from the Egg Mammoth and jumped out of the car.

The force of the car ramming into the mech caused the Egg Mammoth to lose its balance and topple over onto the ground, shaking the earth on impact.

Butler then walked over, yanked Eggman out of the cockpit and behind the overturned Egg Mammoth to give them both some cover from Opal.

Eggman surreptitiously activated his glasses' sytems by caressing their rims. The dictator then issued a series of blinks, flitting through the various filters until he finally came across the power level analyser and disgnostic settings. As he observed the data, Eggman let out a vicious smile tinted with the genius's madness. This little girl had enough power in her body to run an army of Egg Fighters. Shame all the working Egg Grapes were occupied at the moment. He'd have to dump some of the contents into the lava of his Egg Factory to make room.

Eggman then did a run for the Egg Mobile and jumped into it with a 'Yosh!'

'I caught the little Freedom Fighter! Ha ha ha ha!'

Omnipitent Opal
'Seen this one in a Bond movie, big man?' asked Holly.

'Bond movie? I haven't even seen anything like this in Star Wars.'

'Butler', called Artemis with a touch of excitement in his voice. 'You must see this. The DNA analysis shows that these "Mobians" are a mixture of human and animal DNA merged. From my gatherings over this world's cyberspace, an attack was made roughly twelve thousand years ago by an alien species called the Xorda. They sent word to the humans of the attack, and then bombarded the entire planet with these weapons called Gene Bombs which destroyed most of the planet and wiped out millions of people a few decades later.'

'Why did they wait so long to attack?' asked the manservant.

'I can't be certain, but I believe they delayed their assault so they could see the weapons the humans would use to defend themselves, and when they'd waited long enough and the people of the world let their guard down, they launched the Gene Bombs. But somehow the bombs' mutated the creatures of the animal kingdom into sentient beings thanks to human DNA merging with theres. It enhanced their intellect so much that they've even surpassed humans in terms of intelligence. Astounding.'

'That's all well and good, Artemis,' said Holly from the front of the ship. 'But right now Opal Koboi is running off with a self-absorbed dictator bent on world domination.'

'A match made in heaven if there ever was one,' Artemis commented drily. His sense of humour had the aggravating habit of coming to the fore whenever the situation was at its most stressful.

Dr. Eggman sat in the main laboratory of the Egg Factory with Opal, looking over the new robot just manufactured. Its skinny body was covered from top to bottom in white and black armour, and had a head shaped like a Frisbee with a single optic eye. Its armaments consisted of a missile launcher on its right arm and a machine gun on the left. It also came with a jet engine in its back for hovering. Eggman couldn't help but admire the handiwork and great craftsmanship of the design, and this was only one of four models.

'I must say, Miss Koboi,' said Eggman, 'these new modifications to my Egg Gunner designs are brilliant. And you made the perfect models for my Egg Rollers idea in no time at all. You're an evil genius after my own heart. And I must also thank you for your contribution to my little side-project.'

'The new design is rather splendid, not to mention the SCR-GPs, or "Egg Rollers" as you call them. And Operation: Eggstermination seems rather promising also. But there's no chance of it working unless you get the other necessities,' said Opal while filing her nails.

'Don't you worry about them. My Egg Cruiser will soon be ready and I can collect the Destructicite crystals from Mobius's asteroid belt. With them, Operation: Eggstermination can't fail. The Eggman Empire will be all powerful again, and I shall rule it all from right here in Metropolis. I think I shall destroy one of the continents when that happens, build a new glorious vast city from the ashes and christen it Egg Capital as a gift for myself. Or better yet, ha ha ha, pave over the entire world and turn it into the Egg Planet. My own glorious world with an all-powerful army of robots serving my every whim with that Hedgehog behind bars, living for the sole purpose of giving me entertainment by being tortured or humiliated whenever world domination starts to get boring.'

Opal smiled an evil smile at the Doctor's view of the future. He may be deranged, but his ideas and future schemes were so deliciously good that she herself could have thought of them. And when she got back to her world and conquered it, she would make it seem that she did think of them.

Snively took that moment to walk in and deliver some news to his adoptive uncle.

'Sir, satellites show that something is heading towards Metropolis at high speed. It must be the Hedgehog and his friends, sir.'

'Now, now, incompetent lackey,' said Opal in a voice as if talking to a disobedient child. 'It is ma'am and sir now that I am here with your uncle.'

'Ooh... I'd like to give you such a whack you witch!' muttered Snively to himself as he walked away.

'What was that!?' said Opal, furious.

'I said "I think on my back, there's an itch",' said Snively and proceeded to try and scratch himself in a place he'd never been able to reach.

'Long time no see, rodent! What do you think of these brilliant new robots Miss Koboi designed?' Eggman asked. 'Their inner-workings are absolutely spectacular! Their armour is made of a newly discovered metal found by my grand empire known as Eggamantium; The strongest metal on Mobius. And let's not forget the best part about these babies; They have such great computing and battle situation protocols that they make your wife's NICOLE look like a pocket calculator. They're smart, smart enough to out-think you and your little band of renegades with the utmost precision, Sonic.'

'We'll see about that, Eggman!' said Sonic, tauntingly. 'Your new hardware's smart enough, but let's see if they're fast enough.'

Sonic zoomed off, leaving his friends to their own fights. He moved at supersonic speed through the city of Metropolis, being careful to avoid rivers of acid and patrolling robots. The Egg Gunners followed with their jets at full speed and they're guns working at maximum power. It was already pain-stakingly obvious that Sonic was faster than them.

Sonic ran up to a wall and jumped on to it, then sprung right back off, causing the robots to slam into the solid wall at full speed and explode. If they had been going slower, they might have been able to pull up, but Sonic had made sure to make them go at maximum speed for his plan to work.

'You were saying about your robots being smart, doc?' said Sonic with his trademark grin.

Eggman let out a burst of hysterical laughter. 'Don't get cocky yet, my spiny friend. They weren't meant to catch you. They were meant to lure you in.'

Sonic bent his knees a little at this, ready to spring into action. His choice was a wise one, as in less than a second three white robots in the shape of wheels burst out from various buildings and were in hot pursuit of Sonic.

The hedgehog moved at high speed to avoid them, but these robots were fast. Incredibly fast, fast enough to catch Sonic.

One of them got to within a metre of Sonic, and it then transformed in mid-roll and then began to fly in order to stay close to the hedgehog. The robot had a single red eye that locked on to Sonic. It had large metal feet that were painted gold and had long, thin golden arms like pipes that ended in three black, metal fingers that reached out for Sonic.

Sonic turned around so he was running backwards, stuck out his tongue and pulled at his eye, making a very insulting face. The Egg Roller attempted to grab Sonic, but the hedgehog jumped out of grabbing distance and leaped on to the robot's head right in front of its eye.

The robot was now blinded and was trying desperately to grab Sonic. Its two comrades then transformed and went into hover mode to grab Sonic, but the hedgehog managed to avoid them. The two robots then climbed on to their comrade in order to capture Sonic, and that was when he put his plan into action.

Sonic jumped off of the Egg Roller with such force that it went face first into the ground, and then bounced back off of it again and again until if finally landed in a river of acid along with its comrades. The robots were devoured by the river of green acid within less than a minute.

Butler fired a few charges from his Neutrino 2000 on the nearest Egg Gunner, and it began to spark upon impact as the charge made its way through the robot's body and fried all its inner circuitry.

Apparently, Butler thought, Eggamantium conducts neutrino charges. Perhaps my luck is changing. Then another Egg Gunner launched a rocket that was aimed for Butler's legs, but it hit the floor just as Butler moved out of the way and he was flung from his feet by the force of the explosion. Nope. Still bad as ever.

Omega opened the panel on the top of his arm, revealing what Butler recognised as a Heckler & Koch UMP with .45ACP ammo. Omega fired the weapon, sending a bullet roughly the size of a man's fingertip hurtling towards the nearest Egg Gunner at quite a pace. The bullet impacted and caused damage to the robot's torso, but it wasn't down yet. Another two shots finished the job and Omega moved on to the next unfortunate automaton.

'Allow me to introduce myself. I am Artemis Fowl II, former criminal mastermind and a being who shall haunt your worst and darkest nightmares for years to come,' said Artemis, and went into a small bow while simultaneously giving Eggman his best vampire-like smile.

'Surrender, girly, before I'm forced to put a hole in you!' said Snively.

Girly? Holly wasn't about to take abuse like that, even if a gun was trained at her chest.

She shielded and it appeared to Snively as if the girl had vanished right before his eyes. The short overlander lowered his weapon while he pondered what he just saw, trying to make sense out of it. Big mistake. The little toady with the big nose received two invisible slaps on each cheek and one uppercut right to the jaw, sending him flying back on to the metallic ground. It'd take a few weeks to get rid of those bruises. And probably a few months before the Egg Workers stopped snickering behind his back.

'Sweet spark-plugs!' exclaimed Eggman.

'I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!'

'AND I HATE THAT HUMAN!'

Fowl And The Future Saviours
'Butler here is my bodyguard. The Butlers have been protecting the Fowl family for centuries. All members of his family are either bodyguards or assassins.'

'Well, almost all, Artemis,' corrected Butler. 'My sister Juliet is a wrestler and I also have a cousin in America who is an artist who draws comic books for a living. My, it's been a long time since I last saw old Steven,' muttered Butler under his breath before drawing out of his past memories and back to the present.

Opal and Eggman sat at a long dining table in one of the more opulent rooms by electric candle-light. The dictator had dressed up for the celebration of his new army and was wearing a different version of his regular uniform. It had gold buttons in the shape of bottle caps instead of slabs and he had even managed to tame his straggly moustache with an Eggamantium comb dipped in motor oil.

Everything on their table was a food of Eggman's favourite, as he very rarely had guests. Every one of the dishes had Eggman's face on them and had the word "egg" in it.

There was the "Egg Dictator Sandwich", which was a foot long submarine sandwich with everything on it from sardines to pickled eggs. Then the was the "Egg-squisite Dinner", which was a plate of king prawns surrounded by fruits and vegetables that made it look like Eggman's face. Opal detected a slight hint of motor oil in the meal that made it far from "Egg-squisite". "Egg Dogs", which were hot dogs with a sickly green sauce on them. Then for desert there was "Egg Candy", which were huge lollipops with Eggman's face that tasted extremely bitter. Poppin' Eggcorn, which was basically popcorn that tasted like sawdust and finally Egg Puffs, which looked like large pieces of dough with the symbol of the Eggman Empire. Eggman had said it had a creamy filling, but what Opal found was a bitter and strange coloured gunk.

At each entrance to the dining room stood two blue robots with chests the shape of tea cups with lights on wielding a sword with spikes and a shield. These were Eggman's Egg Fighter robots that were supposed to form his new army, but had now been demoted to security duty and were now in charge of guarding Metropolis. Some of the more elite ones served as Eggman's personal bodyguards. Apparently, the Egg Fighters had saved Eggman from a group of cyborg echidnas armed with lasers and dressed in cloaks. Perhaps Eggman wasn't such an idiot after all if could actually made robots that could do their jobs well.

After finishing off an Egg Dictator Sandwich in three bites and downing a glass of Dr. Egger, Eggman addressed Opal.

'We will have to devise a new strategy to pulverise my enemies,' he said casually. 'The kidnapping won't work again and they won't fall into another trap by charging into the city after they've seen my new assault force. We shall have to create some sort of device strong enough to break through the energy field surrounding New Mobotropolis.'

'Why not use brute force again like last time?' Opal asked.

'Wouldn't work. It only succeeded the first time because of you, my dear. Your burst of magical energy upset the boundaries for a moment and let me crash through them. I had only intended to cause a bit of havoc outside the city until a Freedom Fighter came along to fight me off so I could distract them from their inevitable attempt to destroy my Egg Factory.'

Opal nodded. It made sense. 'What about its power source? Can you access it?'

'Well, yes, but destroying it would be suicide. Its powered by the remains of Robotropolis, my alternate counterpart's former city. I launched a nuclear missile attack on it once the Mobians had successfully recaptured it and declared it as their home. It is now surrounded by a field of its own that contains the radiation. If we were to make any attempt to disable or damage it, nuclear fallout would spread across half of the planet. No, it would not work. But I have made a device that can penetrate minor energy fields, but one the size and power is beyond its capacity. Perhaps you have some ideas how to remedy that?'

Opal smiled malaciously. 'Fear not, Ivo. There is not a piece of mechanical equipment in existence that can't be improved by Opal Koboi.'

'Excellent!' said Eggman with a firm nod.

Murder Most Fowl
'You do realise what we're about to do, don't you, Artemis?'

'Yes. We're about to launch an attack on a futuristic fortess with an alien hedgehog hybrid, a voluptuous thieving bat, a robot with more weapons than a small army, a two-tailed genius fox, a royal squirrel tactician, and a speedy blue hedgehog who's had such an active love life that his theme song should be Mambo No. 5.'

'Good. Just so I know.'

'Ready satellite lasers Juliet Charlie Foxtrot 16, Tango India Quebec, Delta Hotel Bravo Sierra Hotel, Papa Alpha Mike, Echo 123 Bravo and Sierra Lima Juliet 1. Take aim at the new coordinates I just fed into the computer and fire on my command.'

'Err... Sir? We haven't been given clearance to-'

'I gave you an order solider! Now get ready to launch the strike when I give the word.'

'D'Arvit!' exclaimed Holly.

'Is there really any need for such language, Hol- D'Aaaaarviiiiit!' said Artemis, once he saw what Holly had seen.

As Artemis inpsected one of the Egg Grapes, he experienced a familar ardour explode inside his cranium. It was like a bubble of euphoria bursting inside his head, coating his mind in a joyous hysteria. He let his elated bliss spread out across his features, forming into a conceited smile.

Shadow Of Victory
'You have done well to get this far, my furry little friends,' said Eggman with merciless anticipation. 'But your trouble-making and your lives end here.'

Eggman ran for it before the Freedom Fighters could pounce in him, only to run into Butler's chest with the force of a car hitting a brick wall. Eggman smiled sheepishly and raised his hands in the hope that the man monster would spare him. No such luck.

Butler pulled back a cinder block-sized fist for extra spring and let fly into Eggman's face, causing the mad dictator to get thrown head first into a vat of machine oil.

'Computer! Shut down all life-support systems for the Egg Troll and re-route the power to the shields.' Eggman smiled gleefully. No neutrino charges would be getting through that shield barrier anytime soon with all that extra power.

'Well come on, Doodah! Full speed.'

'I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain!'

'You just had to say it, didn't you?'

'Yeah!'