Swaying Slightly Chapter 1, an artemis fowl fanfic

Alexandra Leblanc, a pretty, high spirited girl with warm chocolate eyes, who had an Artemis Fowl book in her hand, was sitting alone on the wooden swing in her backyard, swaying slightly. She ran her hand up and down the course rope fibers, while deep in thought. She was thinking about her birthday, she had turned 15 today. Her family and friends had celebrated and brought her gifts, and that was all very nice and pleasant, but she wanted something more, she wanted an adventure.
Alexandra looked down at herself, wearing the new outfit her mother had bought her, a white elbow length button down blouse, tucked into a fitting red mini skirt that puffed out at the end, and was paired with some sleek black flats. She loved her mother dearly, she really did, but she would give anything right now to change into a t-shirt and jeans that she would be able to run around freely in. The only thing that Alexandra liked about her appearance was her newly straightened dirty blond locks, and that was only because it was easier to tie back her layered hair when it was all at its longest. Alexandra placed her book on the ground before kicking off the dirt floor, so that she would swing in a wide circle. Once she had circled around twice Alexandra sped up until she was whipping around the curves in her path. When she had gotten to the farthest point forwards there was a bright flash of light and something hit her, sending her flying off the swing, until the back of her head hit the thick trunk of the tree her swing was connected to, and she crumpled to the ground in a heap. Her head was pounding as she saw the outline of four people in the distance. Then it all went black.

Artemis rubbed the back of his head, which was throbbing after being hit by something extremely hard. He looked around but was surprised at what he saw, it definitely was not Ireland, but it looked like a yard of sorts. The whole place looked almost whimsical. There was a dark blue house facing away from him that had a spacious deck attached which was overlooking the whole place. The only thing you couldn't see from there was the living space underneath that was adorned with a magnificent water feature that led to a small little garden that had flowers in full bloom, vivacious reds, purples, blues, and greens, spread fluently throughout. About 15 feet away there was an in-ground pool that had a wooden canopy shading it nicely with grape vines hanging effortlessly down the side. And the back of the yard, well, you couldn't actually see it, since it was veiled by a band of long weeping willow vines.
"Um, were exactly are we?" Artemis asked
"I don't know, but I can tell we are not in Ireland." Holly answered.
"No, really? How did you figure that one out?" Qwan complained.
Holly glared at him but said nothing.
"I wonder what's behind there." No1 asked with curiosity, while pointing at the willow tree.
"Well there's only one way to find out now is there." Qwan responded before heading that way, only stopping to motion the others to follow him.
Artemis pulled back the thick vines of the tree and gasped. It was like a whole different world. There was a small stream that wound its way around the enclosure, with a wooden bridge that allowed you to cross over to a little terrace that had two benches facing each other. Next to it there was a rocks that formed a circle with the inside filled with sand and a fire pit in the middle. It, in one word, was beautiful.
Artemis looked down at his feet and saw a stone statuette of a faerie that was about a foot tall. He picked up the figurine and showed it to Holly.
"Hey Holl, I found your cousin." He quips.
Holly shakes her head "That is just cruel." She responds.

The group heads out from the willow tree and hears a groggy groan.
"Sound human." No1 commented.
The four head over to the sound of the voice and find a girl crumpled underneath a slightly swaying swing. She was wearing a white blouse, red skirt and black flats. Her chest length hair was impossibly straight and she was lying next to a small hard cover book.
She groaned again and opened her eyes. They were a warm chocolate brown and had a bright gold ring around the pupil. Even though the girl was only half conscious, Artemis could tell that she was in for a surprise.

Alexandra let out another groan before her eyes fluttered open. There was a shape that was covering almost all of the sun's light from reaching her eyes.
"The eclipse isn't supposed to be until Thursday." She mumbled in her half-conscious state.
"Oh, I think she said something!" A woman's voice spoke, but to Alexandra it sounded like she was screeching.
"Shhh... Her senses will take a while to adjust, so until then we probably shouldn't make any loud noises, and Artemis don't move your head until her eyes adjust or she will be temporarily be blinded." Another voice said, this time it sounded like an old man, but his voice was much quieter.
"Ok, Qwan. But she was just knocked out for a little, shouldn't she be fine?" A male voice said, sounding very close.
"Normally yes, but if she was knocked out by the blast then no, because she is just a Mud girl, she doesn't have any magic." Qwan responded.
"But I don't have magic, how am I still alive if I was in the circle." The male responded again.
"Oh, oh I know this one. It is because you had taken some magic on the way to the planet, and Qwan was protecting you, so those added together kept you alive." A young voice answered triumphantly.
Alexandra's vision began to return, and things became clearer. She realized she was staring into a pair of eyes. Mismatched eyes.
"Whoa." Alexandra said as her vision focused on the boy that was looking down at her. He had slicked back raven black hair, and two different colored eyes, one an icy blue, and one a hazel. She looked around him to the rest of the group. There was one short girl who was wearing a dark body suit, though she looked to have adult proportions. And there were two others. Alexandra didn't even know how to describe them. There were red with weird circle tattoos on their foreheads, and they had horns and tails, they almost looked like how you would picture a demon.
Suddenly it all clicked, but it couldn't be. Alexandra looked back and forth between the bedraggled group of four and her Artemis Fowl book. It was too easy. There was only one reasonable explanation.
"You're hallucinations. You could all easily be people from my regular life." Alexandra looked at the short woman.
"You could be Lilly." She stated referring to her 12 year old sister, who was extremely short.
"And you two," she said gesturing to the two red... things "You could be my neighbors, James and Sam."
Alexandra sat up on her elbows as 'Artemis' stood up.
"And you, you could be Max." Who was a friend of both Alex and Lilly.
"I assure you, I am not named Max, nor will I ever be. And they are Holly, No1 and Qwan." 'Artemis' told Alexandra, while giving her a confused look.
"No you're not guys, stop playing with me." She snaps at them.
The short girl speaks up "Um, by any chance do you know where we are?"
"I don't know, about 15 minutes outside Boston. You should know that, you live here."
"Oh."
"Well, I am going to go change out of this wretched thing." Alexandra said, pointing at her skirt after getting up. "But then I am going to prove you are all making this up." She promised before heading inside of the blue house."

Holly looked around at her friends before saying "What a weird girl."
Artemis, who looked lost in thought, looked up at her before exploding. "Boston, Holly! Boston! You were supposed to take us to Ireland, not Southie!"
"Sorry. I was thinking of Ireland, but then my thoughts trailed off to how hungry I was and I kind of started thinking about Boston cream pie." Holly apologized, wincing slightly when she saw Artemis's face.
Instead of attacking her, Artemis falls to his knees and looks at his hands, but then he sighs.
"Well I guess we can always take a plane over to Ireland."
"Yeah, about that." Qwan starts. "Well, you see that could have worked if that girl hadn't collided with our magic, now she is bound to us and we can't return home without her."
"Well then just take her to Ireland with us."
"No, I doubt her parents will allow it."
"Well then can you make some sort of portal that we can just hop through?"
"I can, but my powers will take a day to restore, to do something that intricate."
"And she will remember us." No1 pipes in.
"Easy, take her to the underground with us and then wipe her memory." Holly answers
"Yes, that might work, good thinking Holly." Qwan commented.
Just then Alexandra emerged from the house and bounded down the stairs, now clad in a green wind breaker and black sweat pants.
"Ah, much better." She sighed. "Why are you all looking at me like that?" She asked the four who were looking at her with questioning looks on their faces

"Nothing, nothing." They muttered

"So, what do you want to do today…Eh, I don't know your name."

"Oh, Alex, and yes you do Max."

"Ok, then …Alex, what are we going to do today?" Artemis asks.

"Well, there's a magic show in town, we could go to that." Alex suggested.

"A magic show?" You mean magical creatures come up from the underground?" No1 asked.

"No. This is with people." Alex explained

"What?! Mud people have magic? Who is the traitor who told you our secrets?" Holly growled.

Alex chuckled at this "No, it's not real magic; it's just illusions that make it look like something impossible happened."

"Oh." Was Holly's only response.

"I think it will be amusing to see how narrow minded you mud people are when it comes to magic." Qwan commented with a small smile on his face.

"Well, it's decided, we will go to the magic show." Artemis announced before looking to Alex "But how exactly do we get to said magic show?"

Alex led the four down her street and through a cluster of trees before immerging to find a humongous building that had to be at least four stories high.

"Welcome to the town amphitheater." Alex said as she raised her arms to almost frame the building.

"Why would such a small town have an amphitheater?" Artemis asked "I mean I've been to some city's that don't have theaters."

"Well it's not just our town; it's all the surrounding towns too. And we put on all school productions as well as traveling shows here." Alex explained as they made their way over to the big midnight blue doors.

Alex took fifteen dollars out of her pockets and asked the usher for five tickets. He handed them to her and then she motioned the others to follow through a set of doors that led to a small stairway. They all climbed up, and everyone but Holly and Alex were out of breath, but then Holly had hers taken away from the view from her seat. The five were sitting in a balcony that was 30 feet off the ground, overlooking all the other seats, and they had a direct view of the stage which was now lit by all the colored lights the crew was shining on it.

The curtains slowly opened and in the middle stood a young man wearing a tuxedo with a rose sticking out of the breast pocket.

"Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Marzi and Gibbons Amphitheater!"

"Those are the two men who had sponsored the theater." Alex whispered to the others

"Tonight we have an infatuating show, with only the best of magicians, so with thought any further ado, let's begin!"

The man walked off stage just as a cloud of red smoke appeared. After it dissipated you could see a woman standing in its place.

"Good evening everyone. I am Evanora." she began in a sultry voice. "Today I hope to boggle the mind, and ensnare the senses of every being in this room."

She waved her hands and the torches that lined the side theater lit up casting an ominous glow on the crowd. The audience gasped, but Qwan just had a bored look on his face, and made a "Phht" sound.

Next the woman stalked across the stage until she reached a table. On that table was a coin, a kerchief, and a hat. Evanora took the hat and placed it on her head; she then took the kerchief and balled it up in one hand, while picking up the coin with the other.

"This is a trick I learned as a young girl, by my grandmother, a true magician." She said before flipping the coin up in the air and it landing beautifully in her upturned palm. She then waved the kerchief over the coin and in its place was an ivory egg. Evanora cracked open the egg and out flew a bird of the deepest blue. It soared over the crowd until it came back and landed gracefully on Evanora's shoulder. This illusion earned a gasp from No1 and even an intrigued look by Qwan.

Evanora did a few more tricks before she took her bow and walked off stage. The rest of the magicians were just as interesting as her, but Alex could tell that she was Qwan's favorite as for all the others he only seemed mildly interested.

Once the last magician bows and walks off stage, the announcer from the beginning of the show comes back on.

"Hold up everyone, our show is not over yet. Today we have a surprise open mic night. Anyone who would like to come up and try their hand at a little magic is more than welcome."

At hearing this, Qwan's head jerked up. He stood on his chair and waved his arms almost angrily to get the attention of the announcer.

"How about you there, up in the balcony, come on down." He said pointing to Qwan. Qwan got a triumphant grin on his face as he climbed up onto the balcony railing, where he then took a swan dive off. Instead of plummeting to his death Qwan swooped back up and glided over to the stage, where instead of landing gracefully, he tumbled into a series of somersaults. He stood up and walked over to the baffled announcer who said

"Well, that was quite an entrance."

Qwan made a show of dusting himself off before responding

"Sorry, I'm a little rusty."

The audience chuckled and the announcer passed the microphone onto Qwan who took it graciously and began speaking.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have been studying the art of magic since I was a young one, and I am not going to lie, I am very good at it." Another chuckle "But I have come to a realization that I need to share my gift with the world." He concluded, whilst conjuring a gift box behind his back. He brought it over to the prop table and took a knife left by the last magician to cut open the box and he pulled out a magic wand. Qwan held the wand over his head as he bellowed

"This wand represents the magic in the everyday. In nature," he said as butterflies fluttered out the tip. "And machines." He said as he pointed to a radio that randomly started to play music.

The crowd was entranced as Qwan went through his performance, doing all sorts of magic on just about everyone and everything, but then it all started to go downhill.

Qwan had just levitated someone five feet off the ground when a man in the crowd shouted "There could be wires holding that girl up!"

Qwan lowered his volunteer down to the ground before snapping his head to the man who accused him of faking.

Alex saw this and at once got up and ran down the stairs, leaving Holly, Artemis, and No1 clueless.

Down below Qwan was starting to get mad. The air around him sizzled and blue magic was forming around his palms.

"You dare to insult my magic! You are nothing but a pathetic, weak, insolent little M…" Qwan didn't get to finish because Alex walked on stage, now wearing a work suit and carrying a little pad of paper.

"Now that's magic." Artemis whispered to Holly from their spot on the balcony.

"I know, how did she change so quickly?" Holly responded.

Down below Alex pretended to be surprised that there were people in the audience by widening her eyes and responding in a nasally voice "Well, hello there everyone."

Qwan had a confused look on his face and asked "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, well, I just wanted to inform you that you have to wrap this whole shindig up. You have a doctor's appointment in 30 minutes and you know you need more ointment for your rash."

The audience chuckled at this but Qwan's pursuer shouted "So you're not going to answer my question?"

Alex's face turned dark as she faced the man "Listen buddy, Professor Qwan has to leave, and unless you want a serious whooping I advise you to Ala-ka-scram."

The man then sat back down as Alex ushered Qwan off the stage. Behind stage she changed back into her normal clothes before she met the rest of the group outside.

"Wow that was close Alex," Artemis said as they started to head back to the house.

"I know." Holly added "Qwan, you almost blew that man's head off!"

Qwan shrugged "He was getting on my nerves."

"Well you have to be more careful next time." Holly concluded as the five rounded the corner and arrived at the front of Alex's house. They all entered and sat down at the kitchen table. They then dined on ham, turkey, and cheese sandwiches, and, of course, Boston cream pie, for dinner.

Once they all eaten their fill the five moved to the couches in the living room to decide what to do next.

"We could go to sleep early." Holly suggested

No1 quickly batted down the idea "Nah, I'm on to much of a sugar high from that pie to go to sleep.

"We could go to the park down the street I saw earlier." Artemis said

"No, that park closes at 6; we would just miss it if we walked." Alex refuted. Then her head shot up and she shouted "I got it! We could go paintballing!"

"What is paintballing?" Qwan asked.

"It's when you shoot each other… with paint." Alex responded like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"That might be a good idea." Holly said "But how would we divide the teams?"

"Easy; tall people against short people." Alex decided.

"Who are you calling short?" No1, the smallest of the group, asked.

Alex looked at Holly, Qwan and No1 "Do I really have to answer that?"

"Umm, Alex, can I talk to you for a second." Artemis asked, looking a little irked.

Artemis pulled Alex to the side and whispered viciously to her

"What are you thinking? You are putting us up against a trained ex- military soldier! We are dead in the first five seconds of the round!"

"Aw, come on she's only LEPrecon, how good can she be?"

"Very good… And how do you know about LEPrecon?"

Alex let out an awkward laugh "It's pretty cool actually…" she trailed off, but was saved by Holly saying

"Hey guys, Qwan and No1 want to try paintballing, we're all in."

The five gathered themselves together and set out to the paintball arena. The trip was relatively quiet, the group only making friendly conversation, until they got to the arena. There they suited up and decided to join the next group game that was about to start, Artemis and Alex on one team and Holly, No1, and Qwan on the other.

Artemis, who, like everyone else, was dressed in black that only made his normally vampish face look a sickly pale, with an almost greenish tint to it, was hyperventilating and clenching his fists very tightly around his paintball gun. Alex walked over to him and squatted down so that she was eye level with him.

"Max, you're going to be fine." Alex reassured him "And had it ever occurred to you that someone you know may have been to this place only about a thousand times and knows the arena like the back of her hand?"

Artemis smiled slightly "You're still bent on proving that I'm someone who I'm not."

"I'm bent on proving that you are who I say you are and not the person you pretend to be." Alex corrects him.

"I'm telling you, I'm Artemis, not whoever this Max kid is!" Artemis exclaims with a ghost of a laugh on his lips.

"Said exactly like someone who is trying to pretend to be someone that they aren't" Alex points an accusing finger at Artemis.

Suddenly the doors to the arena open and everyone files in. The whole structure is painted a muted grey color, but the black stands out harshly against it. Everyone scatters in different direction, and the only way you could tell between two teams was the red or blue band that was tied around everyone's waist.

"Follow me." Alex tells Artemis as she heads deeper into the arena, occasionally ducking behind walls or raising her gun like she had heard someone coming.

It had come as a real shock to Artemis when Alex shot her first two victims. They had been lying in wait atop two raised structures, but Alex saw them and shot them down, and they now sported pink splotches on their stomachs.

Alex quickly climbed up to a raised structure that still gave her and Artemis some coverage but also allowed them to survey the scene.

Artemis stuck his head out around the corner, but quickly lost his balance. Alex grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him up onto the platform right a blob of yellow whizzed by and splatters onto the wall behind them.

"You saved me." Artemis stated in an almost confused voice.

"You honestly didn't think I would let you go that easy, did you, Artemis?" Alex asks.

"You called my Artemis."

"Yeah, because Max wouldn't make such a dumb move." Alex laughed. She then jumped off the platform leaving a dumbstruck and slightly offended Artemis alone.

Artemis hopped down too, but couldn't find Alex anywhere. He searched for a good five minutes, and had actually hit one opposing player, before he had finally given up. He turned around and heard a sickening "Ugh" around the corner of the platform. Artemis went to investigate and found Alex lying on the ground with an orange spot over her heart. Artemis rushed over to her and knelt down to hear her say

"I got the bad guy, Artemis, I did it. But he kind of got me too." Then she grabbed his hand and looked into his eyes "Tell my family… I love them." She uttered before she exhaled one last time and her body stopped moving.

Right then the bell sounded, marking the end of the round. Alex's eyes popped open and she and Artemis jumped up onto their feet before heading to the exit door. The two couldn't stop giggling the whole way out and just barely stifled them when they met up with the rest of the group.

The five headed home and decided that it was time to go to bed. They set out three aero-mattresses in the living room while Alex and Artemis slept on the long couches. They had all slept peacefully until Alex, who had the tendency of sleep talking/walking, stood up in the middle

"NEVER FORGET THE LEPTIPTITIUM!" and then she slept walked to back to bed muttering "Damn it, I left my pretzel upstairs." Before everyone fell back asleep, until eight in the morning when everyone was awoken by a blast of No1's accidental magic. Everyone was now up so they had all decided to go in the pool, except form Alex who had to work on math homework. They all changed into bathing suits and started to head out but Artemis took a look at Alex's math book. He looked at the problems that were asked and snorted.

"This is your homework?" he asked

"Yeah, I never said it was hard." Alex responded.

"If it's not, then why did you get 6b wrong?"

"What do you mean, I didn't get that wrong!"

"Yes you did." Artemis said before taking the pen out of her hand and scribbling out the answer.

"Hey! What was that for?" Alex demanded

"I'm fixing your answer." Artemis answered

"Well if you're going to change the answer use White-out." Alex said as she took a bottle of White-out out of her pencil case. Artemis unscrewed the cap and dumped the whole bottle of white paste onto her homework.

"What are you doing?!" Alex screamed.

"I'm whiting out your answer." Artemis responds calmly

"You're not supposed to use the whole bottle!"

"Oh."

"You have to take the little wand that's on the cap and brush the white- out on." Alex explained

"Sorry." Artemis apologizes lamely.

Alex sighs "Just go outside and swim in the pool, I'll start over. I bet more than half of them were wrong anyways."

"Actually, only 46.593% of them were wrong." Artemis corrected

"Artemis!" Alex warned

"Sorry." He hung his head and headed out the door to the pool.

About an hour later everyone was done with the water and had headed back inside. Holly had changed into some jeans and a tee shirt and looked very uncomfortable when she sat down at the kitchen table where Alex was bopping her head to the music she was listening to on her iPod.

"What are you listening to?" Holly asked

"Oh, it's a song by Harry and the Potters." Alex said before placing one of the buds in Holly's ear. There a strong guitar part and then some men started singing "Draco Malfoy, what's your problem…"

"Well that's an interesting song choice." Holly said, choosing her words carefully.

"Oh, and that's not all, my sister and I made up a dance." Alex started singing the song herself and doing some sort of mace Rania dance.

"Do you want to learn it?" Alex asked eagerly.

"Sure, why not?" Holly answered

"Ok, so on the 'Dra' you put your arm out face down, and then do the same with your other arm on the 'Co'. Then you turn your hand over on the 'Mal' and same with the other on the 'Foy'. Next, you bring your hand up to your head on the 'What's' and the other with 'Your' and then spin your head around twice on 'Problem'. Do you get that?" Alex asked

"I think so." Holly replied, though a little hesitantly. Then she tried it and failed… quite horribly.

"This time do it with me." Alex said before going through the movements one more time, and Holly got them.

"Yay!" She squealed while jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

"Great!" Alex praised "Now you're going to point outwards to the "audience" on 'all your friends think'. Next you're gonna make a weird diamond shape with your index and middle fingers like this." Alex said as she showed her the hand gesture "On 'rad'. On " 'cause you treat me' you're going to point to yourself and then make two thumbs down on 'so bad' and you have the chorus."

After a half an hour of giggles and falling on the floor repeatedly, Holly finally got the 'Draco Malfoy Dance' down and could go through all the movements without any kinks.

Right when Alex and Holly finished the dance perfectly for the second time, Artemis came bursting in.

"Holly, Qwan's ready."

Holly stopped laughing immediately and grabbed Alex by the arm and started to drag her to the backyard.

"Wait, where are we going?" Alex asked.

"The Underground." Holly answered back quickly.

"That's so cool." She responded.

"It's actually quite warm underground." Holly looked at her quizzically.

"It's an American thing." Alex offered.

Holly and Artemis looked at each other and shrugged before sitting Alex down on one of the logs around the fire pit. Qwan was mumbling under his breath that sounded like gibberish to Alex, but must have been some sort of spell because blue light was forming over the steadily blazing fire.

The sphere of magic grew and grew until it engulfed all five of them, and suddenly everything went blue. In a flash everything stopped and Alex looked around to find herself in a place that didn't look too different from Boston, just a lot more high tech. There were very tall buildings, which seemed ironic to Alex, seeing as the citizens of the city were all half her height.

Holly led the group throughout the city while the rest were just staring admiringly at the architecture, and all the different people. They had rounded the corner and Holly punched in a password to a keypad. A set of doors opened and Holly led them through.

The group passed through another set of doors until they looked to be in some sort of control room. A tall swivel chair spun around and sitting in it was the chest and head of a human but the legs of a horse. Alex, who loved mythology, and had finally accepted that this was in fact Artemis Fowl and his friends, knew that this was of course the centaur, Foaly.

Foaly hopped up onto his hooves and enveloped Holly in a bone crushing hug.

"Holly!" He cried. "We were starting to worry about you."

"Can't breathe. Room getting darker." Holly pretend choked.

"Sorry." Foaly winced before rounding a glare on Artemis.

"Fowl." He nodded curtly.

"Aw, come on Foaly, we can put our differences behind us for today, right?" Artemis asked

"Sure, I can do that, but not the general hatred of you by the faerie people." Foaly quipped.

"You've wounded me Foaly." Artemis joked.

Foaly then looked over at Alex and asked "Is she here what I think she's here for?"

"Holly looked grim "Yes."

Foaly looked over at Alex with a mixture of sadness and relief.

"No." Alex said with stony eyes, now realizing what they were talking about.

"What?" Foaly asked.

"I'm not getting my mind wiped. I'm not losing my memories. You can't make me." Alex stated bluntly.

Holly looked over at Alex "I'm so sorry." She pleaded "But you Alexandra Leblanc, by refusing to take the mind wipe are ordered by Ark Sool, you are to be detained until further actions are permitted to be taken." Holly said before taking out her hand cuffs and slapping them on Alex's wrists.

She then marched Alex, with the rest following closely behind, to what Alex guessed was the faerie prison. She was brought inside and shown to a prison cell, which looked suspiciously like a room in a mental asylum. Everything was white except for a few stainless steel fixtures that were screwed into the sink. Also everything was soft, and there were no sharp edges at all. The sharpest things in the room were probably Alex's fingernails.

Everyone would come in one at a time telling her to get the mind wipe and that it would just be easier that way, but Alex refused all of them, even Holly who was begging on her knees. She also told Alex about what the Faeries did to people who remembered them, and though even a little shaken Alex would rather remember and go through that then to forget everything.

Finally Artemis was the last to come in. He opened his mouth but Alex stopped him.

"If you are in here to try to convince me to take the mind wipe, it's not worth it; I'm not going to do it." She huffed.

"I know. I'm not here to convince you of anything." Artemis answered

"Good, because it wouldn't have worked anyways." Alex stated.

"It's just that I have to go back home and there's something I want to do before I leave."

"Oh, Ok." Alex shrugged.

Artemis stepped closer to Alex and then kissed her. He placed a hand lightly on her back, and it tingled where he touched her. Then it started to go numb. Alex realized in a blink what Artemis had done but it was already too late. The sedative was already being pulsed all through her bloodstream. She pulled away from Artemis, swaying slightly.

"Why?" She asked before she blacked out and fell forward into Artemis's arms.

Artemis was watching all of his friends try to convince Alex to take the mind wipe, but he knew it would never work. The only way was for her to be tricked. Suddenly a plan popped into Artemis's mind and he knew at once it would work. He made his way over to Foaly.

"Hey Foaly, can I borrow one of those finger darts you invented?" Artemis asked.

Foaly saw that Artemis was planning and thought it would be better to not disturb him, so he quietly retrieved one of his finger darts. Artemis had just finished fitting the dart on and molding it to his finger when Holly came out of the cell shaking her head.

"It's useless; we'll never get her to take the mind wipe." Holly sighed.

"Can I go in? I might be able to convince her, because I'm human and have had the mind wipe before." Artemis lied easily.

"Sure but I don't see how it's going to help." Holly said, opening the door to allow Artemis in.

Artemis opened his mouth but Alex stopped him in his tracks.

"If you are in here to try to convince me to take the mind wipe, it's not worth it; I'm not going to do it." Alex stated with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I know. I'm not here to convince you of anything." Artemis answered, which was the truth, but he wasn't really giving her a choice.

"Good, because it wouldn't have worked anyways." Alex said, now a little more relaxed.

"It's just that I have to go back home and there's something I want to do before I leave." Artemis said which was partly true; he just didn't have to go home right then.

"Oh. Ok." Alex responded, sounding a little confused.

Then Artemis took one step closer to Alex before pressing his lips to hers. It was true that he wanted to do this; something about this girl sparked some emotion in him that he never noticed before, and it wasn't a bad feeling. He pressed his hand lightly against Alex's back and felt the dart leave his finger. After a few seconds Artemis knew that Alex had realized what happened and pulled away from him, swaying slightly.

"Why?" She asked with such disappointment and betrayal in her chocolate brown eyes that it nearly broke Artemis's heart. Right then Holly burst in.

"Artemis! What did you do?" She nearly screamed.

"She can have the mind wipe done now." Artemis answered in a hoarse voice before leaving the room.

He quickly walked over to a bench that had his pack sitting on it. From the bag he pulled out a bottle of white out and a pen. Artemis then walked over to No1.

"Hey, No1, could you do me a favor?" He asked.

'You honestly didn't think I would let you go that easy, did you, Alex?'

Alex remembered it all.

Best. Birthday. Ever!