Hi guys... I'm heaps sorry I haven't posted much lately, but now its holidays and hopefully I'll be able to write more and so on. And this chapter may well be very crappy but interesting stuff will soon happen, I promise. Or at least stuff of some description will happen. But anyway, I love all of you who reviewed and you are very cool, and the more reviews I get the happier I am, and the happier I am the more I write so post reviews please! Even if they're just to confirm my opinion that this story is getting progressively worse with each additional word I type. You may notice that I reviewed myself in my desperation for reviews... read it, you may find it funny, or you may find it incredibly sad. Probably the latter. Ah well, have fun, and I'll post something vaguely interesting soon. Bye!

Chapter V

::::In a Hole::::

Mo Digence, a.k.a. Mulch Diggums, was a remarkable fellow. He was very, very good at escaping from situations you'd think no person, not even a short one like him, would be able to get out of. One might say that this was very lucky for him, as he now had not only several Mud police agencies after him, but most major crime networks too – above and below the ground. The only people who seemingly weren't after him, ironically, were the LEP. And he knew Root wasn't at all happy about that. So, avoiding them would be a good idea too. That left... one, two... no, number two was dead... so, one person in the whole world who he could safely spend any time with. And that person had an extremely large bodyguard, and didn't even know of Mo's existence. Isn't it nice to feel loved, he thought sardonically.

He was currently residing in a small hole in the ground, in a field a few miles away from (A/N: ...you guessed it...) Chester. He had dug it out himself, and was rather pleased with it. It wasn't Buckingham Palace (although he had considered furnishing it with items from the Palace) but it was home. Well no, it wasn't really home, home was somewhere in Haven. He couldn't remember where exactly, much clearer in his memory was his cell, number 267b in Howler's Peak. Then again, he'd spent a large amount of time there over the last few centuries. So much that the guards were letting him decorate it how he liked it, and it was kept reserved for him every time he got out. A bit cynical, Mulch always thought, but then again it was probably better not to have goblins in there when he wasn't. Awful smell. And that girl Juliet had thought he stunk. She had no idea. Ah well. Probably for the best; he could honestly say that his first and subsequent encounters with goblins had all been experiences he could have done without.

Mulch began to plan his visit to Fowl Manor. If his calculations were correct, it was just over six months since Artemis' mindwipe, and therefore time to go and visit him. Precisely how to remind him would be an interesting thing to figure out. If he just walked up to the front door, Butler would probably have him picked out by snipers or some other such friendly greeting, as Butler was so well known for. Probably not a good idea... while his corpse might well remind the boy of his existence, the point of reminding him would be destroyed. So, what else? Hmm...

::::In a Plane: Flight CH38Z2 (departs Dublin 1545h) ::::

"Done," Artemis murmured to himself as he finished version 3.09 of HuntingFowl OS. He was quite pleased with this version, although there was that recurring bug which he would have to develop a patch for.

HuntingFowl had started off fairly similar to Windows XP. Indeed, Artemis had made it by reverse engineering a bit of the Microsoft thing at first. He then however fixed it so that it wouldn't progressively make the computer run slower and slower, forcing the consumer to purchase another within six months of acquiring the first. Of course, he didn't want Dell and so on getting all his lovely potential profits. No, he had better plans for exploiting the consumer. Far, far better. He smiled his vampire smile, causing a passing hostess who made eye contact with him to ram her trolley into a nearby passenger, who howled in pain setting off the six babies who were for some reason travelling in first class. Artemis was not quite as pleased with himself as he had hoped to be.

Artemis wasn't particularly pleased with anything about the aeroplane. He had hoped to be taking his private jet, but no, he had to travel like normal people, with normal people, in a crowded aeroplane full of squalling infants and nervous air hostesses. At least he hadn't been demoted to economy class too, he reflected.

"Can I offer you some orange juice, dear?" asked a hostess, a different one this time. Artemis groaned internally; this was one of the times when he truly regretted his choice not to bulk up as Butler had suggested – people thought he was about twelve.

"No thankyou, madam. I am quite content." (Well, I was until you disturbed me.) If only he could say that. Nevertheless, self-control was an important virtue. There would be time enough for scathing comments later on.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like something to colour in, honey?" She never gave up, did she? He tried the vampire smile. The stupid woman took that as a yes, beamed, ruffled up his hair and almost skipped down the aisle.

"This may have been the greatest mistake you have made in your life," Artemis muttered under his breath, broadening his grin.

The woman returned, still beaming and now carrying a Mickey Mouse children's entertainment pack. She saw Artemis' 'smile' and swooped down on him.

"Why thankyou, madam. I shall do my best to construct a new radioactive ion with these items, although the lack of a nuclear reactor will prove a slight obstacle. I will be sure to tell you of my progress at the end of the flight."

Artemis achieved the worried, somewhat disturbed look he desired from the hostess, and leaned back in his seat, contented, as she walked quickly away. With any luck at all, she wouldn't be returning in the next half hour, which was the duration of the flight remaining. And that would give him sufficient time to think of a suitable revenge. Because nobody except Angeline Fowl touched Artemis Fowl the Second's hair.

::::In Haven::::

"Julius Root to the Ops Booth please, Julius Root, to the Ops Booth, thankyou," boomed out over the PA system. Holly looked up from her paperwork and watched as her commander stormed out of his office muttering black words about Foaly. She wished she could follow, and watch what was about to happen. Nothing but paperwork since the mind-wipe of Fowl, and it was mind-numbingly boring. But she didn't miss Mud Boy. Nope. Not a bit. Only missed a bit of action here and there. Actually, maybe Foaly was going to tell Root about the goblins in the south. That would make sense, really. Hopefully they were going to go and shoot them all with Neutrinos and then lock them up in Howler's Peak for a long time... but then there wouldn't be anything to do after that either. Except of course for a nice lot of paperwork and documentation covering the whole thing. Joy.

"Captains Kelp and Short to the Ops Booth please, Kelp and Short to the Ops Booth, thankyou." Foaly's disembodied voice came over the PA system again. Holly smiled, and looked over at Trouble. He grinned at her and they walked quickly down the stairs together.

"Wonder what old Donkey-boy wants then. Any ideas, Holly?" Trouble asked. Holly shook her head.

"Nope, no idea, sorry. Although he was hinting at something to do with goblins the other day..." The two captains looked at each other and Trouble shrugged.

"Ah well, nothing a couple of Neutrinos can't fix then. Pity, I was rather hoping we were about to be plunged into a terrifying inter-species war. Been a bit dull lately without the Mud boy, hasn't it." Trouble looked at Holly, who smiled and chuckled, but the look in her eyes pleaded him not to speak about Artemis any more just then.

"You're going to have to talk about him one day, Holly," he said softly.

"I know, I know. Just not today, okay? One day we'll get together and have a great chat about the Fowl years, and, you know, talk. But not right now. I dunno, it's just like we're finally letting go of him forever, you know, with the six months up and so on, and, well, yeah. Right. Well, Neutrinos..."

Holly spoke quickly and changed the subject even quicker. If one had been looking very closely, one might have noticed that her eyes were just a little shinier than usual. But no-one got that close to Holly's eyes. Not even the great Captain Kelp. Although that didn't mean he'd never tried.

Trouble, for his part, was feeling rather awkward and rather angry at himself for bringing up a subject which obviously would have kept better undiscussed. Still, he patted Holly on the shoulder and muttered "Cheer up, Holly... old Beetroot's coming..." which he obviously hoped would help. Luckily Holly saw the humour of the situation (that Trouble seemed to think that Root's presence would improve her mood) and burst out laughing. Worse luck for her that Root was just around the corner waiting for them.

"Captain Short! This is no time for levity! Once again, we are facing a matter of national security here, and either you or Donkey here sees fit to waste time giggling! Compose yourself, Short, or you'll find yourself out of a job soon enough!"

Holly stopped laughing immediately and stood to attention. "Sorry sir," she mumbled.

"Speak up, Short, what was that?" Now Root's hearing was gradually deteriorating, but Holly knew it wasn't that bad.

"Sorry, sir," she repeated. She knew he was just trying to annoy her by getting her to apologise so the other LEP officers could hear her.

"Didn't quite catch that, could you say it a bit louder?" Bloody Root. Hope he explodes, thought Holly as she tried to remain calm. Didn't help that Trouble next to her was trying to cover up sniggers by coughing. Not very effectively, one might add. But Root never yelled at Trouble for laughing. Oh, no, of course not. Or tried to humiliate him in front of the LEP.

"I was trying to convey my apologies to you, Commander Root," she said loudly and clearly. From what she knew of the average IQ among the officers scattered around nearby, none of them would ever realise what she had just said. It was brilliant.

"Right. Well, to the Ops Booth then, Captains." He hustled them and Foaly closed the door. The centaur spoke quietly with Commander Root for a few minutes while Holly and Trouble sat on boxes of oh-so-ancient floppy disks.

"Not so deaf after all, methinks," growled Holly to her fellow captain. Trouble laughed silently.

"You know, well, I know this comment might be unwelcome but I've just got to tell you. You sounded exactly like him, you know, the..."

"Yeah, him, what? When was this?" Holly frowned.

"'Convey my apologies'? That's not Holly Short. That's arrogant smartarse Mud teenager."

"Whatever, Trouble. Shut up and try and hear what they're talking about."

Trouble bit his lip, annoyed with himself. He shouldn't have said that about her sounding like Fowl. When would he ever learn to hold his tongue? He had already made himself a couple of enemies in the LEP by his habit of blurting things out randomly. Getting Holly off side too wasn't something he particularly wanted to do.

Commander Root turned to the two officers after his discussion with Foaly. Holly noticed Foaly mouthing 'you know nothing' to her from behind Root's back, and held back a grin.

"Alright then Captains, what we have here is a top secret matter. We need you both to understand the importance of keeping this from other officers. You will of course be held completely responsible should others become aware of the operation. Understand? Good, Foaly, explain please."

::::At a School in Chester::::

"Anna! Do we have choir this afternoon?"

"Jenny. You have known me for three years. Tell me, when have I ever known about anything more than fifteen minutes before it is due to start?"

"Point. Come on, we have maths."

"Yay, maths! Excellent. There's something I've always wondered about that class."

"Such as, what does the rest of the class do while you talk?"

"Yeah, what do they do?"

"Something they call work. You wouldn't have heard of it."

"Hmm. You'll have to tell me about this 'work' thing sometime."

"Uh-oh... I hope she's not checking homework today. Haven't done mine."

"You haven't done yours... I haven't done any in the last, like, term. When did you last do any?"

"Last test, I guess. And that wasn't even the set stuff, just some random review chapter."

"Hmph. Studying, eh. Not a habit you should get into. It never did me any good."

"Did you ever try in the first place?"

"That is completely irrelevant. Stop changing the subject. I - "

"Shh. At least pretend to listen in the first five minutes."

Anna rolled her eyes and pulled a few sheets of paper out of her science book. She handed a couple to Jenny, who grinned and muttered, "You know me too well."

Jenny immediately began to write upon the paper she had got from Anna. Not maths, though.

'argh that stupid guy artemis is supposed to be coming this afternoon. i bet he'll be heaps annoying and i hate him and all is crap. i still cant believe my stupid mother invited him. plus i have like three assignments to do tonight.'

She passed the paper to Anna who read it and began to snigger slightly.

'there arent any assignments due tomorrow. when were these ones due?'

'one yesterday, one today, and one last week, but that was religion so it doesnt matter if its late. dare i ask how YOUR assignment situation is?'

'i wouldnt suggest it. you might be irreparably disturbed.'

'too damn right. how many are more than a week?'

'believe me, you dont want to know. really. anyway... '

And so the lesson continued in this manner.