LEP Shuttle en route to Haven
Artemis sat in relative comfort as the shuttle ferried him and his companions down to Haven City. He sighed in relaxation as the form-fitting cushions of the seat supported his back, which had taken quite a shaking after their little escapade. He'd have to spend a few hours with the chiropractor to get that one sorted out. Still, despite his outward appearance of comfort, his mind was reeling. This was bad. Humans and fairies, working together? And to besiege Fowl Manor, no less!
Holly was fuming when she took her seat. The pilot had politely declined to allow her to pilot the vehicle. Holly wasn't feeling particularly charitable right then, and she muttered to herself, "You can go stick your ma'am right up your—"
She sighed. Hotshot pilots. Still, she knew she'd been like that, full of bravado and such, and she still was. But in the years during their absence in Limbo, Holly found that a new generation of LEP had been trained. She'd always been the youngest. That was still taking some getting used to.
Shaking her head, she instead focused her attention on her two best human friends. Her only human friends. Butler sat in a fairy seat designed for a being a fifth of his size, but made a brave attempt at ignoring the embarrassment. The bodyguard simply removed his trusty Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster, checking to see that it was still loaded for the fifth time this flight.
Artemis sat in silence, eyes shut tight, forehead creased with worry lines. It was times like this that Holly really pitied Artemis. He never got to be a kid. He never wanted to.
The Irish youth thought furiously, attempting to think up a reason as to why Fowl Manor had been attacked. He had enemies, doubtless, both fairy and human, but to be attacked by both? This was very bad.
Foaly's voice spoke in Holly's ear. "Haven's going to be locked down soon. We're waiting for clearance from the council."
"Have you got any idea what's going on?"
The centaur shook his head, speaking into the microphone. "Not a clue. It's as mysterious as the meatloaf Caballine makes me for dinner sometimes. The Council says that if we've got rogue fairies working with humans, we've been exposed. At least partially. I'm lucky to be getting this signal through."
Holly shook her head. Why did this always happen to them? Her eyes glanced in Artemis's direction, and her expression softened slightly. She'd just remembered: he'd been about to tell her something at Fowl Manor. She could guess what it was, but they'd been interrupted. Now the moment was gone. Part of her was devastated, another part angry that she'd let her emotions get so mixed up.
Then she remembered something Artemis had told her. Foaly knew. Oh, she'd wring that centaur's neck…
Sealing her helmet so that they couldn't be overheard, she said to Foaly, and none too kindly, "Artemis tells me you've figured us out."
She couldn't see him, but Holly could just picture the blood draining from his face. Her suspicions were confirmed when she picked up the sound of Foaly gagging on his carrot juice.
After a moment, he spoke. "Ah. I see Artemis told you. Holly—"
"Foaly, can't you just butt out?"
"Holly," his voice quickly lost
all apologetic tones. He was concerned for her. "He's a Mud Boy.
Your seventy years older than him. It's not healthy!"
"He's
a Mud Man now, and his name is Artemis," she snapped. "And I'm
not exactly ancient, Foaly! I'm still in my prime, for Frond's
sake! And another thing—"
"Listen to yourself, Holly!" Foaly warned. "You're trying to justify it!" He calmed down slightly, asking, "I don't understand, Holly. What happened to you two?"
For the first time, Holly actually sat back and gave it some thought. Butler, always the soldier, noted the slight change in her body language, signifying defeat. "I don't know, Foaly. There's just something about him. I'm just…" Then she remembered. What Artemis had said. Well, almost said. Confidence welled up inside her. This was the first step. She'd say it out loud. Albeit aloud inside a sealed helmet speaking only to Foaly, but it was a start.
"I love him, Foaly."
Foaly's sigh was a hiss of static over her earpiece. "I never thought I'd see the day." For a moment he was silent, stoic and reserved. Very un-Foalylike. Then his personality took over, and he couldn't resist muttering, just loud enough for Holly to hear, "Holly and the Mud Boy, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N—"
"FOALY!"
As Holly had her little anger attack, Butler discreetly nodded to Artemis. "So, tell me, any ideas as to what we're doing next?"
Artemis was slightly distracted by the spectacle of Holly obviously screaming into her helmet, arms waiving about wildly. She made no attempt to hide her anger. After a moment he tore his eyes away, answering, "I don't know, Butler. We're up against a powerful enemy, I can guess that much. And I get the feeling the LEP won't have a clue what to do." He flipped open a communicator.
"Still," he said, hitting speed dial on the Gnommish keys, "I have a few contacts that are bound to help."
Haven City, Lower Elements
The contact in question was currently sitting in an inconspicuous vehicle, idling just off the entry ramp onto the freeway. The Haven 435 was a veritable zoo today, what with the crunchball tournaments just having finished, and all of those hyped-up gnomes were blocking up the roads in their desperate bids to return home only to watch another match on television. Mulch sighed to himself, stripping the last hunk of meat from a sim-chicken leg, taking meticulous care to remove any excess flesh, before promptly tossing the rest of the bone down his gullet as well.
He'd been waiting in his car for a while now, while his newest partner, Doodah Day, had been off gathering some information on their latest target. It seemed that a sprite bodybuilder had been playing around with certain muscle-enhancing drugs, which were illegal in Haven. The steroid-munching sprite had to be brought in, and Diggums and Day had to track him down.
Diggums and Day. Mulch liked the sound of that. When Holly had been his partner, back before she'd rejoined the LEP, Mulch's name had been second. What with Doodah as his new partner, Mulch felt that seniority reigned supreme.
Doodah had disagreed. "You can't do that," he'd said in his squeaky pixie voice. "Day comes before Diggums, even the humans' alphabet says that!"
Mulch had promptly dismissed any dissent over their name with a quick flash of his enormous tombstone teeth. Of course, he wouldn't actually take a bite out of the pixie. He'd grown quite fond of him over the years since their business started up.
The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and Doodah quickly slipped in, occupying the driver's seat. The little pixie didn't bother with a systems check, as Holly would have done, simply throwing the car into third gear and tearing off down the ramp.
Mulch nearly lost his lunch right there. Doodah wore a look of urgency, his little pixie features distorted by a grim scowl of determination.
"We're got 'em," he managed to grunt as he drove, before swearing loudly as they were promptly trapped in the traffic. Their previous speed of seventy miles an hour had been reduced to three.
Mulch took advantage of this opportunity to have a word with his partner. "So, what do we have?"
The pixie's hands gripped the wheel with a frightening ferocity, and the angry glare sent another driver's way would have scared a troll. "I spotted our man getting on the freeway just before we did. He'd headed north. Probably to his gym."
Mulch nodded, stroking his beard, which, in actuality, was an intricate matrix of living antennae, which would send out gentle pulses, like sonar, and report back to Mulch when he was digging. Quite handy. Mulch was a dwarf, and his species possessed innumerable useful traits in the criminal business. But since he'd joined the side of the law, Mulch had used these talents to other ends.
And so they continued on at their painful speed, eventually turning off when they spotted the sprite's vehicle exit the freeway. They shadowed him for several miles, eventually arriving at a nondescript gymnasium.
The sprite stepped out of his car, and Mulch noted his incredible physique. This one would be tough to take in. His wings in comparison to his body were laughable, tiny and pathetic looking. Still, Mulch felt it wouldn't be wise to laugh at this particular sprite.
The suspect slammed his car door with enough force to make even Mulch wince at the ominous cracking sound, and then proceeded down a back alley. Perfect. No civilians, no problem.
Mulch stepped out of the car, motioning for Doodah to follow. They entered the shadowy alley, noticing the enormous sprite attempting to jam a key into a door as if he hated it. Mulch heard a snap, then a tinkling sound as the key smashed apart, and heard the sprite swear under his breath, taking another key of its ring. Apparently this happened to him often.
Doodah came up slowly behind the sprite, and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He had to stand on the tips of his pixie toes to do so. The sprite turned about, green skin rippling with toned muscle. "Yeah? What do you want?"
Doodah cleared his throat, patting the sprite genially on the shoulder. "Hello, good sir. I'm a tourist. I seem to be lost, could you help me?" He threw in the old wide-eyed, wobbly lip bit for good measure.
The sprite was five times Doodah's size, easily, but the pixie made a critical mistake in assuming size was associated with the approximate intelligence of a stinkworm. It wasn't.
"You ain't no tourist, Doodah Day. You're an investigator, and you've been tailing me for three days."
Doodah swallowed nervously. Time for a different approach. Acting on quick pixie reflexes, he drew his arm back, and let his tiny fist fly. A valiant attempt, but even though his reflexes were fast, the force of his punch was not unlike that of a swear toad hitting a troll.
The sprite was on him in a second, powerful muscled arms bearing down in his little pixie neck.
Mulch would have sworn if he'd had the time. Being twenty feet away from where the sprite strangled his partner, Mulch was helpless to proceed. Well, almost helpless. He had one option left to him.
Dwarves have various talents. Being tunnel-diggers, dwarves were capable of rapidly ingesting large amounts of clay and then forcibly… ejecting it out the other end. Beautiful. A good dwarf digger could do this in seconds. Mulch was better than good. He was the best.
"Get. Him. Offa. Me," Doodah managed to croak as the sprite proceeded to crush him, and Mulch realized that even his prodigious excavating abilities wouldn't get him to Doodah's side in time.
The… waste produced by dwarf activities must be quickly ejected in order to make room for more. Dwarf gas was extremely potent allowing the excess matter to be quickly blasted away. This force could take the head off a fully grown Mud Man, as Butler had almost found out once.
Mulch didn't intend anything so lethal, but still, he had to get that sprite off his partner. Quickly dropping to his knees, he spun about, unbuttoning his bum-flap as he did so. Mulch took quick aim, as only a practiced tunneler could, and summoned forth the formidable force at his disposal. For a moment he held the powerful blast in, waiting for the pressure to build, then, just when he thought that Doodah might breath his last, Mulch groaned loudly and let it fly.
A whirlwind of destruction tore forth, making for the duo. The force behind the blast was enough to knock a bull troll onto his haunches. It would most likely give the pumped up sprite more than just pause.
Mulch's aim was true. Without hitting Doodah, the discharge hit the sprite dead-on, sending him pirouetting through the air, before finally crashing to the ground. The dwarf dashed forward, helping his partner off the ground. No need to worry about the sprite for a few moments. The fall most likely had knocked him unconscious, and Mulch hoped so. If the sprite was still around to smell what he'd been hit with, they wouldn't have been able to get him off the pavement for at least a few hours.
Doodah gasped for breath, his little pixie neck miraculously intact in spite of the beating it had taken. The pixie didn't seem unduly worried about the attempted murder, however, rather focusing his attention on Mulch.
"Don't ever, ever, do that again, you hear me?"
Mulch huffed, slightly offended. Sure his… discharge had been dangerously close to Doodah himself, and maybe he'd lost an eyebrow or two from the wake of it, but all-in-all Mulch felt he'd done a pretty good job.
He'd just been drawing breath to make one of his own disparaging comments, when a communicator in his pocket vibrated, playing the tune to the Riverbend Song. His hairy dwarf hand darted into his trousers, picking off the residue of his last snack from the device. When it was relatively clean, and the last of the vole curry scraped off the screen, he accepted the call.
He swore at the sight of the pale teenager's face that greeted him.
"Oh no! Not again! I'm done with that stuff, I told you! If I ever want to die in the line of duty, I'll get a job at Spud's Spud Emporium. Forget it!" Even as he spoke, blast walls lowered all around, klaxons blaring. Mulch shook his head. Never a moment's peace. "I'm assuming we've got to save the world again?"
Artemis Fowl smiled slightly, exposing his pristine white teeth. "How'd you guess?"
