LAST CHAPTER!

I know it seems like an abrupt ending, but a lot happens in this one. A lot a lot. It's nineteen pages! I think I just doubled the size of the story! I'm sorry to see it end, in a way, but happy as well—no more having to worry about updating! I can now focus entirely on Lord of Darkness and not stress out about two fanfics at once.

Disclaimer: all recognizable characters, places, objects, et cetera belong to Eoin Colfer. And I'm not Eoin Colfer. Newsflash, I know.

And, since this is my last chapter, here're my acknowledgements: thanks first of all to Eoin Colfer for so graciously letting me steal his story, though I don't much appreciate his ruining the last two books. Thank you Refloc, who was the first to review this, and to everyone else who reviewed. And lastly, thanks to Mackenzie, who hasn't really reviewed this one, but it's really only when I met her that I realized I had a passion for writing. I wouldn't have written this at all if it weren't for her.

And now, I present to you the final chapter, Chapter 12, of Artemis Fowl: the Galactic Adventure!

Holly didn't know where they were. She assumed it was somewhere far from Earth, if the spaceship had been any indication, but where "far from Earth" was, she had absolutely no idea. She'd tried to ask the guards who had taken her out of her and Trouble out of the closet-cell-thing, but they had stayed grumpy and silent, hauling her back out of the belly of the craft. They had emerged inside of an enclosed sort of hangar, as big as four normal jet hangars. It was enormous. Holly, prodded along by several Softnose lasers, couldn't help but gaze around in awe. "What is this place?" she had asked. Had Koboi managed to sustain life on some other planet?

They had put them in an elevator, ridden up who knew how many floors, and emerged in a long, softly-lit hallway. It looked like a spaceship out of Star Wars. Their guards had punched in a code, and a door slid open with hardly a sound. The barrel of a gun poked into her back and forced her forward. The door shut after them.

"Holly," Trouble said quietly, "I've been thinking…"

"A dangerous pastime," she remarked dryly, sitting down against a wall.

He ignored her. "Sool said that somehow Koboi planned on getting an enormous army to further her plans for world domination. When I asked where she was going to get it, he said it would be from me."

"From you? Does he think you're suddenly going to spawn a million babies like a fish or something?"

"He took a sample of my blood."

"So?"

"So put two and two together! They need a huge army, they want to get it fast, they say it's going to be from me, and they took a sample of my blood!"

"I've never been good at math. What are you trying to say?"

He exhaled slowly. "What if they're going to clone me?"

She balked at first, but then she remembered; Opal Koboi had created an exact, comatose clone of herself, and it hadn't taken that long. "Maybe she's perfected it…"

"Let's hope not," Trouble said fervently, sitting next to her and putting his head in his hands. "How're we going to get out of here?"

Holly had noticed a slight bump underneath her. Quizzically, she felt it. It had been wedged in the small crack between the floor and the wall, and she yanked it free and brought it up to eyelevel.

It was a small silver pin in the shape of an eagle. Two words were written across the wingspan in Gnomish. Commander Vinyáyá.

A slow grin began to spread across her face. "I think someone already has that covered."

Butler, rather disgruntled in his smaller-than-comfortable LEP suit, was very irritable. He was running out of oxygen, and he still hadn't found the weakness that Foaly assured him was there. If he didn't locate it soon, he was going to have to maneuver himself back to the shuttle.

Like a dwarf's skin, their suits had a porous surface that could be activated with a spoken command. It stuck the wearer to whatever was nearest. In this case, thousands of small mirrors that formed the curve of an enormous sphere. A sphere that could have held all of London and Paris inside it. It was like an enormous disco ball. And apparently, there was one weak spot.

All Foaly had needed was a visual shot of the manmade planet, and then he could draw up a blueprint for it, locate any living beings inside (there were a lot), and trace every computer file that had been stored in it. Within ninety seconds he had ascertained that the weakest point of its surface was a garbage chute that was little more than seven feet wide—nothing in relation to the rest of the ship. Apparently, though, the garbage chute led to every floor.

The space station was designed, he told them, rather like the layers of a planet. There was a center, in which a machine that imitated gravity was situated, and then the floors spread out from the center: the first floor, with the greatest gravitational pull, was around the middle of it, the second floor around that, and so on. And there were five-hundred and sixty-three floors. The garbage chute cut straight through all of them.

"How did she manage to build all this?" Vinyáyá had asked in awe.

The visual image of Foaly in all their helmets' visors shrugged. "Excellent question. Why don't you ask her?"

And of course, Butler had been designated with the task of finding this chute and climbing through it.

"Now," Artemis had explained quietly, back in their hotel room in Haven, "our main goal is to get Holly and Major Kelp out of there. However, if Koboi has discovered the secret to alchemy, we want to get that, too. You're going to have to find the generator that powers the station and wrap this-" he held up a length of bare wire with a small computer on one end- "around one of the wires inside it. Then I'll have control of the entire station's power. Then you'll have to find Holly and the Major and make your way to whatever kind of hangars they have. Foaly will be able to tell you where they are. If you can't find them, go to the hangars anyway."

"What are you going to do?"

"Find Koboi."

"And how will that help?"

"You'll see."

So now Butler was clambering around on the surface of this huge sphere, looking for a four-foot opening. It was like finding a needle in a haystack.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment as Foaly talked to him. "It's straight ahead. Keep going."

"You keep saying that," Butler said through gritted teeth, pulling himself onward once more, "but I keep not finding it."

And then he found it. He was at the edge of a chute that seemed to plunge down into eternity. "This is it?" he asked skeptically?"

"Yup."

"And I have to go down there?"

"Yes. I found a file that says the Major and Captain are on the sixtieth floor."

"Which means I have to go down five hundred and three floors."

"No, you have to go down all five-hundred and sixty-three, turn of the power to the entire station, and then come back up to get them."

"Do I get to take the elevator from there?"

"No. You get to climb back up."

"That's great news. I guess I'll start crawling, then."

"Yes. The garbage chute is the only place they have reversed the gravitational effect. That way the garbage falls out of the space station and not back to the core. At least you won't have gravity working against you."

"No," he grunted, heaving himself over the side. The mini suction cups on his suit held him well, and he began to work his way down.

Vinyáyá was very dissatisfied with her part of the plan. All she was supposed to do was infiltrate the hangar, knock out the communications system, and hold tight until they got there. And she wasn't even supposed to do that for another half an hour.

Artemis had given them all watches that were set for exactly the same time. "I've allowed plenty of time for everything," he told them, "but when you do something, it has to be at the exact second I tell you to do it. It'll all work out perfectly if you do, but if you're more than a second off, everything could be a disaster."

"Joy," Vinyáyá had muttered, snapping it on her wrist.

Foaly had carefully instructed her around the few cameras they had posted around the surface. She had landed the shuttle gently on the mirrors, each of which reflected enough light that the thing as a whole gave the appearance of a star when one was far enough away. It was disconcerting, seeing her own reflection all over the place.

"Why didn't Artemis tell us all everything?" she grumbled for the hundredth time. She had no idea what the other two were doing.

"He thinks it's safer and that it'll go better if not everyone knows the whole thing," said Foaly's voice in her ear.

"I know that," she snapped. "But I hate just sitting here, waiting. What if they're already dead?"

"They're not."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've located their cell, and the heat sensors I have in all of your helmets tell me that there are two beings giving off heat of exactly the same size and shape as the captain and the major."

"That's good to know," she muttered irritably. "Did you get my badge in their cell?"

"Yes, and by the looks of it, Holly's found it."

"How'd you get it in?"

"I invented a new device. It'll revolutionize the Lower Elements. It's like a portal. It makes things appear and disappear to and from where you want them.

"Wow."

"Artemis helped."

"You mean he invented it?"

The centaur grumbled grudgingly, "Okay, yes. But I helped."

"So can he do it?"

"His suit is equipped with it."

"But mine's not?"

"Gimme a break, Commander, I don't have that kind of a budget."

He was at the very bottom of the chute. There was a grate there, and, with very little effort, Butler removed it from his place and climbed in.

"Congratulations," Foaly said dryly. "You've made it to ground zero."

It was like being inside a large sphere. In the center floated two giant machines, back to back.

"The one on your left is the generator," Foaly told him. "The other is the gravity-imitation machine. It's what keeps everything on the ground in this station."

Butler felt the gravity machine pulling on him, hard, but the suction in his suit withstood it. "How do I get there?" he yelled over the noise that the machines made. "It's in the middle, and if my suit lets go of the wall, the gravity machine will suck me in!"

"There's a piton on your belt that'll attach firmly to any surface. Put it on the wall and clip the other end to your belt. Then press the green button on the belt end and hold it. It'll reel you out slowly, keeping you attached to the wall."

Butler did as he was told and found himself next to the gravity machine very soon. He pushed hard towards the generator, reached into its inner workings, and twisted the wire around two of the other cords. There was an electric blue spark, and the computer on the end fired into action.

"Now press the red button," Foaly commanded. "That'll reel you back in."

Once back at the wall, he climbed out of the hole, snatching the grate out of the air where it had been floating and replacing it.

"Time to climb," Foaly said.

"Yippee."

It took him a while, but Butler was finally at floor sixty three. Every ten feet or so along the shaft was a chute branching off from it, presumably to channel garbage from every floor into the main chute. It worked; more than once was Butler nearly hit by flying garbage. The garbage dropped, presumably to the very bottom of the shaft, and then was blown back up with enough force to defy the gravity that pulled it down, and it fell out of the space station. Butler learned this very quickly; the first time garbage had fallen past him, he hugged the wall, and he was about to continue when Foaly got pale and said, "Flatten yourself against the side, fast!"

Indeed, a second later, the garbage shot past him at nearly the speed of a bullet. It would have killed him had it hit him.

He hauled himself into the narrow chute that Foaly said would emerge on floor sixty. "You're feeding the cameras a loop?" he muttered.

"Yes," the centaur assured him. "They won't notice a thing until you're on top of them."

"Who's manning the station?"

"Not very many people for the size of this thing. One per floor. All you have to do is sneak up on the poor fairy on this floor and lay him low a couple of hours. No one will notice a thing."

Butler painfully hauled himself through the last section of the chute and unfolded his body from the opening. He found himself in a softly-lit hallway. "Their cell is at the end of it," Foaly informed him. "There's a keypad outside the door. If you take off the covering and connect your helmet to any two of the wires, it'll automatically try all trillion and a half possibilities. Won't take more than a minute."

"Amazing," he muttered, doing as he was instructed as he came to the door. The door, after barely twenty seconds, slid open with a pneumatic hiss.

"D'Arvit!" Foaly and Butler swore simultaneously. The cell was empty, save for two tiny devices on the floor. "My heat sensor says that's where Holly and Trouble are," the centaur said, swearing. "The devices must be emitting heat in the exact forms of their bodies."

"Ingenious," Butler said, cursing. "What do we do now?"

"What did Artemis tell you to do?"

"Continue to the hangars."

"Then you can bet Artemis has got a backup plan. Go ahead to the hangars."

"Can I take the elevator this time?"

Foaly rolled his eyes. "I suppose so. Just try not to attract too much attention."

No more than a few hours had passed before Sool's henchfairies came to get them again. The door slid open. Holly, who had been expecting Vinyáyá, jumped up in anticipation, but when she found herself staring at the ugly mugs of four heavily-tattooed sprites, her hope faded and she frowned. "Get out of here, you slimy, toad-faced, goblin-spawned weasels."

They paid her no heed. As two of them prodded Holly and Trouble out of the cell, another placed two small disks where they had been sitting.

"What do you reckon those're for?" she asked Trouble in a whisper.

He shrugged. "Place warmers? So our spots are warm when we get back?"

"Doubt it."

Something troubling occurred to Trouble. "We might have a slight problem," he whispered.

"Why is that?"

"What if Koboi knows Vinyáyá's here and she's moving us in order to catch Vinyáyá?"

"That wouldn't be good," she whispered after a brief moment of silence.

"We need to warn her somehow," Trouble said musingly. The fairies behind them were looking at them suspiciously, unable to hear their whispered conversation.

Holly nodded barely perceptibly. Trouble started trying to concoct a plan, but Holly didn't bother. She tripped and went sprawling.

"Ow," she said. Sool's henchfairies stopped irritably.

"Get up," one of them started to say, but Holly's foot had made contact with his groin. He doubled over in pain, and Holly snatched his weapon from him, sliding the lever down to 'stun' and blasting all four fairies with it. They thudded to the ground.

Trouble looked at her blankly. "Wow."

She picked up another Softnose and stuck it in her belt. "C'mon," she said, heading towards the elevator. "Let's go find Koboi."

Artemis was hovering, shielded, just above Koboi's head. They were in a huge room with hundreds of desks lined up against the walls, with several fairies working at them. She was walking behind them, making them nervous and jumpy and thoroughly enjoying it. She had no idea he was there. He had gotten a hang of the Hummerboy Wings (ironically, one of Opal's inventions) coming in; his suit, amazingly, had transported himself from one place to another with no wait time. Teleportation.

He considered simply dropping down and attacking her, but then he would have to fight his way through a hundred other fairies, even if he overcame her. My best weapons are surprise and fear, he reminded himself. He had never done anything like this before, and he wasn't sure he was ready. You have to be a good actor. Pretend you have all the aces. Scare her into a corner. If you can do that, then you do have all the aces.

In his left hand he held a small remote control, and in his right he held a Neutrino 3000, set to 'kill.' Gritting his teeth, he cocked it.

The sound made Koboi looked up, as he had known it would. He turned off his shield. "Hello, Opal," he said quietly.

What he did not expect, however, is that she would smile smugly at him. "Welcome, Fowl," she said, baring her sharp pixie teeth.

Artemis regained his composure very quickly. He aimed the gun pointedly at her heart. "You know what I'm here for."

"Yes, I do, actually. You want my prisoners."

"No," Artemis smiled. "I don't. I interest your prisoners. You can kill them, for all I care."

Foaly, listening and watching, started swearing at him. "This had better be good, Fowl," he said angrily in his ear.

"Yes, in fact, I'd like to see them die," Artemis continued. "They've been nothing but a nuisance for the last three years."

Koboi couldn't hide her surprise. "Then why are you here?" she demanded, rising to his level, pixie wings beating furiously.

"I've come to accept what I declined a year ago," he said slowly.

"What are you talking about, Fowl?"

"I'm talking about the offer you made me. You said we could work together. Well, I declined then because that's what was best for me then. I'd like to accept now because it's best for me now."

"What makes you think I want to work with you?"

"Because I know things that you don't. About the Mudmen. I am friends with the LEP; I have their confidence. I can be an asset to you."

"And what do you want in return?"

"Just this space station. You can have the world all to yourself, but I want the space station."

"Tempting," she smirked. "While I'm thinking about it, why don't we call in my prisoners? I have a delightful game for them to play in the hangar. Frollo, they should be waiting out in the hall with some of the others. Go fetch them, and take them to the hangar. Come with me, Fowl. You'll have your wish of seeing Captain Short and Major Kelp die… very painfully."

The fairy named Frollo left. Koboi led him to an elevator, which sped them along towards the hangar, wherever that was. "Don't think I trust you, Fowl," she said, smiling coldly. "And don't think I've forgiven you for what you've done to me. I just think it might be to my advantage to keep you around for a while."

"You'd be a fool to trust me."

They stepped out of the elevator and into a gigantic room in which was stored a space ship as big as the Roman Coliseum. Nearly fifty fairies were attending the different parts of the spaceship and hangar, fixing things, making moderations, etc. Artemis tried not to look to awed. He needed to look bored and confident.

They had only been waiting a minute or so when the fairy Frollo appeared behind them. "Er… madame?" he said timidly. "They're not there. Whatever fairies you sent to get them have not returned."

Koboi's expression changed instantly from pleasure to hardly-contained anger. "Where are they?" she asked through gritted teeth.

He cowered. "I'll find them, madame. I'll find them."

Ten fairies stepped out of the elevator just as Captain Short and Major Kelp rounded the corner. Holly groaned as they got over their surprise and charged at them.

"Get a hold of the one with a gold headband. He's the captain."

Holly met the wave, wishing she had LEP weaponry and equipment. She knocked two fairies out with blows to the head. She had shot a third and was about to shoot a fourth, when Trouble roared, "STOP!"

All commotion ceased. There were only four fairies left on their feet. Trouble had his arm around their captain's neck and his gun, set to kill, aimed at his head. "Tell them to put down their weapons," he hissed at the fairy.

"Do as he says," the fairy squeaked.

They put down their weapons.

He nodded at Holly. "Pick them up and disarm them. Then give them back."

Holly removed the power cells and handed each of the still-standing fairies a now-useless Softnose laser. She grinned, pointing her own fully functional Softnoses at them.

"Now," Trouble said, kicking his captive, "listen closely…"

Butler surveyed the situation. It didn't look good, in his opinion.

He had taken the elevator most of the way up to the hangar, then crawled through ventilation shafts the rest of the way. He now looked down on the hangar through a grate in a corner near the ceiling. "What's going on?" Butler whispered to Foaly.

"I'm not entirely sure," Foaly said, disgruntled. "The only person to whom Artemis told his whole plan was himself, and he's not answering me."

"What's happened?"

"Basically, he offered to join Koboi, and while she's thinking about it, she's going to have Trouble and Holly killed for the fun of them both."

"You mean Artemis' fun?"

"Yes, Artemis is going along with it. You'd better hope he's acting, big boy, or your charge is going to have some major crimes to answer for."

"He's acting," Butler said confidently. "What am I supposed to do from here?"

The image of Foaly in his helmet visor shrugged. "I don't know. Ask the genius."

"I must say," Artemis said dryly, "I was surprised at your reaction. I thought you'd be completely shocked to see me appear out of thin air beside you."

"I knew you were there, Mudboy," she said, turning to him and grinning. "Guess what else I know? Your big old friend is sneaking around my space station, and you have someone else flying your shuttle. I'm just trying to decide whether your elaborate trick is against me or against the people with you. Basically, are you betraying them or lying to me?"

Artemis nodded. "An excellent question."

"What is the answer?"

"Well, I'd tell you, of course, that I'm really on your side. But, of course, you can't trust my word, so it doesn't matter anyway."

"Why can't I trust your word?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm the youngest thief in the history of the world. I've transferred money from Swiss Bank accounts into mine, I've robbed multibillionaire Jon Spiro of his status and company, I've stolen the most coveted painting in the business, the Fairy Thief, I've plundered Fort Knox, and I've robbed the fairy people of their gold. I'm not to be trusted, Opal. You know that."

"Plundered Fort Knox?" Foaly asked irritably. "Since when?"

"I take it your communications device is off," Opal said slyly. "Otherwise you're transmitting this entire conversation to Foaly the centaur."

"But of course, if I were lying to you," Artemis said matter-of-factly, "that wouldn't matter because I wouldn't be betraying them, so he could know about all this."

"So basically, the best way to find out if you're lying to me is to see if your communications are cut," she said, and snatched his helmet off his head.

"Butler," Foaly said in his ear, "Artemis doesn't have his helmet on. Make sure he's not a target for anyone in the room."

Butler, who had already found three fairies with sniper rifles, said, "Of course he's a target. There's just nothing I can do about it without ruining his plan."

"Take them out on your silent setting."

Butler took careful aim, and the three fairies dropped unconscious. Koboi, fortunately, was too busy examining Artemis' helmet to notice.

"What's that?" Foaly asked.

Butler had noticed it, too. Simultaneously, he and Foaly swore. Six fairies had entered from the elevator. Four of them had guns pointed at the other two. The other two were Holly and Trouble.

"Let the fun begin," Foaly said sarcastically.

Just as Artemis put his LEP helmet back on, Koboi having examined it and found he wasn't communicating with Foaly (the centaur had made it a blind surveillance system, so that if he wanted to, he could flick a switch and no one looking at the helmet could tell it had any connections outside itself), Holly and Trouble were led in at gunpoint. Holly's eyes widened when she saw Artemis, standing unguarded next to Koboi, but other than shooting him a furious glance, she paid him no heed. This was the most vital stage of operations: if something failed now, everything would be lost.

He turned to Koboi. "What kind of game do you have planned for them?"

She grinned wickedly. "You'll see."

Vinyáyá gazed at her watch. Artemis said that the door to the hangar would open when it was time, and Foaly said that this was the section that opened to reveal the hangar. She was hovering several hundred feet from where Foaly said the door was. It was supposed to open any second now, though how Artemis planned on doing it, she had no idea…

Holly didn't want to know what kind of game Koboi had planned for them. What she did want to know, however, was what Artemis was doing. She wasn't sure she trusted him enough to say that he was playing a part, pretending to have sided with Koboi. Apparently Trouble thought the same thing—they glanced at each other.

"Now?" she whispered.

"Not yet."

Their weapons were hidden in the loose folds of their clothing. The guns that were pointed at them were actually useless. The real situation was opposite what it appeared: Holly and Trouble were leading the fairies in on pain of death instead of the other way around. Their fairy escorts stopped them in front of Koboi.

"You, Captain Short," she said, teeth glittering, "have hurt me too many times to let you live, or indeed, even to die quickly. You will die slowly and painfully."

"The last time you tried that, you ended up in prison, and I was still alive." Holly said dryly.

"This time you'll end up dead," Trouble added.

She clicked her tongue. "Impertinent cheeks, aren't they, Fowl?"

"Oh, yes, very impertinent."

"Incredibly impudent," Holly agreed, nodding. "Look, Opal, we've got a proposition to make you."

"And what is that?"

"Let us go and we'll spare your life."

She actually laughed out loud. "What are you talking about?" She giggled.

Holly and Trouble glanced at each other and simultaneously pulled out their guns, pointing them at Koboi's head.

"Shoot them!" she screamed at her henchfairies, but the only ones who had had guns were three snipers she'd planted as soon as she'd seen Fowl's shuttle, and they didn't answer her call.

"Don't move!" Trouble shouted, closing in on Koboi. "If you make one sudden move, I'll kill her." Though he was talking to the fifty or so other fairies in the room, he never took his eyes or his gun off Koboi.

"Fowl, you had something to do with this!"

Artemis shrugged. "I told you it would be foolish to trust me."

Opal was rising in the air. "Stay down," Trouble commanded. "I'll shoot you. Trust me, I have plenty of motivation."

She hovered at about Artemis' head level. Suddenly, without warning, she gripped his neck and flashed a knife at his throat.

"Don't move," she hissed. Trouble stopped.

"Put down your guns, both of you," she commanded.

Holly looked from Trouble to Artemis to Koboi, and then she did as she was told.

This isn't how it was supposed to happen, Artemis thought disparagingly, and pressed a button on his remote.

Finally, the mirrors of one section were retracting to reveal a huge hangar. Vinyáyá obligingly maneuvered the shuttle inside, to be confronted with a scene that made her curse. Opal Koboi stood with a knife to Artemis' neck. Trouble was lowering a gun that had been pointed at Koboi, and Holly looked utterly miserable. Vinyáyá was fairly certain that this wasn't how it was supposed to happen.

For the third time that night, Butler and Foaly swore simultaneously.

"I don't think this was part of the plan," Butler whispered, taking careful aim. Koboi's back was to him, and he was a trained marksman. He could hit her.

But then the huge door to the hangar slid away to reveal the brilliant sky outside, and Vinyáyá in the shuttle slipped in through the opening. Butler was distracted. "How did that happen?" he hissed.

"Ask the genius," Foaly fumed. "Shoot Koboi, please. Get this mess over with."

Butler took careful aim and pulled the trigger.

If Artemis is here, Butler is here, Holly thought desperately as she released the weapon. Trouble glanced at her worriedly and lowered his own. If Butler's here, and Koboi doesn't know about it, we've got a hidden ace.

At that moment, the huge door to the hangar began to slide open with a loud grating noise. Koboi glanced up. As soon as the crack was big enough, a small shuttle found its way inside. At the controls sat Wing Commander Vinyáyá, eyes blazing to match her hair. Holly saw her eyes rove over the situation.

Koboi pointedly dug the knifepoint into Artemis' skin. He gasped as a trickle of blood slid down his neck. Vinyáyá's craft halted.

Trouble gazed at Koboi angrily. They had been so close. They were going to bring her and her miserable gang into custody. Once they had her, Sool would be nothing.

And then she had turned the tables on them.

He had considered risking Fowl's life and trying to shoot what little of Koboi wasn't shielded by the Mudboy's body. He didn't much care for Artemis Fowl—he was, after all, a Mudboy—but he was a living being, and Trouble couldn't simply sentence him to death. And Holly cared about him. He couldn't hurt Holly.

Butler swore again. "It's out of ammo!" he hissed angrily. "I'm going down there."

"Wait!" Foaly commanded. He hesitated. "Artemis has something planned. I can feel it."

"Of course Artemis has something planned," Butler growled angrily, starting to back out of the ventilation shaft. "He always has something planned. Usually something that, if it fails, could get him killed. Painfully."

"Alright," Foaly said. "Do as you see fit. But if you screw it up, we're blaming it on you."

"I've got you. All of you." Opal was practically dancing with glee. "Foaly, I know you're listening. Tell Commander Vinyáyá to set down her craft and get out, unarmed."

There was a moment's pause, and then the shuttle, almost reluctantly, settled on the floor of the hangar. A second later, the hatch on the top popped open and Commander Vinyáyá emerged with her hands on her head to show that she had no weapons.

"Plin," she said harshly to one of her henchfairies, who had been standing by, unsure of what to do. He snapped to attention. "Pick up the prisoners' guns and bring them to me."

While he was doing so, Artemis said softly, "You know why I didn't want to join you last year?"

"Why is that?" she smirked, accepting a gun from Plin and quickly switching it with the knife. She was happier than she'd been in months. All that she lacked to complete her joy was a box of chocolate truffles.

"Because you'd only drag me down. I'm smarter than you."

"Really?" she asked. "Let me explain something to you, Mudboy. As soon as I have your heads on plaques in my office, I'm going to be ready to take over the world. Do you want to know why? It's because I'm brilliant. I have perfected the art of cloning, and I have an entire clone army halfway developed. Another week, and we will head off to planet Earth, where we will neatly dispose of any resistance and seat moi on the throne of earth."

"Who did you clone?" Trouble asked harshly, anger etched into his face.

She turned her eyes on him calmly. "You. That's why I needed your magic and your blood. It's the magic that made them grow so fast. And even if you were to live past tonight, you'd never be able to regain your magic. I've taken it from you. You're almost human."

He lunged at her, but Holly held him back. "It's okay," she whispered.

"So, Fowl," Opal resumed, ignoring Trouble and Holly, "do you still think you're smarter than I?"

"Yes."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling. "You do? Why?

"Because I haven't played my ace."

"And what is your ace?" she asked mockingly. He was stalling for time.

"Magic."

She snorted, disbelieving. "Any last words, Fowl?"

He turned his face slightly, enough to look at her, but not enough to force the knife into his neck. "Abracadabra."

He vanished.

"Now that," said Foaly, taking another bite of his carrot and leaning back in his swivel chair, "would make a good movie."

Holly had no idea how it had happened, but she was dealing with Artemis Fowl here. So she assumed it had been his plan all along, and she decided to take the initiative. A quick rap to the temple of the fairy who was picking up her weapons knocked him flat. She snatched up her gun, slid the trigger to 'stun,' and aimed at Koboil.

Opal was screaming, cursing, and kicking, looking everywhere. But Artemis had disappeared. The ray from the Softnose hit her in midair, freezing her in time for a moment, and then she fell to the ground, unconscious.

Trouble seized two of the other weapons and quickly started dispatching all of the other fairies in the hangar. None resisted. It was as if without their leader, they had no initiative. It didn't take long before the only ones awake were Vinyáyá, Holly, and Trouble.

Major Kelp was breathing hard, as though he couldn't believe it was over. Vinyáyá was walking towards them, a slow smile spreading across her face. Only Holly did not feel the relief of victory. "Where's Artemis?" she asked worriedly.

Butler met only one fairy on his way to the hanger. He looked vaguely familiar, but Butler didn't have time to place his face. He knocked him out with a blow to the top of the head.

When he burst into the hangar, an unexpected sight met his eyes. It was all over. Koboi was unconscious at Holly's feet. Trouble had just dispatched the last fairy in the room. Vinyáyá was walking triumphantly towards them. But Artemis wasn't there.

"Where's Artemis?" Holly asked.

Butler felt a sinking sensation inside. "What happened?"

All three of them jumped at his voice. "He vanished," Holly whispered. "I thought he'd come back, but I don't know where he is."

"I do."

The voice belonged to someone that Butler was starting to think he might never see again. It was Artemis.

He entered the hangar through a small door in the rear of the hangar, opposite the elevator. He held a Neutrino 3000 in his hand, which was aimed very pointedly at a small, balding gnome. Sool.

Trouble cocked his Softnose, walked up to Sool, grinned wickedly, and slammed the butt of his gun into his head. He flexed his fingers as Sool crumpled. "I've needed to do that for a while."

"Fowl, you loggerheaded, flea-bitten, dread-bolted rat, what were you thinking?"

Holly was there, hugging him around the legs—the only part of him she could reach anymore—berating him, hitting him, and dodging out of the way of Butler, who had followed very closely.

"You're welcome," Artemis said dryly, muffled through Butler's shirt.

"How did you do that?" Holly demanded.

"Foaly and I invented a device that'll transport you from one place to another. It works the same way as Willy Wonka's transportation television; it breaks you up into millions of tiny pieces and sends you in waves to another spot almost instantly. Except that we don't lose any particles along the way, so you're the same size on the other end. And you don't need a receiving device."

"Wow," Holly said thoughtfully.

Vinyáyá was watching Artemis with a grin, Butler was checking him over to make sure he wasn't hurt. Trouble turned to Holly. "We're not going to die, after all," he informed her with a smile.

"I dunno. The Council is going to be pretty angry."

He scowled. "Who needs them?"

Holly shrugged. "Not I."

"Nor I."

She laughed, letting him pull her into an embrace. "You don't need anyone."

He shook his head. "I need you."

And he kissed her, not caring who was watching, letting the whole world know that he and Holly Short were going to find frontiers and battle all odds and come off victorious.

Butler saw, while feeling Artemis' ribs to make sure nothing was broken, and a slight smile broke out on his usually impassive face. They deserve each other, he thought.

Foaly saw, through Vinyáyá's helmet camera, and he laughed so hard he threw up. His computer called him a very rude name in his own voice and emptied the trash can.

Vinyáyá saw. She let nothing show on her face, but she thought of the first time she had seen Holly, a fiery cadet in the Flight section of the LEP Academy. She had seen talent, fire, and determination blazing in those hazel eyes, and it hadn't changed since that first day. Trouble, too; a confident, sometimes cocky kid with a knack to prove himself. He'd changed, though; his arrogance had changed into wisdom, his need to show off into a more reserved, well-earned pride.

Artemis saw, for a brief instant, and he just smiled.

THE END