AN: AHHH!! I am so so so so sorry! I didn't mean to get this far behind in posting *sniffles* I am such an airhead!!!!
ASN: Finally, the truth comes out.
AN: *Glares at sister* Anyway, to make up for it, this chapter is nine pages long instead of three.
ASN: *Skims to end of chapter* Um, Lessa dear, our dear readers are going to roast you on a spit when they read this chapter.
AN: So it ends a little abruptly... it leads to interesting reviews.
Chapter 25: Mesmer, Martial Arts, and Maneuvers
Kegel stumbled backwards against a table, his mind spinning. After all of Defea's pleas of secrecy and keeping the matter from her superiors, he had not anticipated an attempt to rescue the hostage. Dodging around the edge of a table, he ducked another blow from the blonde girl.
He hadn't expected human backup either. At least with humans he had an edge. If he could stay alive long enough to use it. Kegel ran around a long counter covered in notes. The girl did not chase him. She vaulted over the counter and landed right in front of him.
"What do you want?" he gasped. The girl gave him an evil smile, the fluorescent light of the lab dancing off glitter eye shadow. She grabbed the lapels of Kegel's wrinkled lab coat to keep him from sliding away.
"Hi. We're exterminators, here to relieve you of a certain 'Grub.' Where is he?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Kegel stammered, trying to wrench free of the girl's surprisingly strong hold.
The girl shook her head sadly. "That was not a good move, doc." Kegel gasped as suddenly his world turned upside down and he landed with a soft smack on the tile floor of the lab. As disorientation washed over his brain, some disconnected part of his mind informed him that the move the girl had used was a wrestling slam made famous by the short-lived Jade Princess. Kegel didn't really care.
Trouble and Mulch watched from the still-open door of the closet.
"Isn't she something?" Mulch asked in awe. Trouble could only nod as the girl hauled the downed man back up on his feet. She didn't need their help after all. If he only had a few like her on his Retrieval team...
"Now, let's try that again. Where is he?" Juliet asked sweetly.
"You do not want Grub." Kegel's voice suddenly rang with power, unmistakable authority…and the distinct bass tones of the mesmer. Trouble gasped. If this Mud Man could mesmerize, things would turn very bad here shortly. Mulch, who had almost gotten out of his computer cave, cringed at the voice and stayed right where he was: out of sight.
"What?" Juliet said, frowning. She took an unconscious step toward him.
"You do not want Grub. He is not here. You know nothing of this Grub, and nothing of me." Kegel sounded much more confident now. But Juliet did not.
Kegel couldn't keep from grinning. The vicious girl was under his control for now. "Now listen closely," he began. "Go back and tell your superiors that there was nothing here, even though you searched. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and there certainly was no fairy in the closet."
"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to lie to a lady?" asked a dry voice behind Kegel. The nerd whirled to find himself face to face with another fairy, dressed exactly as his hostage was. Except that this one was carrying lots more weaponry, and looked a whole lot tougher.
"Who are you?" Kegel blustered.
The fairy grinned, showing teeth. "My name's Trouble." He leisurely pulled a tri-barreled blaster from his belt. "And you have my brother."
"Oh, you're Trouble." Kegel squeaked, cautiously stepping away from the dark holes of the barrels. "I've heard so much about you."
He took another step back, and came against an unyielding object. He turned to see the blonde, who looked rather peeved. Kegel swallowed nervously, stuck between a rock and a really big gun.
It's pretty strange to see a human with the ability to mesmer." the hovering fairy offered, "But with humans, as soon as eye contact is broken, the control disappears." Kegel nodded, and lunged sideways towards his desk, smacking the alarm button before either the fairy or the girl could stop him.
***********
"No way." Holly gasped as she brought her Neutrino up to bear down on the troll. It roared and lunged for the fairies. Root fired, the laser aimed straight at its head. The shot seemed to go right through the troll, who simply roared again.
"What the-" Root fired again, and again the laser didn't do anything. Foaly's eyes brightened suddenly.
"Ahh!!" he exclaimed. With that, he trotted right up to the troll. Root's expression became one of confusion and rage.
"Foaly, what are you doing?! You'll get killed!" The troll roared right in the centaur face. He didn't blink.
"Calm down, Julius; it's a hologram." The centaur waved his hand, and his fingers went right through the troll's head. Then he sighed theatrically.
"Defea, is that the best you can do? A hologram?" he shouted into the air.
"Hey, that's not just any hologram. You wanna know how many days I had to spend at the zoo to get it that realistic?" her voice echoed.
Root rolled his eyes. "Stop arguing, you stupid centaur, and let's check out the other room." Holly was already there, kicking the door open.
It revealed a dark, unlit library and office, with a large desk. It was not empty.
There was a trussed up figure sitting in the desk chair.
"Simone!" Holly said, stepping onto the dark floor. Sparks flew, and Holly jumped back into the hall.
"It's electrified. The floor is electrified." she snarled. "What kind of paranoid idiot electrifies the floor in their office?!"
The other three were silent, and Holly realized what she had just said. "No offense."
"Okay, we have to get you over there, Captain. You're the smallest and the lightest." Root said firmly.
"So?"
"So," Artemis said, "You would be the easiest to throw over the floor onto the desk."
Holly sighed. "The Commander isn't strong enough to throw me, and Foaly's the wrong height."
"Hey!" the two fairies chimed together.
"That's true." Artemis agreed. "But if the Commander and I throw you together, I think we can do it."
Holly stared at the teen. "You expect me to let you throw me over an electrified floor?"
"What, Holly?" Artemis asked with a crooked smile. "Don't you trust me?"
Holly continued to stare. "I trust you about as far as…" She trailed off.
"As I can throw you?" Artemis deadpanned.
"Oh, shut up and get ready." she snarled.
Root and Artemis linked their hands together for Holly to step into. She gingerly hopped on, braced herself on Root's shoulder, and put her other hand on Artemis a little harder than necessary.
"On the count of three." Root commanded. "One, two…"
"I can't believe I'm doing this." Holly muttered.
"Three!"
Holly found herself flying across the office. She landed with a thump on the highly polished desk and skidded into the desk chair.
The figure in the desk chair tumbled out and hit the floor in three pieces.
"Holly!" Foaly croaked.
She glared down at the crackling bits of fabric. "It was a dummy."
"Oh. She must be in another one of the rooms." Root said placidly.
"That's nice. I'm glad for her. And did any of you geniuses have a plan on getting me out of the room?" she asked sarcastically.
Root looked at Foaly. The centaur shrugged. "I think we should let the certified genius here solve it."
Artemis stared blankly at the two fairies. "I may be a certified genius, but you are the technological expert. You should handle it."
"Oh, on the contrary-" Foaly started.
"Oh, it's your job." Artemis interrupted smoothly. "I wouldn't want to interfere. After all, you don't get out often."
Exercising great control, Holly managed not to scream. "I'll do it." she growled.
With a flick of her wrist, she pulled a fizzer from her belt and pried it open. As it exploded, she tossed it onto the floor. The floor hissed and smoked.
"Oh." Foaly said a little dumbly. "That works."
Holly stomped across the floor and breezed down the hall. "Men." she spat.
The next door they came to had no lock whatsoever. The group stared at it for a few minutes.
"The obvious question is whether Defea would put anything in a room that isn't locked. Is she counting on us to leave it unchecked?"
"Oh, try it." Defea's voice said maliciously. "I dare you."
"That's real ominous." Holly whispered to Foaly. He nodded. Root exhaled in frustration.
"We've already had LEP equipment destroyed, been blinded, deafened, and one of my best officers was nearly fried. What else-"
Foaly paled. "Don't say it!"
"-could possible go wrong?!" Root bellowed as he ripped open the door.
There was a slight crackling sound, and every single light in the house went off. Including the monitors on the laptops they were carrying.
"You said it." Foaly grumped. They heard Artemis's voice speak up out of the darkness. He did not sound very pleased.
"I believe that was an electromagnetic pulse. It disables every unshielded electronic circuit within a given radius."
"Good one, Julius." Foaly commented as he tried to get his computer to work, and having no luck whatsoever.
"Shut up."
Holly pulled out her flashlight. "Foaly, I thought you said Defea didn't like messes."
"She's getting desperate." he said as he produced his own flashlight.
"Good for her." Root snapped. "What does that mean?"
"That means we'd better be really careful."
"Well," Holly sighed, swinging her flashlight around, "This room's empty. The only way left to go is down that hallway."
Root and Foaly set off down the hall. Holly began to follow, and stopped as Artemis touched her shoulder.
"Doesn't it appear we're being herded in this direction?" he asked softly. She nodded agreement.
"Of course it does. Unfortunately, we have to play Defea's game."
*************************
An ear-splitting siren and flashing strobe light pierced the night silence, and Juliet winced.
"Oh, that's just great." she muttered, and advanced on the nerd. Trouble got there first.
"Okay, that was dumb, even for a Mud Man." the captain snarled, aiming the huge gun directly at Kegel's chest. The nerd raised his hands.
"Hey, if you shoot me, the security will catch you, and you'll never get your brother back, because the door is coded to my computer password algorithm. If you leave now, you can probably disappear or whatever it is you... people do before security gets here. And if you leave now, you have my word that I won't kill your brother, and I won't even raise the price of the ransom. Those are the only choices you have." he said with a studiously nonchalant shrug.
"There's a third choice." Trouble stated, shaking his head. "You can call off the alarm right now, or I'll shoot you and start blasting this entire complex apart until I find my brother." Kegel gaped at him, and the captain added, "Don't worry. I won't kill you. I wouldn't want you to miss explaining the situation to your superiors."
Kegel stared in shock at the tiny figure floating in midair. Despite his diminutive size, he was much scarier than the blonde warrior.
"Okay." he whispered in a mouth gone dry. He banged the button again, and the siren stopped screaming, but continued to flash. Keeping both his hands where the intruders could see them, he carefully picked up the phone on his desk.
"Yes, this is Kegel. Actually, it was just an accident. I slipped and hit the button by accident. Everything's fine." he said, then frowned. He turned to see the fairy glaring at him, slim fingers playing a tattoo on the barrel of the blaster. "No, I don't need the security team to do an inspection. I'm in the middle of something important, and I don't need to trip over your steroid-happy goons for an hour. I said I was sorry, and that it was an accident. Okay?" The nerd didn't wait for an answer, but slammed the phone down. As he hung up, he heard a very uncomplimentary phrase spat into the receiver on the other end. He turned back to the intruders and waited for the fairy to speak.
***********
The next door Root opened without a problem, and the team stepped cautiously into the room. There was another door in the far left hand side, and a large panel in the ceiling. Root frowned up at it.
"Odd."
Artemis, however, had noticed something far odder. He crossed to the exit. "There's no handle on this door."
"What?" Foaly said, and Holly whirled around, already knowing what she would see. The door behind them had closed, and there was no handle on it either.
"D'Arvit!"
Root yanked out his Neutrino, aimed it at the door, and squeezed off a quick shot. Instead of the shot blasting through, denting or even ricocheting off the door, it seemed almost to absorb the laser blast. Ripples of rainbow colored energy washed across the door, and it spread to the walls.
"I wouldn't try that again, if I were you." Defea warned. "If the walls absorb enough heat, they have the potential to fry everyone in the room."
"So why are we in here, hmm? Are you just going to let us starve in here? That's not very original, you know." Foaly commented.
"Oh, no. I have something very original planned." And with that, the panel in the ceiling began to open.
"I have a really bad feeling about this." Holly said, searching for something to shoot.
"This was one of my most ingenious ideas, but I was never able to find volunteers to test it. So, consider yourselves drafted." The panel opened completely, to reveal a bright, pure, golden light.
Sunlight.
For one wild moment, Artemis wondered whether she planned to sunburn them all to death. That would definitely be original. Then it hit him. Sunlight. Fairies were always underground, came out only at night. And they only came out at night because...
He spun in time to see Holly sinking to her knees. "She couldn't have…" the elf ground out, pale as snow. Root didn't look much better. It was the first time the commander had been any color but beet red in centuries.
Foaly leaned over the two, trying to block the light with his body. After all, centaurs didn't have magic, so they weren't affected by the sunlight. "Hang on!"
Blue sparks started to flicker around the two fairies' heads, but the blue was much paler than usual. In fact, as Artemis watched, the color bleached to nothingness and the sparks faded into the room.
"We have to get them out!" Foaly cried, looking up at the teen. "This will kill them."
"This is…certainly original." Holly grinned, with a definite grimace of pain behind the smile.
"Don't worry, Fowl will think of something." the centaur assured her. He turned to the human. "Fowl, think of something!"
Artemis nodded once and shrugged off his backpack. He headed to the far door. He pulled a lump of gray plastic out of his bag and stuck it where the door met the frame. The teen made a slight flicking motion and moved away quickly. Foaly narrowed his eyes to identify the material, then gasped.
"No way."
***********
"Now, unlike Juliet here, I'm only going to ask this once." the fairy said softly. Dangerously. "Where is my brother?"
Kegel swallowed, and pointed towards a far wall. Juliet moved closer. There was nothing there.
"Juliet, we're a little pressed for time here." Trouble prompted. Juliet didn't even look up.
"Um, busy?"
Upon closer inspection, the seams of a door could be seen. There was no handle. She turned back to the nerd.
"I believe you said something about a computer password?" she prompted. Without a word, Kegel moved to a monitor and typed in a rapid sequence of letters and numbers. The door obediently popped open, revealing a tiny figure slumped disconsolately on the floor. At the sudden opening of his prison, the hostage jumped up.
"Trouble!" he shouted gleefully, and burst out of the closet. Trouble held up a hand to stop his brother from jumping on him, and kept his full attention on the Mud Man.
"Now, the officer had some equipment on his person. Where is it?" he commanded rather than asked. Kegel sulkily opened a cabinet and pulled out a helmet, a blaster, and lots of disconnected bits. Trouble raised an eyebrow at the destruction.
"I was taking it apart to see how it worked." Kegel muttered.
Grub shook his head, and tugged on Trouble's sleeve. "He said he was going to sell it to arms dealers, Trub!"
The Mud Man shrugged, quite unrepentant. "I have to make a living somehow. Now what happens? You got your brother back."
Trouble reholstered his blaster, and Kegel softly breathed a sigh of relief. Then the captain grinned suddenly.
"Now comes the best part." he said gleefully. He quickly flew right up into Kegel's face, and punched him in the jaw. The nerd's eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor. Trouble rubbed his knuckles, still smiling.
"Okay, I'll work on mindwiping the human. Juliet, would you go through his computer files and make sure there aren't any records of this?"
"There shouldn't be, since this little operation of his was supposed to be a secret." she commented as she moved over to the monitor Kegel was using.
"What do you want me to do?" Grub piped up. Trouble stopped smiling, and turned to his brother. He took a deep breath.
"What the heck did you think you were doing up on the surface?! You weren't cleared for such an operation, and you got yourself into a bad situation because of your stupidity. If this Kegel person had been smarter, we could have had another Fowl situation on our hands. You are in deep trouble, Corporal." Trouble snarled. He wanted to bellow at his brother, but he figured that it might attract some of the wrong kind of attention.
Grub was shook. "But I was on a mission, a secret one..." he started to babble. Trouble cut him off.
"Retrieve all of your equipment and let's get out of here."
Grub nodded slowly and moved to make sure none of the bits got left behind, lip trembling slightly. Trouble turned and bent over the unconscious human. Juliet slowly sidled up to Grub.
"He was really worried about you." she whispered. Grub looked up, hope glimmering in his eyes.
"Then he's not mad at me?" he asked pathetically.
Juliet smiled at the elf. "No, he's real mad at you, but that's because you could have been hurt."
"Oh." Grub said, not quite sure whether that was reassuring or not. The girl moved back towards the closet, where Mulch was waiting.
"That was pretty impressive for a Mud Maid." he said by way of greeting. "Except for the part where you let him mesmer you, of course."
Juliet smiled and knelt down to his eye level. Mulch felt a small shiver go down his back. "Why didn't you help us?" she asked pleasantly.
"Um, well, you didn't really look like you needed it. Besides," he added flippantly, "Bodily harm wasn't in my contract."
Trouble appeared next to him in a flash, hand going towards his buzz baton. "We can add it if you want."
Mulch smiled, a little nervously. "That's quite all right. Now, let's work on fixing the floor and get out of here."
Trouble and Juliet bent down to help Mulch pick up the CD-Rs when Grub came up with his helmet in hand.
"Trouble…it really wasn't my fault." he said plaintively. Trouble whirled on him.
"Look, don't try to excuse yourself with some stupid secret mission. If the Council had authorized this, Commander Root would have at least known about it. In falling for that trick, you endangered yourself, your team, and every fairy underground who could have been exploited by this Kegel person. Heaven knows, we've had to deal with enough human exploitation as it is."
Juliet frowned. "Excuse you."
Trouble glared at her. "Stay out of this."
"Look, boys, as much as I'd love to argue with you, don't you think we should get out of here before something-"
There came a banging on the door and it sprang open. The regular night shift guard peered in, saw Kegel's unconscious (and bruised) form on the ground, and started shouting.
"-like that happens." Juliet finished. The two elves didn't answer, as they'd already dived down the tunnel.
"Come on sweetie, you're preaching to thin air here." Mulch said. She slid into the tunnel and Mulch followed, sealing it behind him as he went.
***********
The plastic explosive Artemis had placed on the door detonated, shook the house, and the door blew into a small atrium. Foaly started to lug Root toward the safety of the shade as Artemis returned to pick up Holly.
"I don't need you to carry me." she protested, trying to sound like her normal self and failing miserably.
"Captain, shut up." Holly's eyes widened slightly.
Foaly and Artemis set the elves down in the darkened atrium. The centaur looked up long enough to cock an eyebrow at Artemis.
"Whatever happened to subtle? And where did you get that plastic explosive?"
"I didn't have time to be subtle, and Butler thought Semtex might come in handy." he answered. "How are they doing?"
Foaly glanced down at the two fairies, who were breathing as if they'd just finished twenty rounds with a goblin on steroids. Root glanced up at Foaly from his position on the ground. "First, her décor leaves one with a sense of insanity, then we discover she has a fetish for sunlight. Donkey, what did you see in this girl?!" His insult just didn't have the usual snap behind it.
"I broke up with her after she redecorated." Foaly muttered. "She was starting to creep me out."
"Wrong." Defea's voice rang out suddenly. "I broke up with you."
Foaly looked up, trying to find where her voice was coming from. He was mad. Foaly didn't often get mad, usually just annoyed or upset or whiny. But now he was livid. "Defea, all joking aside, how could you?! They could have died!"
"Nonsense, they would have had to be exposed to sunlight for days to suffer any permanent harm." Defea's voice answered.
"Permanent harm? Defea, how would you know how long it would take? How did you get sunlight down here in the first place?!"
"Well, when I inherited the house, there was a small crack leading straight up to the surface. It was really quite easy to line it with mirrors so the daylight would reflect down here. It was a test of my genius. And I thought it would come in handy if anyone tried to break into my lab." Defea said ironically.
Foaly started to sputter, and Root did not look pleased either. Even Artemis did not seem impressed with the ruthlessness Defea showed. Finally, Foaly found his voice.
"Defea, even after I learned that you were smuggling with Mud Men, even after I learned that you had kidnapped a girl, I never thought you would stoop that low!"
"It wasn't low." Defea responded a little sulkily. "It was defense. If you hadn't come after me, it wouldn't have happened."
Holly sat up fairly smoothly, and staggered to her feet. "Defense or not, I'm going to kill her."
"Holly." Foaly protested. "You're in no condition to take on a baby pixie right now. Give yourself a minute to heal."
"I'm about out of magic, so it would take distinctly longer than a minute to heal. And by then, I won't be as mad as I am now." She started to move toward the door. "I'm going to kill her."
With that statement, she kicked the door off its hinges.
Artemis's eyes were much more used to sunlight than the fairies, though he did make an effort to stay inside. That's probably why he saw the laser swinging down and no one else did.
****************
AN: *Giggles* Now, I promise I won't let you all hang in desperation too long. I swear I will post on time.
ASN: Uh-huh.
AN: And she's just a pessimist, ignore her. Preview!!
The room was definitely Defea's lab. There were shelves filled with components and wires, and half-completed projects littered a large table. A purple and orange couch added to the décor. At the far end of the room was a large computer terminal inset into the wall. A large neon pink swivel chair faced the terminal. There was no one else in the room. As the group approached, weapons drawn, the chair turned to face them.
"Hi." Simone grinned.
ASN: And I'm certain you're all going 'But what happened to Holly?!?!?!?!?
AN: And the answer is....
ASN: We're not telling.
AN: Have a nice day.