Hello my amazing readers! For one thing, thanks for not dropping the story after the last rather dark chapter (but I'm not sorry if you found it to graphic/disturbing, I waned you...I don't feel sorry for you, you didn't have to read it!). It was my favorite chapter to write and it's proably may favorite chapter from WT (I love the dark studd XD). On another note, nothing much to report for this chapter. Sorry that's its kinda short. It was gonna be combined with the next one but I wanted to get it out sooner! So sorry for the shortness, the next one is much longer. Thanks for much for reading/reviewing and please continue to do so!

Disclaimer: I don't own Artemis Fowl.

It's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. - Anthony Robbins

XI

Trouble looked upon the screens in front of him with a mixture of numbness and pain. What Artemis was doing was just slightly less than murder in Trouble's book. The atrocity that he was wreaking upon Holly was so sickening that Trouble felt more nauseous than he had in his entire life. His mind was reeling as he watched the man on the screen slowly lose his sanity. And Trouble felt it too. For a single moment, he couldn't not help but feel a sort of empathetic understanding towards the mastermind; for a short moment in time, he was insane too. He couldn't help but stare, transfixed, as the situation unfolded. Though he flinched with each swish of the knife and his heart almost stopped beating each time Holly's screamed, he could not help but watch intently. The scene was so beautiful yet terrible at the same time. Each action was planned by none other than the writer of the play himself. Each part was acted out but real at the same time. It was genius yet evil, perfect yet imperfect, and wrong yet right in so many different ways. But how could it be real? Can a person truly bleed that much, appear that hurt, look that sorry? Could a person truly feel so lost and want something so much that they have to resort to this…brutality?

All eyes in the room were glued to the screens. Higher ups, including Commander Chaplin, were all called and were presently on screens, watching as attentively as any. They had long since stopped threatening Trouble's job, but the silence was more threatening than anything. They wanted him to just let her die, a casualty of war they said. They said that gold was more important that a single officer and that Holly knew what she was getting herself into when she became friends with a human. But Trouble did not act, a fact that the higher ups found most annoying.

Trouble knew he should have stopped it before the knife had even been taken out. That he should have acted then and not waited for Holly to be maimed. But he, unwittingly, assumed that Artemis would do no such thing to the one he held so dear. Trouble could not lose his job and he would not lose Holly. He had had approximately two minutes to figure out which one he cared more about and it was only at that last moment when Artemis was holding a knife to Holly's throat that he realized. He loved her more than anything.

"So here is the last ultimatum I am ever going to give to you: give me the gold or Holly dies." Artemis was now saying up on the screen, a mixture of bloodlust and madness in his eyes. He was holding the knife to Holly's neck, a trickle of blood already dripping down onto the white shirt she was wearing. Trouble didn't look at her hands, too afraid that he would be sick. But he did look at the fear, pain, and hurt in her eyes that were softly going in and out of focus as she struggled to stay conscious. The blood loss would take her before Artemis did if he didn't hurry.

He turned, in desperation, toward the rest of the room, observing the somber faces and wet eyes. The room swam before him briefly, as he felt a hand on his shoulder; he hadn't even known he had been crying. Looking up, he saw Foaly standing above him with salty tracks marking where his tears had flowed.

"Give it up Trouble, please. We can't win either way. It's a job Trouble, just a job. But Holly…" His voice cracked and died as he shook violently. Trouble's throat closed up so he could not answer. It was nothing really, just a job. A job that was his whole life, the reason he got up in the morning, the reason he lived. But Holly…Frond Holly. She was so much more, so much more.

"Commander Kelp." Came Commander Chaplin's voice from a computer screen to his left. Trouble didn't look up, didn't was to see the dry, ashen face that was completely void of any emotion whatsoever. "She's just another elf. Give her up. If the fairy community needs that gold and they don't have it, you will be murdered on the streets before you can say 'not fair.' You will lose your job, be put on trial, and possible go to prison for endangering that safety of the fairy community. I am telling you, no ordering you, to refuse."

"Foaly," Trouble said quietly to the centaur making a snap decision that would haunt him forever. "Get the bio-bombs ready, not the gold." A silence filled the room, the loudest silence any of them had ever heard.

"Good man Kelp!" Commander Chaplin roared suddenly, causing them all to jump. All of the other higher ups nodded in agreement even if they didn't look too pleased. "If we bio-bomb within the hour, we will be able to get everything cleaned up and get out of there by tomorrow morning. I'll see that you get a medal for this Kelp." And with that, Commander Chaplin terminated the link. All of the others, recognizing either success or defeat soon followed suit. Before long, there was only Butler, Foaly, and a few techies left in the small makeshift office. They all gaped at him, appalled. Trouble couldn't look at the tears running down Foaly's face nor the grim disappointment on Butler's features.

"Commander, I am waiting, and so is Holly." Came Artemis' pointed tone from the screen. Trouble thought he heard a shake in the genius' voice but it must have just been his ears. He opened his mouth to condemn Holly, but before he could speak, Foaly lost control of his silent demeanor.

"No!" Foaly yelled, getting up so fast that his chair fell backwards onto the ground. His outburst caused everyone in the vicinity to jump and stare. "You can't do this Trouble. There is nothing neither ethical nor moral about it!"

"I can't not." Trouble growled taking a defensive approach and using the arguments Commander Chaplin had used on him just moments before; arguments that Trouble didn't see any logic to. "I am under strict orders not to lose that gold. Holly knew what she was getting into. She knew there was a possibility that it would come to this, and she took that chance."

"You will be murdering her yourself!" Foaly persisted, his pallor rising to a deep red in his angered passion. "Is that what you want on your conscious? Is your job that much more important that Holly's life? All she has ever done is fight for justice for the LEP. This is not justice Trouble; this is a sick joke! You'd be murdering not only her, but everything she's ever worked for over gold!"

"What choice do I have, Foaly?" Trouble yelled, his color rising. "What else can we do? There is no way we can win. There is never a way we can win when Fowl is involved; we should know that we can't best him by now. It's my job Foaly…it's what I live for. I can't give it up." Trouble felt a thousand years old. It seemed as though both choices were neither easy nor right.

"You job may be what you live for Trouble, but it's Holly's life. Even if we never have bested Artemis, it doesn't mean we can't try."

"I can't…we can't…" Trouble struggled to get the words out through the lump in the back of his throat that had reappeared quickly.

"Yes you can." Butler growled quietly, speaking for the first time. "We cannot just sit here and let the events play out as if we had no hand in the outcome. What would Holly do? Would she care whether or not her job was on the line if the other option was helping someone out or saving a life? Holly would not let herself be beaten by Artemis Fowl without giving him the fight of his life; and neither should you. Ask yourself Commander, what would Holly do?"

Trouble put a hand to his eyes so as to hide his weakness. Nothing could have ever prepared him for this moment of indecision. The choice was himself, or Holly. Even as a private, it is drilled into your head that you are to serve the People and not yourself. If you have to endanger your life to save a fairy, it is your duty to do so without question or regret.

He suddenly thought of all the orders that Holly had ever disobeyed; times when she strictly went against an order even though it threatened her life and her job. It always turned out in her favor, always. Maybe, just maybe, Trouble would have a bit of that luck too.

"To hell with my job." Troubled muttered to himself. He looked up to see both Butler and Foaly, as well as numerous techies who had been listening in on their conversation, give him nods of approval and even some small smiles.

Trouble looked up at Artemis and Holly, so close to each other that they could have been lovers, then squared his jaw. Every single person in the room seemed to wait with bated breath. Though Artemis could not hear him, Trouble began to speak. "Artemis Fowl, you will have your gold. But you will have more than that in the end. When you give us Holly back in exchange for the gold, you can expect all hell to break loose. You will have your gold in one hour's time. You will exchange Holly for it on the front lawn. But I warn you, I'm not losing my job and not getting some kind of reward in return. Revenge is coming Artemis Fowl, and you best be ready when she does."

Less than a mile away, Artemis Fowl smiled briefly, obviously guessing what Trouble was saying. It was only after he took the knife away from Holly's neck that Trouble found the strength to terminate the link.