(A/N: First-person view. Let me know how you like it! Reviews are always welcome!)

As I woke up, I felt a sense of peace unlike anything I had felt in several years. I was free. Free from Opal, free from danger, at least for the moment. Upon regaining conscious thought, I realized that I had not reminded Butler to not let my parents know that I was alive, and I should be expecting a phone call any minute. As if on cue, my phone played the opening bars of "Siren Song". My ringtone for Mother. I grabbed my phone that, luckily, Opal had allowed me to keep because of it's hacking capabilities, and said in a clear voice, "Phone. Answer the call."

"Of course, Artemis," the phone answered in the cheery voice of Lili Frond, whose voice I had programmed in there specifically to annoy Holly. I smiled, then frowned when I heard Mother's voice on the other end.

"Arty? Is that you? Butler told me that you -"

"Yes, Mother. It is me. I am fine, if not slightly annoyed."

"Oh, did I wake you up?" Angeline sounded offended.

I realized how that must have sounded and hurriedly corrected myself. "No, mother. You did not wake me up. I am annoyed at Opal Koboi, that is all."

"Opal? What did she do to you?" She sounded worried now.

"Not much," I replied sarcastically. "Just imprisoned me for two years and forced me to help her build an army to overthrow the People."

A gasp was audible. "How many?"

I sighed. I did not want to be worrying Mother right now. Especially after she just found out that I was alive. "Let's leave that topic be for now, Mother. How are you? I haven't seen you in two years."

It was Angeline's turn to sigh now. "It's been rather uneventful, you know, apart from the normal chaos from the twins."

Oh Frond. The twins.

"The twins. How are they dealing with my absence?"

"Myles is particularly distressed, he was going to learn so much from you. Beckett is also sad, mostly because Myles is down all the time."

I was incredulous. "You haven't told them?" I asked.

"No, I didn't want to get their hopes up until I knew for sure that you were alive."

I smirked as an idea hit me. "Well, I think that they can wait a little bit longer. Expect me later today, but don't tell anybody else." I hung up as Mother was saying, "Okay, I'll see you," because Holly had just walked out of her room, and seeing me, smiled and asked, "Did you sleep well?"

I chuckled. "Best sleep I've had in two years."

Holly nodded. "Good, because from what I heard from your conversation, you are planning on doing something ambitious today."

I grinned my signature vampirish grin. "I am planning on doing something. Surprising my family with a visit."

Holly shook her head, in a jokingly exasperated sort of way. She poured herself a mug of what looked like herbal tea and said, "Artemis Fowl, ever the Mud Boy."

"What, exactly, do you mean by that?" I asked, no small hint of playfulness in my voice.

"I'll leave you to figure that out, genius. I have to go to work." She mirrored my expression as she walked out the door. "Don't destroy anything."

"Wasn't planning on it." I was still grinning when the door closed behind her.

Two hours later, after a knuckle-whitening ride on a magma flare (in a shuttle piloted by none other than Mulch Diggums) and an equally terrifying ride on the surface, I stood at the gate to Fowl Manor.

My home.

I bid Mulch farewell and told him to meet me back here in three hours. The dwarf raised his hand in a mock salute from the safety of the shuttle, then disappeared, whether from the shielding mechanism or from the speed at which he left, I didn't know, nor did I care. I entered what I hoped was the key to the gate, 0901, my birthday. To my utter satisfaction, the gates hissed open as the hydraulic pistons holding the gates shut gradually emptied themselves of their hydraulic fluid. I strode into the grounds and called Butler. He picked up on the second ring.

"Hello Artemis. What do you need?" the manservant asked.

"I need simply for you to make sure that there is nobody in the entrance hall. Actually, I need everybody on the other side of the Manor from my lab and bedroom. Can you manage that?"

Silence, then, "Yes. I already did. Everybody is in Angeline's room right now."

"Excellent. Thank you, I will be there in, ah, about two minutes."

"Two minutes!?" Butler sounded surprised. "You're at the gate?"

"Yes, old friend, I am. Mother called this morning and I told her that I would be on my way."

"Okay, Artemis. See you in a minute."

"Two minutes."

"Same difference."

I walked quietly to my room, so as not to alert my family that I was there. Upon seeing the remains of the casserole, I grinned, remembering Mulch's reluctance to leave. It was hard to believe that I had been here only yesterday. I quickly shut the door to my room, not caring anymore about silence. In fact, I was going to be as loud as I normally was in here, before I was kidnapped.

That is to say, very loud.

Not two minutes after I started the noise, I heard a knock on my door, and a voice, unmistakably my father's.

"Who's in there? Myles? Is this where you ran off to? You know you're not allowed in there."

I abruptly stopped my "work" and opened the door. "No, Father. This is not Myles. I do not know where he 'ran off' to."

Father was beyond stunned. "What the… Artemis? Son?" He reached out, as if to stroke my cheek, and I took his hand. "Yes, Father. It's me."

"H-how? You were killed. I saw the body myself."

"It was merely a clone, Father. Fairy technology."

"A clone?" The ball dropped. "Fairy technology?" If possible, my father looked even more surprised.

"Yes. I was kidnapped just over two years ago. You remember that night?"

Father's expression became distant and hollow. "I remember," he said. "The night we lost you forever."

I almost didn't want to continue, after seeing the look on my father's face, but there was an underlying tone of curiosity in his eyes that somehow made me.

"Yes, that night. I was kidnapped, drugged, then kept in a cell the size of my bed for three weeks, and mindwiped by a megalomaniacal pixie named Opal Koboi."

"Pixie… what is that?"

"A Pixie is one of the eight families of fairies, along with Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Gremlins, Goblins, Sprites and Demons."

Something clicked in my father's head as he registered what I said. "Holly… I've seen her before. Is she one of these… Fairies?"

I nodded. "Yes. An Elf, to be exact."

"Okay, but we're getting off track. What happened after you were 'mindwiped'? What is mindwiping?"

"Mindwiping is, in layman's terms, removing memories and replacing them with new ones, or leaving it blank, and the patient wonders what happened for some amount of time. Like what Opal did to me. She didn't bother giving me new memories, so I was left wondering where the last 15 years of my life went. I knew the basics, of course, my name, when I was born, et cetera. But I couldn't remember where I lived, or anything to do with Fairies. Opal taught me, but she twisted it to make it sound like she was the 'savior' of them all and she needed Human help."

During my explanation, Father listened with a look of interest on his face. Eventually, he said, "I need to digest this. This is too much, even for a brain like mine." He chuckled.

"Where is everybody else?" I asked.

"They're upstairs, in my room. Why?"

"I am going to tell them everything I just told you."

Artemis Senior shook his head. "No. You can tell your mother, but not the twins. They only need to know that you are alive, nothing more."

"What about Juliet?"

"Butler told her, she wasn't really that surprised. She had been putting the pieces together from the night you were kidnapped. Smart girl."

I chuckled. "That she is."

Father chuckled harder. "Maybe you two should get together… or not." He added when he saw the look I gave him.

"I'm taken." I said shortly. "Don't even joke about it."

Father held up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay. If you don't mind me asking, who is it?"

I smirked. "You've seen her before. Isn't she one of those… Fairies? An Elf?"

He gasped. "No way."

"To put it simply: Yes way."