Ok, I am SO sorry to keep you all waiting so long! MAJOR writers block, I ended up going back and reading the whole series again just to get ideas and the actual will to write. But here it is, the new Chapter!
New character introduced in this chapter. Her name is Kassandra and she's a friend of Ebony's. Originally, she was only going to have a small part, but then I came up with a cool idea that involved her a little more. She might be a little Mary-Sue-ish, but I'll try not to let that happen.
No song in this chapter hears cheering but there will probably be one in later chapters.
I plan to finish this in two to thee chapters, so I need people to start telling me now whether or not they want a sequel. Review and let me know!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognise.
"How's that machine of yours coming?" The voice on the other end of the communications line asked.
Ebony smiled to herself. "It's finished." She told her best friend Kassandra. "I have one problem though; how do I get it in, deactivate the wipe and get out again without anybody seeing me? As well as the fact that I'm working."
Kassandra was silent for a few minutes before answering. "Put a shielding mechanism in it." She suggested.
Ebony shook her head, and then remembered that her friend couldn't see her. "No, I don't think it would take that much power, I've pretty much packed it full with enough mesmer to contain Artemis long enough to bring his memories back."
"Hmmmmm," Kassandra mused. "I know!" she exclaimed, "I'll go and do it for you, you're on duty anyway, and I'm less likely to be identified as a fairy."
This made sense to Ebony, because Kassandra although none knew it but Ebony, Councillor Vinyaya and Kass's mother knew it, was only half fairy. Her father was human. She was taller than the average fairy, although she still had the magic, and the pointy ears.
"Good idea," Ebony conceded. "If we can get this done fast, that gives us more time to figure out Mud Boy's computer theft problem."
"I'm on it. I'll come and pick up that contraption yours tomorrow to commence Operation Holly Fowl."
"Holly Fowl?" Ebony grinned. "Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?"
"Maybe, but how great would that be?" Kass replied.
"I dunno, Artemis Fowl as a brother-in-law... it's kinda disturbing." Ebony laughed.
"I'll see you tomorrow." Kassie said.
"Yeah, I could need your help convincing Foaly." Ebony gulped.
"Hey all!" Kassie entered the Ops booth with no trouble; they always let her n every time she visited, much to Foaly's disgust. "How do you get in here so easily?" he almost cried. "Bloody security's gone to the Goblins!"
Ebony rolled her eyes. "No it hasn't, she's a siren Foaly, whaddaya expect?" she picked up her machine and gave it to Kassie. "It's small, but heavy." She gave her friend a brief rundown on how to work it. "Good luck." She said, hugging Kassie before waving her off.
"Okay, tell me what's going on!" Foaly demanded, tired of being left out.
Ebony sighed, time to come clean. "Okay Foaly, I'll tell you." She said, "But promise me you won't tell the Commander."
Foaly nodded, suddenly making a guess as to what the young elf had been up to.
Ebony took a deep breath and began to explain. "Originally, my plan was designed to completely lift Artemis's mind wipe, but Mulch did that for us." She said. "But because of the trauma his mind suffered when he got his memories back, when I continued the structure I incorporated healing magic with the mesmer to ease that trauma and bring back his memories of Holly, as well as deactivating whatever's left of the mind wipe." She waited for Foaly's reaction.
"I figured it was something along those lines." He said slowly. "But what does Kassandra have to do with it? He queried.
Ebony grinned. "She's taking it to Fowl Manor, she blends in better than I do. I could've shielded, but the thing is so jam packed full of magic that it repels it."
Foaly couldn't help it, he grinned back. "You, my dear, are a genius." He gathered her into his arms and kissed her, which surprised her, but you didn't hear her complaining as she responded to his kiss. When Foaly pulled away, breathing heavily, he said wickedly, "Julius will not be happy."
Meanwhile, Kassandra was stumbling out of a public transport shuttle to Tara. "I really hate those things." She muttered, activating her wings, Ebony's contraption heavy in her pocket. While she was looking forward to the adventure, she couldn't help but feel a little nervous, as would any intelligent fairy who was about to come face to face with Artemis Fowl the Second.
I mentioned earlier that Kassandra was a siren. Well, half siren actually, but no one knew that did they? The fact that she can't shield could sometimes be a pain, but sirens have the most ambient magic of all fairies. Her power of illusions came in handy in these kinds of situations, not to mention the unfailing ability to bend any man to her will, human or otherwise. But that's not all, as I'll explain later.
Today, as she landed outside Fowl Manor in time to see Angeline and Juliet leave the house she assumed Juliet's form and wandered inside... and immediately crashed into one Domovoi Butler.
"I thought you went with Mrs. Fowl." The manservant said lightly.
"Uh, yeah... I – uh, forgot something." Kassie stammered, certain the girl's brother of all people'd catch her out, but Butler merely shrugged and sauntered off. Kassie stared after him, how could he not notice that his kid sister was half a head shorter than usual?
She fitted an earpiece into her ear. "Ebony? I've made it to Fowl Manor. I need directions to Artemis's rooms."
Ebony gave her directions from the feed in Foaly's computers. It didn't take long to find Artemis's rooms, and Kassie let herself in. "Be subtle." Ebony warned before switching off the communications.
Artemis looked at her briefly. "Hello Juliet, what can I do for you?" Kassie was about to answer when she looked at her again, more intently this time. "You're not Juliet." He said bluntly.
"What do you mean Arty?" Kassie said nervously in Juliet's voice. "Of course I'm me."
"Yes, but you're not Juliet." Artemis answered patiently. "You're half a head too short and your eyes are the wrong colour."
'Damn.' Kassie thought. "Okay Fowl, you got me. I'm impressed, not even Butler recognised me." She let her illusion fade to reveal waist length black hair, emerald green eyes, pointed ears and skin tight, black flight gear. She was so beautiful it was enough to make even Artemis Fowl the Second stare. She looked almost unearthly... Almost.
"You're a fairy?" Artemis asked, trying to stay calm. Kassie nodded. Artemis crossed the room to his computer and studied his Fairy Files for a few minutes. "You look like a siren. You're certainly pretty enough and have the right powers but... while pretty enough, not beautiful enough. Gorgeous by human standards, but not by siren standards." He seemed puzzled by this.
"Thanks for the analogy." Kassie said sarcastically. "I can't believe I'm about to tell you this, but actually, you're right. I'm half siren, half human." She admitted.
Artemis looked at her sharply. "Are you... are you the girl I've been dreaming about?" he asked breathlessly.
Kassie grinned cheekily. "Nope. But that's why I'm here. Sit down." She ordered, pulling the deactivator from her pocket. When Artemis saw it, he was instantly intrigued and came over to investigate. "I said sit down!" Kassie snapped. Artemis sat.
She switched on the deactivator and issued the mesmer on the highly curious Artemis. "Commence healing and deactivation." She told the computer.
It was done in less than 60 seconds. Artemis's head snapped up "Holly!" he breathed.
"You better believe it Sunshine." Kassie replied. "Oh yeah, my name's Kassandra by the way..." she was cut off by a crashing sound. The window had been broken, and ten masked figures came stood amongst the shattered glass. "Alright Fowl, hand it over." The apparent leader demanded.
Artemis winced, talk about clichéd. Nevertheless, he knew what he was talking about. "You're too late, whoever you are, someone else has already stolen the thing you seek from me... Fairy." Sure enough, the guy's hand was a pale green.
"D'arvit!" the fairy swore and opened fire with a gun neither knew he had. But there was something different about this one. It shot jets of fire.
"Crap!" Kassie muttered, pushing Artemis to the floor. One more thing you should know about sirens... don't ever piss one off. If you do, you could find yourself in one of three predicaments. 1) Barbecued, 2) Frozen solid or, my personal favourite, 3) Enchanted by the Siren's song. If you were really unfortunate, you could cop all three at once.
Now, Kassie's main objective was to put out the flames before Butler came running. To do so, she began shooting ice beams from her right hand, and conjuring a flame with her left, sending jets of water spraying around the room. The flames extinguished, she pulled the Nutrino2000 Ebony had given her from her belt and let off a few low voltage blasts. Realising what they were up against, the now rather pathetic looking fairies retreated back through the window.
Kassie stood and helped Artemis to his feet. "You okay?" she asked, breathing heavily, feeling drained. It had been a long time between spells, of this degree anyway.
"Yes, I'm fine. How about you?" Artemis asked.
"I'll live." She answered, before her earpiece crackled into life.
"Kass, Foaly wants Artemis brought down here. It took some clearing through Root, but we got the OK."
"Not a worry, we'll be there ASAP." Kassie answered.
"Shouldn't we leave immediately?" Artemis queried.
Kassie grinned. "Take a look in the mirror Artemis."
When he did, he realised he was covered in soot. "Ah. I see your point. Very well." He looked back at her and saw that the girl wasn't in much better condition. "Juliet's rooms are two doors down on the left. You can use her shower." He said.
Kassie smiled gratefully. "Thanks." She said, leaving the room, she felt revolting.
When she was gone, Artemis sank to the floor, his head in his hands. Suddenly, all his memories made sense, and it was too much, too fast. He finally remembered. "Holly..." he murmured. The girl of his dreams, literally.
"Holly..."
By the time Kassie returned, Artemis had showered, changed and composed himself. "Ah good, you're wearing casuals. Probably not a bad idea." She said.
"That's what I thought." Artemis replied with a shaky smile.
As they made their way down to the front doors, Kassie watched the boy out the corner of her eye. "Don't worry, it'll get easier." She murmured softly, putting her hand on his arm. Not sure what part of the whole debacle she was talking about, Artemis still felt comforted by her words.
She stopped suddenly. "Did you bring back Butler's memories?" she asked.
Artemis nodded. "Yes, and Juliet's too." He showed Kassie the medallion.
"Good. I was wondering how I was going to explain my way out of this one." Butler was walking towards them.
"Artemis, I thought I could smell smoke," he said. "Who's this?" he asked, looking down at Kassie.
"Butler, I'm going out with Miss Kassandra to deal with the theft problem. I'm sure you can figure out who she is, or at least what she is, from that information. No, you're not coming, I'm in very capable hands." Artemis gave Kassie an uncharacteristic wink, which she returned with a grin. "If you want, you can supervise the maids cleaning up my rooms. They're – uh – not in – ah – very good condition... shall we say."
Butler sighed, more escapades involving fairies. "Alright Artemis. Be careful."
The teen nodded. "I will, my friend."
When the pair touched down in Tara and unwrapped the camfoil from around Artemis's body, the boy's cheeks were flushed from the cold air. "I missed that." He admitted. "You're a safer flyer than Holly though." He commented.
Kassie laughed. "Everyone's a safer flyer than Holly." She answered.
They walked into the shuttle terminal. "Great. I forgot about having to take the public shuttle." Kassie groaned.
She was saved by a voice. "Miss Kassandra?" They turned around and saw Corporal Grub Kelp standing next to a LEP shuttle. "Ebony sent me to get you."
"Thank God! I was dreading having to take Artemis on the public shuttle." Kassie said, ruffling Grub's hair. "Drive carefully okay, my nerves are shot." She added and Artemis nodded in heartfelt agreement.
Riding the flares was not exactly Kassie's favourite method of transportation, and was definitely at the bottom of Artemis's list of ways to get around, but Grub did a pretty good job of getting them there in one piece.
"At least his driving is better than Holly's" Artemis said weakly as he stumbled from the shuttle.
"That's because Holly's been trying to break the airspeed record for the last twenty years." Kassie replied, finding it highly amusing that he related everything back to Holly. "I forgot you're not used to this." She laughed, looking the teen over. "You look about as good as I feel."
"It's been a long day." Artemis replied wearily.
"It's about to get longer, here comes Foaly." Kassie said. "Wow, he actually came to meet us. You must've screwed up big time." She sounded impressed.
"Thanks for the analogy." Artemis winced. She was right though, he had 'screwed up', as she had so charmingly put it. He had let that fairy take the Dream Interpreter. How big his 'screw up' was depended on whether or not they got it back.
"I must admit Mud Boy, it's good to see you." Foaly said as the entered the Ops Booth. "No one else understands my conversations."
"Hey!" said a mock indignant voice. "What about me?" Artemis turned around and almost fell off his chair in shock. It was a younger version of Holly, only younger by a few years of course (twenty fairy years to be exact, only two to three human years by comparison.)
"Apart from you of course Eb." Foaly amended, kissing her softly. Artemis looked away to give the couple a moment, and was entertained by Kassie pretending to throw up. 'Must be the human blood' he thought wryly. 'Siren's appreciate love too much do that.' But he could tell from the smile on her face and in her eyes that she really was happy for her friend.
"In case you didn't see the family resemblance, Ebony is Holly's little sister." Kassie said. "As well as Foaly's assistant and girlfriend. She's also my best friend."
Artemis nodded. It made sense. Foaly and Ebony sat down. "Well, the print you gave us was made by a nisse." Ebony began. Artemis nodded eagerly.
"There have been rumours lately about a group of nisses being run by a half-breed siren woman was exiled from Haven about twenty five years ago. She was shunned by everyone back then, for being a half-breed and she wasn't a very nice person even then, if I remember correctly. And even now, when minds have broadened, half-breeds are still outcasts." He cast a pointed look at Kassie, who nodded in silent confession to Foaly's unspoken question.
"So you think this is our lead?" Artemis asked.
"Yes. But why is this machine so important? Nobody's going to take a couple of fairy dreams very seriously." Foaly replied.
Artemis sighed. "It's not that. When I got my memories back, I loaded a copy of all my new and recreated fairy files onto the hard drive. It's encrypted into the minimal Gnommish I've managed to teach myself... and what I've picked up along the way. If a human had stolen it, there wouldn't be as huge a problem. But if it's a fairy that took it..." he trailed off.
"We're in trouble." Ebony finished. "The whole fairy world could be at risk of human exposure." Foaly groaned as she said this. Artemis nodded.
"I'll try and get a reading on the whereabouts of the files. In the meantime, it's too hard to take Artemis back home, can we find somewhere for him to stay?"
"Don't look at me," Kassie snapped. "My Ma don't like humans too much."
"Neither does mine, not after what happened to Dad, and my guess is Foaly's just scored himself a ton of overtime." Foaly nodded dejectedly.
"Unless we ask Holly to take him." Kassie suggested.
"Take who?" Holly appeared in the doorway.
"Damn, not how I'd planned to tell her." Ebony groaned
"Tell me what?" Holly demanded.
Kassie grabbed another chair; poor Holly was going to need it.
"Hello Holly." Artemis said softly, drawing the Captain's attention to him.
"Ar-te-mis?" she said faintly, quickly occupying the seat that had been strategically placed behind her.
Ebony gave Holly the basic rundown on what had happened. "Jeez Fowl, you've got your memories back five minutes and you're already causing us trouble!"
Artemis hung is head. "I know, I know. I'm sorry." He said remorsefully.
"Although we seem to be causing him a fair bit of trouble too." Kassie commented. She told them about the hit team.
"I see, an opposing force, it makes sense." Ebony said thoughtfully. "What I was going to ask, Holly, is if Artemis could stay with you for a few nights."
Holly coughed and spluttered indignantly for a few minutes, before sighing in unspoken defeat. "Very well. So long as he calls Butler first." She said.
Artemis nodded and pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, leaving the room as dialled the number he needed.
"I'm sorry Holls, I was hoping to tell you before you saw him." Ebony said quietly.
"It's okay Eb, I'll live." Holly answered. "Actually," she added lightly, "It's good to have him back, life was getting boring." She smiled, the first true smile Ebony had seen for months. Her face had lit up. She waved and left in the same direction as Artemis.
"Well, that's the closest you'll ever get to a confession." Kassie commented.
Ebony nodded. "For now." She replied.
"Well, I guess my part in this little fiasco is over." Kassie stifled a yawn. "I'm stuffed, I'm going home." She waved to her friend and headed out the door.
"Oh, Kass!" Ebony called.
"Yeah?"
"What happened to subtle?"
Kass grinned sheepishly and kept walking.
"Okay," Holly said. "Guest rooms' in there. It'll be a little cramped for someone your height." She looked up at him with a cheeky grin. "You've grown a lot in two years Fowl." It felt good to smile again.
Artemis smiled down at her, still trying to get over the physical change in Holly. Her hair was longer than he remembered, and darker, the same colour as her sister's. "Maybe you shrunk." He retorted.
Holly snorted good-humouredly. "Sure Fowl, whatever."
Artemis laughed, something he didn't do very often. "You know Holly, I really missed you." He said softly.
She frowned. "No you didn't." she replied.
"Yes, but when I remembered, I realised how... dull life had been without you."
Holly looked up at him and saw the warmth in his eyes, something she had never seen before. Artemis himself was in turmoil. What he'd said seemed so inadequate to what he felt, and for all his intelligence, he didn't know what that was.
On impulse, he leant down and kissed Holly's cheek. "Night... Holls." He whispered, before entering the guest room and closing the door.
Holly was completely floored. "Night." was all she could manage to get out.
In that single moment, he had taken her breath away.
The end of the chapter! Sorry about the wait, I hope it was worth it. A little A/H fluff for those who have been asking for it... with the promise of more to come.
Please review, it really means a lot, I'm aiming for a hundred reviews by the time the story's finished.