Thank you, thank you, thank you to Captain Holly Short of the LEP, ht4eva, Thobbit, Mrs. Felix Volturi, Holly Bluemoon and . the . brown . eyed . girl . for all your lovely reviews!
This oneshot is inspired by the song Black Betty by Spiderbait (which I love to listen to when I'm struggling to finish an assignment at midnight the day before it's due!) I'd written about half of this when I put the last chapter up and while I was editing I realised that it really is an "all of the above" fic (see the poll at the bottom of the previous chapter), though the humour is lighter than what I normally write! It's set before the 1st Artemis Fowl book, a short while after the Hamburg Incident. Enjoy!
"Get down!" Trouble yelled, grabbing for Holly's arm as the female elf seemed determined to ignore his orders. The two officers went down in a heap of black and green clad limbs, Trouble's communicator skittering across the tarmac. From the corner of his eye, Trouble saw the countdown in his visor tick over to 0, causing his body to automatically brace for the impact of a fairy munitions factory exploding.
If they did make it back to Police Plaza, he would be wringing some serious centaur neck. At the mission briefing, Foaly had sworn on crossed hooves that it would be a cakewalk. Grab the target - another insane pixie - disarm the crude incendiary device the dim-witted fairy had mistakenly strapped to a crate of gun holsters and haul him back to Police Plaza.
Root had agreed with the LEP's chief techie; two officers would be more than enough to take down the rogue pixie without incident. Normally, he would have just sent Captain Short to do recon on the building with a full retrieval squad to pick up the perp when Holly was a safe distance away. The Captain's track record had been perfect until the Hamburg incident. Thinking about that nightmare still made Root's temples throb so he'd sent Captain Trouble Kelp, Retrieval's golden boy, to balance out Holly's instincts; a 'safeguard' measure in case any decisions had to be made under pressure.
Though the two elves did balance each others' weaknesses out rather nicely, neither had expected the 'insane pixie' to be more deranged than his case file suggested. Instead of strapping the incendiary device to the completely harmless case of gun holsters, the pixie had managed to strap it to a crate of extremely volatile chemicals. Holly had slipped through an open skylight on the factory's roof and realised how serious the situation was when she caught sight of the red and yellow warning labels. She'd shot back out of the skylight and abandoned any sense of stealth, yelling at Trouble to get the hell out of there as she dropped to the ground. Before either elf could call up the Operations Booth to swear its paranoid inhabitant, they were both running for their lives.
It was a close call; too close for Trouble's tastes. Holly had done the right thing by landing before the explosion; most officers never realised just how far down the ground when you lost all wing control. Despite such quick thinking on Holly's part, she would have been incinerated if he hadn't managed to drag her off balance with only milliseconds to spare.
"That centaur is swear toad fodder," Holly growled, pushing herself up from the dirt and shrapnel encrusted floor. She ran a quick equipment check before glancing over at the retrieval captain who was still on his back in the dirt. "You alright, Trouble?"
"Give me two seconds to-" Trouble levered himself up with a groan and twisted his spine from left to right with an almighty crack "-grow back my vertebrae."
Holly was already on the move, carefully making her way towards the pile of rubble that had been the weapon's factory. "Are you sure Grub isn't rubbing off on you?" She threw back over her shoulder as Trouble continued to awkwardly rub his back. "You might have to file a complaint form."
He huffed as Holly disappeared behind a chunk of pre-moulded concrete. It was just like the female recon elf to run off into a dangerous situation without back up and Trouble felt tempted to just let her go. A falling hunk of twisted metal had seriously clouted him on the back and taken chips out of a few of his thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. He could still feel the magic tingling along his spine as it wrestled the loose pieces of bone back into place. Under normal circumstances, a complicated spinal injury such as the one he had now would have called for a medical warlock and at least two days of desk work. Captain Short, however, wasn't about to slow down and Trouble knew her career couldn't take another hit after Hamburg.
"Holly!" he shouted, sprinting towards the skeleton of the building with a grunt. "Wait for a second. Root'll string you up by your ears if you go in without back-up!"
"That's nothing new," the recon officer called back, her voice echoing through the soot-scarred shell of charred steel and cheap plaster walls. She was trying to sound unfalteringly gung-ho but Trouble could detect the false note in her voice. He'd obviously struck a nerve somewhere because Holly slowed her pace enough for him to catch up.
"If you think being stuck on traffic duty is the worst punishment the Commander can dish out, you're in for a shock."
Holly shot him an eye roll before she continued to navigate her way to the burned remains of the pixie's 'harmless device'. Trouble followed a few steps behind, his retrieval honed senses alert for danger. It took him only moments to notice the subtle movements of a tiny, dirt-stained pixie hefting a neutrino in their direction.
I really shouldn't have rolled off my futon this morning, Trouble thought, throwing himself at Holly again as the searing heat of an orange laser burst skimmed over his shoulder.
See, I actually updated on time! What'd you think? It was a lot lighter than the other two but I'm in an angst-writing mood at the moment so there shall be more hurt/comfort in the next one ;)
I'm back in school tomorrow (year 12) but I do plan to continue that rebellion plot line I've touched on - maybe writing will keep me sane until after exams!
Ack, TAC comes out tomorrow in the UK! You lucky, lucky people!
Last thing; out of curiosity as well as research for future stories, are you:
+ A/H
+ H/T
+ Other/None
