Artemis Fowl: The Olympian Case

XXX: A Surprise in Dublin

Just as the sun rose from the distance–signaling another cold January morning in the calm city of Dublin, a faint glow radiated from an obelisk situated in the public park. Seconds later, a portal twisted and churned into existence, followed by six teenagers popping out covered in sand from head to toe while coughing out. Lucky for them, the people of Dublin weren't much of a morning people at the cold season.

"You'll need to work more on that control, Arty" Sadie guided while patting herself down, "But, all in all it was better than my first try for sure!"

"That's the thing that still bothers me," Carter frowned at Artemis, "How did you become so skilled in magic so quickly? It has only been three days! To begin with, you only have at most a drop of the Blood of the Pharaoh's, and your path isn't even Egyptian!"

Artemis simply shrugged shrewdly, "Well, the Blessed has their methods"

"...Well, then your one lucky mortal that's for sure," Carter still felt suspicious but let it slide instead, "Are you sure you must leave so soon? You still have some training to do before you could fully grasp the path of the Gods"

"It's already a surprise for him to invoke Divine Words; with your mana capacity, you should only be able to cast a scroll or two!" Sadie cocked her head, "Were you holding back on us? Walt must've been wrong, given your sudden aptitude in magic!"

"In a way, that's true," Artemis replied helplessly, but was not willing to say more than that. He had yet to process what had occurred to him while he was out, and...what he was now. But that had to wait–he could sense deep in his gut that something was amiss in Haven. As he was right now, he felt more connected to the world than ever before–and he had a feeling he will bring this back to his world too. This...he still couldn't believe.

"Artemis is right; our foe is on the move," Annabeth sighed, "I've had a dream...it was pretty vague, but what I saw was that there was a man on top of the roof of the 21st Nome, he had been watching us battle the water elemental the entire time!"

"What!? That's impossible!" Carter squeaked, "The mansion's intricate spells would have alarmed us of any intruders outside the nome"

"Well, old Ocean face managed to get into your plumbing," Percy shrugged, "At this point, they might as well walk through the front door, whoever it is we are dealing with"

"Well, the basic gist is that the mysterious man had already left and is here in Dublin. He was talking with a couple of people in...very familiar armor outside the front porch of a peculiar mansion"

"So they're waiting for me at my home?" Artemis perked up in alarm as Annabeth further gave a over-detailed description of the building, "Now I really wonder where my alternate self is hiding, as none would've been able to get that close to the Fowl manor without losing at least two limbs"

"Join the club" Sadie humorlessly added, "And as much as we'd like to tag along, I'm afraid Bes and Bast will have none of it"

"Besides, as heads of the 21st Nome we are responsible of our initiates" Carter added, "We seriously need to fix our security anyway"

"Come to think of it, we should fix ours as well" Annabeth frowned as she recalled this to the fourth time Camp Half-Blood was invaded, "Maybe you could lend us some Egyptian scrolls and spells, perhaps? In exchange we could lend some runes made by the children of Hecate to boost your defenses"