For helping me polish this chapter, I'd like to thank my very lovely faux-Mum, Pea-chan.

Four: Professor

Holly could only gape through her fingers, watching the horror unfold. She knew the boy had a twisted sense of humour… but this! This was taking things to an entirely new level. His huge brain short-circuited and finally drove him around the bend, she was certain of it—maybe karma's way of savagely gnawing on his rump for all his deviousness—but why did his punishment have to involve her? The mortified Captain had never seen the appeal of self-obliteration before, but right now she would very much love to shoot herself with a Softnose laser or stroll into Howler's Peak without any weapon.

She had been unconvinced when Artemis had gathered the LEP in a private assembly hall in the remotest place in Iceland to present a proposition to save the world from global warming while insanely committing his entire fortune to it. It was unbelievable. The word selfless had never been used to describe Artemis Fowl the Second. Until today. Not only that, he also seemed to be... nice?

All the same, she should've known that it was too good to be true. At the end of the lecture, Holly instantly demoted him from being a selfless fairytarian to a barmy nitwit.

It's a bad dream. Wake up, Holly, and it will all disappear, she thought, but to no avail; Artemis's next PowerPoint did not vanish in front of her eyes. The first slide featured two headshot photos of one brown-skinned, redheaded elf and one pale, dark-haired Mud Boy.

"Love is an abstract concept with a very complex meaning," he began in monotone. "It varies from one context to another. By and large, love is referred to as what one might feel for another person—a kind of emotion felt by every sentient being. Even me."

It was very overwhelming for Holly who was too stunned for speech. She was gobsmacked—unnerved—and she began to dread what his next words could be. Covering her elfin ears, she looked up at the towering man beside her with pleading eyes conveying a request for him to stop his master's madness. He looked back at her with a very foreign expression on his face: confusion. It was a sight to behold.

"—feeling of such type often goes unnoticed even to people with intellect as great as mine. It can be triggered by an impulsive act of intimacy between two parties—"

Holly could feel her colleagues's shocked stares, especially Foaly's, boring on her back but she kept on enforcing her silent plea on Butler.

"And now we proceed to our next topic: Osculation. Please refer to figure one for further understanding. The study of osculation dates back from the early twentieth century by one Ernest Crawley. It is the act of—"

"Please, Butler, stop him."

"Holly, I—" he managed to utter, flummoxed as he was, but he was interrupted by his principal's next words:

"If a certain female LEP officer, say, in Recon, kisses her mission partner, who is, as it is, a Mud Man..."

Holly sent a death glare in Artemis's direction that could've made even a bull troll keel over and cower in fear. But Artemis Fowl would not stop for anyone in mid-lecture, not even for the very subject of the lecture he was delivering. He then proceeded to discuss the complexities of love for socially inept individuals, using himself as an occasional example.

"In conclusion: Captain Short, I love you."

If the circumstances were any different, she would've appreciated the genius's unique effort. Probably. But as of the moment, she was too busy engaging herself in afflictions of pain, letting her forehead make contact with the table surface in front of her with repetitive thuds.

A/N: Credit for the conception of this idea goes to Kelsey (KelseyRainAtlantis in deviantART) and Dontmovethefilesevil from the AFC Forums. Based on Barnes & Noble's Atlantis Complex plot synopsis: 'Symptoms include obsessive-compulsive behavior, paranoia, multiple personality disorder and, in extreme cases, embarrassing professions of love to a certain feisty LEPrecon fairy.'

This chapter is about six hundred words. I know I said I'd put up chapters in five hundred words or less, but with this, I couldn't. I tried to shorten it. Really, I did. I also couldn't split this in half because it wouldn't make sense. So here's it is.

Hope you enjoyed Artemis's lecture. Please review. Constructive criticisms are welcome.;)