Cupid - With A Neutrino (first attempt)

[ILiveForTheDay]

This is my first ever attempt to write a fan-fic, so don't expect much (I'm a complete novice for petes sake!) but would apprieciate reviews.


no No NO! It’s impossible! I can’t be!

So thought Captain Holly Short of the LEP as she listened to demon warlock Qwan describing exactly why her Commander was currently trying to make out with his desk.
“…and that is why it could only be the work of either a complete novice or Cupid himself. As the spell is patchy with several simple mistake incorporated it sounds like we have a novice on our hands, one we must find and contain as soon as possible” Qwan finally finished a worried look adorning his imp like face.
“Is there a way to reverse it?” Foaly asked trying unsuccessfully to look and sound like he was asking a serious question, instead of like he was finding the whole thing hilarious.
“Thankfully yes, No1 here can remove the spell and any after affects quite easily”

Holly was sure she heard a muttered ‘pity’ from Foaly but right now she had more important things to deal with
“Qwan, what do you mean by ‘containing’ him or her?”
“Him Holly, Cupid can only be male, but, to answer your question we must get him to Cupid, who will train him to take on the role when he is gone.”
But Holly wasn’t listening to the end, all she heard was,
Cupid can only be male, Cupid can only be male, Cupid can-

Foaly broke in on her thoughts “So what happened then, you were the only witness to what put the Commander in his current . . . condition”
“Well…”

-Flashback-

Holly walked into her Commanders office with a heavy heart, she was in for another yelling at, this time for going back in time with friend and ally Artemis Fowl. She had known it was against the law when she did it, and she knew it would be coming when she got back but that didn’t mean she was looking forward to it.
“Captain Short you’re late”
Oops. This was not starting off well.
“I’m sorry Commander but there was traffic near the centre and you-“Trouble cut her off before she could finish.
“You know that on Fridays there is a lot of traffic with everyone going back home for the weekend, and you should have left earlier because of it!”
“Sorry Sir, it won’t happen again Sir” Holly stared at her feet and tried to look sorry.
“This is not behaviour I expect from one as yourself, and, for your sake I dearly hope it will not happen again!”
“No Sir”
“Now I would like an explanation on why you happened to find it necessary to go back in time with a certain Artemis Fowl?”
As Holly explained for the umpteenth time why she had found it necessary to go back in time she couldn’t help but wish that she was far, far away somewhere and Trouble was yelling at someone else, his desk for instance. It was at this point things started going a little strangely. A strange feeling came over her, one she had never experienced before and, before she knew it red sparks were shooting out her fingers and attaching themselves to Commander Trouble Kelp. He started spurting rubbish in several languages, and then, even more strangely started making cooing noises over his desk. In a couple more seconds he was kissing it.
At that point Holly decided asking for help might be an idea so she had called Foaly, Qwan and No1.

-End flashback-

“Well… I went into Troubles office and was in the process of explaining why I went
back in time with Artemis when, suddenly, from nowhere red sparks appeared and attached themselves to the Commander. When he started kissing his desk I called for help”
Holly wasn’t entirely sure why she had told that lie – hadn’t she broken off her friendship with Artemis not 3 days before (Well 3 days and 8 years) because he had lied to her? Only a couple of answers presented themselves to her, A) She had her own life to live and she most defiantly did not want to spend the rest of it making people fall in love. B) She wasn’t sure what the reaction would be to her revelation and C) She didn’t understand it herself, or know what to think when she thought about what had actually happened, and she wanted to be prepared when she told them. And D) Hadn’t Qwan expressively said that ‘only males could be Cupid’ and she herself was most definitely female.
Somewhere in the back of her mind someone was saying confess now before it’s too late but now she was committed to the lie and couldn’t say anything without it sounding strange. What did slightly worry her was whether or not Trouble would remember the strange red sparks coming from her.

*********************************************************************

It turned out she needn’t have worried, Trouble had no memory of the ordeal and was most surprised to find Qwan, Foaly and No1 in the room with them when he woke up. He did however go rather red when it was explained and the video that Foaly had shot was shown to him.

After demanding that all the evidence of what went on in the room was wiped off disk (Holly did briefly wonder whether or not that order was obeyed by Foaly) and Qwan, Foaly and No1 were all sent back to whatever they were doing before, Trouble finally allowed her to go, giving her the rest of the day off.

All Holly knew was that she needed to go and find more about this whole ‘Cupid’ thing, and find out how to stop the red sparks from appearing again. Ever again.

Flicking open her communicator she dialled the number and waited while it rang. On the third ring it was picked up.
“Hello, this is Artemis Fowl speaking”


Please review!

[Pseudonym]

I like how the plot is opened with Trouble kissing his desk. (It really made me want to read more!) So far, the story sounds like it will be good. Your grammar is very good; there's hardly anything to correct. I'll be sure to read the next chapter!

[Cat Moon]

Really good, though the speech sounds a little stilted to my mind. *shrugs* but that's probably just me. I'd put in more commas in speech, but again, I put in too many commas.

I loved the plotline, and the story flows really well. It was good to put the scene with the problem before the flashback, it pulled the reader in. Loved it! More please!

[ILiveForTheDay]

Okay here is the next (short) chapter, I've got a huge writers block at the minute, so this is basically a complete filler.

When Artemis picked up the phone, he was expecting that it was something to do with Opal, maybe the Past Opal had been found and sent back, perhaps they needed help doing just that, or maybe Present Opal had escaped from her Atlantis Prison.

What he was not expecting was the slightly apprehensive, slightly scared voice of Captain Holly Short telling him she thought she was Cupid.

“Hey Artemis, I have a really big problem and I kind of really need your help.”
“Fire Away Holly, I’m all ears”
A deep breath was heard on the other end of the line and then,
“IThinkI’mCupidAndICan’tTellAnyoneElseBecuaseISaidIWasn’tAndI’mAFemaleSoICan’tBeSoWhyDoIStillThink
I’mCupid?”
Even for a genius such as Artemis that was pretty hard to understand, and although he tried to think of a intelligent reply, all that he managed was a classic
“Huh?”
“Oh, urmmmmm, you don’t know, so, well, you see, it’s because, urrm, Trouble was, urrm, kissing his, umm desk so, ummm, I kinda, well, think I made him, well, umm kiss his desk and I umm, need you to, you see, help me with, umm knowing if I umm did.”
Artemis by now was even more confused, and pretty sure Foaly was playing one of his ‘jokes’ on him.
“Look Foaly this isn’t amusing can you just get to the point, do you need a hand with Opal perhaps? Or are you just doing this to annoy me?”
Now it was Holly’s turn to be confused,
“Huh? Foaly’s on the line? How? I thought you blocked him from listening in?”
“No, I know you’re Foaly and I’m telling you now, it is NOT funny and I am NOT falling for it.”
“I’m Foaly??? You do know you’re talking to Holly, right? “

Artemis spent the next few seconds trying to figure out whether or not it was Foaly, or if he was actually speaking to Holly (and if he was what the heck she was going on about). It certainly sounded like her but with fairy technology it was possible to fake nearly anything. Eventually he decided on asking her to visit, at least that way he would know whether or not it was a real problem, and then he could work on dealing with it (what ever ‘it’ was).

“I think it would be easier if we had this discussion above ground, would you care to visit me and then we can talk it over face-to-face”
“Oh, ummm, of course, well when would you like me to come?”
“My parents and brothers are currently looking at schools for the rest of the day, so anytime today would be good.”
“Well, I’ll um, see you soon”

*********************************************************************

Well there it is, all I have managed after sitting staring at a blank screen for ages.
I ended up just wanting to have someone write the next chapter for me, as I’m struggling to think of ideas for how she’s gonna tell him, I just want to get to the main plot already.
Writers block stinks.

[Cat Moon]

Very good! (I have this feeling that says the Are You Cupid? Test will involve buckets of A/H.....)

I thought Artemis was just a bit OOC, and you could have used a little bit of extra info maybe - what he was doing, where he is, y'know. Although actually, I can't talk because I never get enough description into mine!

[Pseudonym]

Your writing style is good, even if this is just filler. I'm not good at deciding if someone is out of character or not (one of the reasons I don't write fan fiction). Either way, I thought the conversation was good; it really showed Holly's confusion. Good luck with tackling that writer's block!

[ILiveForTheDay]

I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter, but I can't seem to make it any better, so I'm posting it now. Please R n R!


As Holly flew slowly up the long driveway of Fowl Manor, past water features and rose gardens she couldn’t help but think about all the crazy events of the past few hours. That, and how she was going to tell Artemis what was going on, she hadn’t exactly made it clear in her phone call.

*********************************************************************

Two hours and a half later she had her answer. Albeit with several breaks and pauses she had finally managed to spit the whole story out to Artemis, and now they were both poring over stories, legends, histories, poems, songs and myths, trying to find out anything they could about the ‘Cupid’s Curse’ as she had christened it.

So far they weren’t having a great deal of luck, nowhere in any of them was such a thing mentioned, just a whole lot of stories about couples that Cupid had made fall in love and other similarly useless stuff. So by the time Artemis said finally,
“This is no good, you have to be back at work by tomorrow and there is no way by then we could find even a fifth of the information we want in the time we have left, we need a new plan.” she was feeling pretty irritable.
“That’s your area Mudboy” she snapped back “What do you expect me to do?”
Artemis smiled his most irritating smile, “It’s quite obvious what you need to do.”
“Maybe for you genius” she retorted “but some of us mere fairies would like some instruction on what the hell you’re going on about!”
“You need to ask people about it” He replied, still with the same smug, irritating smile on his face.
“What?” She said, her anger being replaced by confusion “I can’t just go up to someone and say, “do you know anything about why red sparks are shooting out of my fingers at random intervals and why my Commander was kissing his desk because of it?” Are you mad?!”
“I am not mad and of course you can’t do that, all I am saying is - in the most unobtrusive way as possible you could ask around, maybe Qwan or Foaly would know more about it, you could say if you knew more about the curse you could catch the person who did it more easily or something like that.”
Holly ground her teeth. Of course he was right (though she still wasn’t entirely sure about him not being mad), his plan made perfect sense, and if she was perfectly honest with herself she was slightly irritated that she had not had the idea herself two hours ago.
“Fine Mudboy, I’ll do that, but don’t expect anything major” she said flicking a switch and waiting while her wings slid out of their twin slots in her suit.
Artemis grinned, unexpectedly
“Oh, I meant to congratulate you, well done getting put up for promotion, again”
“How did you know that?” Holly said glancing back, by now at the window.
“Well, let’s just say that I like to know the current job positions of my friends”
Holly was back to grinding her teeth.
“I swear if you weren’t the only one who could help me with this I would strangle you”
As Holly jumped and flew out the window Artemis spoke suddenly, catching her off guard.
“Am I really the only one who could help you?”

She pretended not to hear him.

**************************************************************************************************************************************
As I said before PLEASE R n R and thanks to Cat Moon and Pseudonym for reviewing the last 2 chapters.

[Artemis 117]

Really good story so far! Unlike me, keep writting!

[Cat Moon]

Really good again, and the speech was a lot better. There were a couple of places where I would have put commas too, but I tend to put too many commas. I loved it, keep writing!

[ILiveForTheDay]

Okay, here is the next chapter, sorry it's so short and I'm not going to be updating until my piano exams out of the way so this'll be it for a week.

Hands on hips, pout on lips, Opal Koboi stood; watching, waiting. It was a mere week since she had escaped from the rubble that That Boy had caused to fall on top of her and was now in the process of executing her (brilliant) plan to break her future self out of prison. She almost laughed out loud at the ease at which she had bamboozled the security measures so far. Now all she was waiting for was the signal from her accomplice to go.

And a few minutes later there it was, 3 flashes of a blue light. Now it was all systems go. Or rather all files delete.

Would you like to delete all files? the computer asked.

Opal Koboi selected yes.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

That was all Captain Holly Short had heard for the past hour and a half and it was driving her mad.

Artemis was helping her type up what was known about Cupid, what she herself had experienced, and how to control it.

"How much longer are you going to be?" she had finally demanded half an hour ago, knowing that Artemis hated to be interrupted.

As predicted he scowled, "I'm going as fast as I can, it doesn't help that I'm having to read Qwans indecipherable scrawl"

Now she was scowling as well, it was true. She herself had had a go at reading it and after the first two pages got such a bad headache she had to give up.

"Look, just hurry up as much as you can. I have to be back in an hour."

"I know, I know but all this talking isn't helping."

So now she was sitting silently in one of the chairs in his study, bored out of her mind. She glanced at the clock display in her helmet

D'arvit, only 27 seconds since I last checked. How time flies when you're having fun.

Just then a mail arrived in her helmets inbox, from Trouble Kelp and marked 'urgent'. Wondering what on earth it could be she opened it and after reading the single sentence gasped "No!"

*******************************************************************************************************************************

Oooh, (slight) cliffy ;-)

Thanks to all the people who reviewed, it's nice to know I'm not just writing for me, myself and I. (But do please reply again!)

[Cat Moon]

I liked that, it was really good.
Just one thing, I had to reread

Wondering what on earth it could be she opened it and after reading the single sentence gasped "No!"

Maybe if you put a comma after 'be',like; 'Wondering what on earth it could be, she opened it'.

I really liked it, it's great how you've kept the suspense running when the Opal scene ended, suspense drains so easily.

[Pseudonym]

I like how you don't completely explain what Opal is doing. I think it's good when the reader fits the pieces together in his or her head. The sort of cliffhanger at the end is nice as well, also because the reader has an idea of what the message might be about. (Sorry I didn't review the last chapter, though I did enjoy it!) The story is getting even more intriguing, so please keep writing!

[ILiveForTheDay]

As I said I'm not going to bother writing another chappi until after my piano exam, but I was re-reading my story and I don't really think it flows that well, the speech also seems a little stunted (?not sure I got the right word but it just doesn't seem to flow smoothly) - what did you think about those two things?
(I think (hope) it will get better once I reach the action part, as that's what I can't wait to write but I can't really promise anything)

[Pseudonym]

I can see what you mean about its "flow". You could try making future chapters longer, or try starting each chapter directly where the last left off, if possible. (My advice isn't very good, but you'll find a way to smooth it with practice.)

[ILiveForTheDay]

Here's the next chapter in celebration that my piano exam is now over, and it didn't go too badly!

“What is it?” Artemis had stopped typing at her shout and was now looking at her, confused.

“Trouble said – I mean he – umm – you see,” Holly paused for a minute, gathering her thoughts. “Trouble’s just sent me an update on Opal. She’s escaped.”

Artemis's brow creased at the news while he said, “How and when did it happen?”

“I’ll read you out the message" Holly replied, "It’s easier than trying to explain.

Captain Short, Opal Koboi has escaped. The information we have is as follows; at 21:13 Opal was taped going into her toilet. She did not come out, although a large thud was heard coming from the room a few minutes later. There is no footage of anything strange, and no one in the building noticed anything out of the ordinary. Contact Artemis Fowl and bring him down to Haven as soon as possible.”

“That’s it?” Artemis looked worried.

“Yes. I’m sure we’ll hear what happened in more detail when we get back to Haven”

Nodding Artemis shut his laptop down and placing it under his arm, “Let’s go.”

Holly got up and started towards the door. Before she got there, it opened; seemingly by itself, and out stepped… none other than the Opal Koboi of the Present, a gun in her hand and a malicious smile on her face.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere today.”

Then she fired two shots and the world began to blur.

****************************************************************************************************************************8

When Artemis opened his eyes, all he was aware of at first was the light. It seemed to penetrate everywhere and everything, blinding him. He squinted, trying to get his eyes to adjust. Once they had, he could see he was in a small room, no more than 2x3 metres and painted completely white. He then realised that was what had been causing his blindness, all the lights bouncing off the white walls. There must have been over 24 lights in the walls alone, and then you had all the rest in the floor and ceiling.

Then his brain kicked in and he started looking frantically around for Holly.

After a quick, but thorough, glance around the room he realised she wasn’t there, and neither was his laptop. Briefly wondering what it said about him that he was as worried; if not more that his laptop was missing as he was a friend he searched the room like Butler had instructed him to do if he was ever captured, paying special attention to the door frames and air vents, though he knew Opal wouldn’t have taken any chances.

Three circuits of the room later, he concluded there was no way out. No surprises there. He sat down on the bed, locking his fingers together and it was then, for the first time, he noticed the ring on his finger, or rather the fairy communicator. He grinned at it and almost laughed out loud; after all of Opal measures to contain him, here he was left with a fairy communicator!

It was while he was dialling Holly’s number it suddenly hit him, who could he call that could in anyway be of any help? He only had Holly’s number and she was most likely trapped in a cell the same as him, powerless to do anything. His spirits plunged and then he scowled, realising anew why Opal had left the communicator with him and that her plan had worked perfectly. Give him a false hope, then when he realised that it did absolutely nothing it would plunge him even deeper into despair.

He scowled at the communicator for several minutes as if it was it's fault he was trapped, but eventually typed in Holly’s number; it wasn’t like he had anything else to do and he didn’t know when someone would come and get him. On the fifth ring it was picked up by a very confused Holly.

“Huh? Why were we left with the communicators?”

“Opal thought it would be funny to give us a false hope.”

“Oh.” Holly was silent for a moment digesting the information. “So, what’s the big plan this time Mud Boy?”

Now it was Artemis’s turn to be silent, thinking about their current position and how he might change it.

“As far as I can see we can’t actually do anything, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens when they come and get us”

“Right.” A pause was heard on the other end of the line then, “And when do you think they’ll come and get us?”

The communicator was plucked out of his hand by beautiful pixie with a nasty grin on her face, “Oh I would be saying right about now.”

PLEASE review lol. Next chapter is more action, less filler ;-).