It was a bleak night, and all the lights were dimmed in the underground city of Haven. Captain Holly Short was sleeping soundly in her moderate fairy home, when an annoying ring echoed into her dreams. She rustled about in her bed before groaning and rolling over, reaching her hand out around on her nightstand before grasping the ringing phone in her hand. She answered it and held it up to her pointed ear. She spoke in a drowsy monotone.
"It's two in the morning, who is this?"
A calm, sinister voice came through the receiving end. The voice sounded like a boy's.
"The only person who'd be calling you this late, Holly."
The elf sighed.
"Artemis...how did you-"
"That's not important. What /is/ important is that you come to me ASAP. Something cataclysmic is happening."
He hung up. Holly cursed to herself, shifting her blanket aside and sitting over the side of her bed rubbing her eyes. He sounded serious enough for her to believe the boy, and was waiting for his antics to resume. Her life had become awfully dull after the goblin invasion had passed.
<Hours later, as the Sun started to peek over the horizon...>
Artemis, the boy genius, sat at his desk with his hands steepled before him. He looked upon the large monitor that hung in front of him, analyzing the blur of information it fed him silently. He swiveled his chair around as he heard a quick knock at his door, viewing the three-foot tall lady strolling in. He waved to her.
"Hello Ms. Short, glad you could make it."
Holly waved him off and passed him a scowl.
"Keep it quick mud-boy, this is all time I could be spending asleep."
Artemis rolled his eyes and swiveled back around to face his monitor, his right hand holding his mouse loosely. He brought an image of Earth up on screen.
"You see this here? This is us."
He began to zoom out as Holly interrupted with a snarky attitude.
"Wow, very important information mud-boy..."
Artemis grunted and showed four images of Earth, all of them connected by a thin blue string. He pointed to them.
"And what do you think these are?"
Holly furrowed her eye-brows and pouted her lips, then raised a hand guessingly.
"...Connections?"
"Precisely, /artificial/ connections...and they seem to be congregating in different locations."
He continued to zoom out, revealing Earth upon Earth, every one of them connected. His screen soon looked like a huge blue spider-web, with three of them glowing brightly. Holly then shook her head confused and piped up.
"Wait, wait, why are there so many different planets?"
Artemis snapped his fingers.
"Right! I've forgotten to tell you...these aren't planets, I've simply used them to depict different universes. Many of them alternate universes, and some...much more alien than ours."
Artemis pointed to the glowing Earth in the centre of the web.
"There...this one is bringing in people from countless different worlds..."
He pointed to one to the far left.
"That one's where the chaos began, some sort of virus outbreak I believe..."
He then pointed to one at the bottom.
"And that's the next target...definitely one of the more alien worlds."
"Okay, then...why are you telling me all of this?"
Artemis lowered his head as silence broke out between them. This left Holly in a state of suspense, before Artemis turned around in his chair and spoke solemnly.
"I was thinking of sending you to the source in an attempt to stop it. Surely, you're hung dry from the lack of action you've been receiving...so I thought you'd be the perfect one for the job."
Holly stuttered for a few, before eventually managing a straight sentence.
"But, I already have a job! I can't imagine how Root would react if I went AWOL for this-"
"Very important mission. These disturbances are ripping apart our world, and thousands, millions, possibly even billions of others! You'll be a hero!"
Holly still seemed distressed...
"But..."
"No buts. Only a yes, or a no."
Artemis crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands on his lap, looking down at the woman with his piercing eyes. Holly returned his look, determined.
"Send me in."
