9 o'clock sharp the LEP officers arrived with the gold they'd promised to bring: half the ransom. They were apparently unarmed. They began to bring the bricks over, one by one. Holly knew her job was to get the hostage away from the goblin in case a clear shot was needed at the goblin. They couldn't chance shooting the kid. Holly peered down between the branches. She was only going to have one shot at this. Aquarius was sitting eating his Squid Snaps contentedly, not realizing that the goblin behind him, was pointing a lethal weapon at him; few fairy weapons were lethal. Holly waited for the signal from Artemis.
Artemis activated the remote control car and drove it repeatedly into the bush that was covering it.
Cronus was too distracted watching the gold to pay any attention to it but the goblin turned around, taking his eyes off Aquarius to see if someone was sneaking up from behind him.
Holly made her moved she dived down out of the tree and picked up Aquarius, snacks and all, and pulled out of her dive inches from the ground. But she wasn't fast enough. Seeing nothing, the goblin had turned his eyes back to the prisoner only to see him vanish into a tree with Captain Short.
But Trouble was right on cue and while the goblin was still distracted by Aquarius's vanishing, Trouble rolled in behind him and as he came into a crouching position from his roll he smacked him with the buzz baton and gave him a quick blast from the Neutrino. He'd set it a little high but nobody would complain if the idiot lost a few brain cells.
He put the cuffs on as quietly as he could but by now Cronus had realized something was up.
Fortunately Root was in his element and had come up behind him. He aimed a spare Neutrino they'd found at Fowl's at the elf. Naturally the elf struck out at Root, attempting to knock the weapon from his grasp and run the other way. Unfortunately the other way was blocked by something resembling a large breathing mountain. This mountain was known by the name: Butler.
Butler quickly disarmed him. He held him by his feet at arms length, letting the blood rush to his head for a while.
Holly meanwhile had immediately flown Aquarius to the safety of the Bentley. "Watch him, Fowl. You're on babysitting duty." She'd shut the door and ran back to see if there was a piece of the action left for her.
The boys had had all the fun. Things never went this smoothly. It was like a rule of the job, if things actually worked according to plan then there was something you didn't know.
But everything seemed to have worked perfectly. They had Aquarius, safe and whole. Root was still fully intact and now venting some of his anger on Cronus. And Trouble gave the goblin a few swats with his buzz baton when he thought nobody was looking.
"Turn him right side up, Butler," Holly said reluctantly, there would of course be a tribunal and they weren't supposed to treat civilians this way. She put the cuffs on Cronus and handed him off to one of the junior officers. "Take him, Private Kelp."
"Yessir, Captain Short."
Holly glared at him and raised her voice. "Somebody take that goblin away from Trouble before he does serious damage."
Somebody piped up, "Goblin can't do anything now."
Holly rolled her eyes. "I meant before Captain Kelp causes him serious damage." She and Root went over to the car to get Aquarius. Holly chuckled with amusement, wondering how Artemis was putting up with the little chatterbox.
"Captain, he doesn't stop running his mouth off." Artemis seemed slightly amused as he said this.
"Kids are like that. Not that you'd know," said Holly.
Butler had come over, "After all, Artemis, you aren't the average child."
"I've never been the average child."
Root asked, "Speaking of child, where do your parents think you are?"
"I'll just tell them I've been out, playing with my friends."
"Don't you think the shock of you saying you have friends might kill them?"
Artemis seemed as though he was about to say something sharp but changed his mind and gave a small sigh instead. "It would surprise them. Speaking of children, I have to return to St. Bartleby's for school in the morning. Good evening. Contact me as soon as you capture Diggums."
"We will. A fairy keeps a deal."
"So do I," Artemis said. "Now I do at least. May not two years ago, but now." his voice trailed off. "Goodbye, Commander Root, Captain Kelp. It's been.a pleasure. Holly, I mean Captain Short, it's been good to see you again. Come, Butler."
Butler nodded to the fairies and entered the driver's side of the car.
Holly gripped Aquarius's hand as the car sped away.
Aquarius asked in a small voice, "Where's my daddy?"
Trouble picked him up in a brotherly fashion and put him over his shoulder. "Come on, kid. We're going to take you home."
Holly had to admit it, no matter what else he was, Trouble was a good brother (even though he wasn't actually related to Aquarius he was being like a good brother to him).