ReminiscentbyMoonwalker
An officer clanked the cell door open.
"It was about time," growled the dwarf.
"Yeah, like I'd keep a stinkworm in a cell anyway. Especially one which disrupts my concentration at work," said the officer as he scowled.
"Huh," grunted the smaller creature.
"Hey, I'm partially glad to be rid of you anyway. It'll be better if you conduct crime than stink the prison."
"Watch it kid, wait'll Julius hears that. He'll have your badge."
The officer clutched his badge. "No, he'll never lay his hands on it. It's mine, I earned it…it's, it's…my preciousssss…
Mulch chuckled. That's the consequence of reading J.R.R. Tolkien during duties. He rolled his eyes and walked out of the prison, halting at every camera along the way and making faces at them, half-hoping that Foaly or Julius had caught it.
When he was out of the building, he took a last glimpse of the prison. He sighed very deeply, for some reason.
"Farewell…" Mulch held the 'medallion' hanging from his neck.
Unintentionally, Foaly did catch Mulch's funny faces. He cursed at himself.
Partially, it was his fault that Mulch was let off so early. It happened so that he; yes him, Foaly, had made a MISTAKE.
A stupid so-called 'typo-error' he couldn't even remember of making. And this had allowed Mulch to be released, way beyond the actual time. What had happened to Genius Foaly? Deteriorating.
While he was in such a bad mood, a little bit of the Artemis Fowl Affair would always cheer him up. He could reread about his own genius over and over again. E.g. how he had outsmarted Jon Spiro and Co., how he had mocked the 'beetroot' and also how he had outwitted the man himself, Artemis Fowl.
Foaly was already getting to the end of the affair where the mind-wipe had been conducted. Mud Boys! They'll lose for sure in the end. Hah!
And then, Foaly remembered something. "Didn't I keep a copy of his memory?"
He quickly opened the file containing Artemis's memory.
As he started on the first line, Root's facial hair burst out of nowhere onto the plasma screen.
"Foaly! Get back to work!" Root yelled, turning purple as every second passed.
"I don't have any, if you insist," Foaly said, adjusting the metal on his head.
"Well, now you have!"
"Where?" Foaly asked, pretending to look for something in his office.
Root slapped his forehead. Stupid centaurs with scrap-metal wardrobes. Sarcastic as they can be.
"Open your e-mail, idiot! I have something you'll be interested with."
Foaly did so reluctantly. What could possibly interest Root that would interest him also? Skewers maybe.
"Remember the video footage from the mind-wipe operation!" barked Root from the other end. "Well, I had it analysed and…well, I don't why I hadn't done it earlier…"
"Yeah, I'm also surprised why I hadn't done it sooner," mumbled Foaly in a sarcastic tone. He watched the whole operation again, yawning occasionally.
"So?" asked Root anxiously.
"What?"
"Found anything strange?"
"No. Unless you count in the fact that a nut-head had watched it before I did."
"Ugh! No! Don't you get it?"
"Get what?"
"Just rewind that will you? And stop at the point where Mulch holds up his wretched medallion."
Foaly imitated Root and followed his instructions.
And he paused. He saw why Root needed Valium.
"D'arvit," swore the centaur. He switched Root off the screen and immediately knew what would happen next. Yes, Root would lower the budget of his department. But, who cares?
Definitely not him, for he had realised that he had done a grave mistake. Not only one. Several.
He restarted on Artemis's memory again. This time, he finished it. And the expression on his face was indescribable.
Artemis did think of everything. He was a genius. And worst of all, Foaly couldn't accept the fact that he had outsmarted the People…again.
It occurred to Foaly that maybe the Artemis Fowl Affair was not to end yet. Unless…, he thought slowly.
"Unless I can stop this," he said to himself. "Wait'll Holly hears of this."
Holly was outraged. Foaly couldn't do anything to calm her down for he was in a worse condition.
"Where's the real one then! The one I gave him!" she said lividly.
"Obviously not at Fowl Manor. We had checked if any fairy memorabilia was lying around and found none," Foaly explained slowly, controlling the metal on his head from getting too heated up.
"Then Butler must know something! He cloned the medallion, didn't he?"
"Unfortunately, captain, we do not have a copy of Butler's memory. So, we don't know what he had done to it. Plus, Artemis's memory doesn't mention any of this either. It's as if he had set all this up for us. He knew what would happen!"
"That crafty devil!"
There was silence as both of them entertained their very own thoughts.
"How about Mulch?" voiced out Holly.
"He had been ordered to be recaptured."
"Yeah, keep your toes crossed, centaur. Let's hope we're in time."
"I don't have toes, Short."
"Sorry. You can make do with your legs then."
"Good news, Foaly. Mulch is in our custody," Holly said. She pushed the dwarf towards Foaly. "Here he is. The LEPretrieval found him lurking in Dublin."
"What is this? First you put me in jail. And then a day later, you say I'm free. A few hours later, you say I'm guilty again. I bet I can be a better cop than you, shorty," complained Mulch endlessly.
"Watch your mouth, stinky convict. We have our reasons," said Holly as she frisked Mulch with the help of her buzz baton. "Look at his pockets, Foaly. Only a few hours free and he'd already collected 'souvenirs' from Dublin."
"Is it my fault that I was born a kleptomaniac?" Mulch asked cheekily. He popped some peanuts into his mouth.
"Stop crunching the peanuts you stole, monkey. Or else your head might turn into one very soon," Foaly said.
"Still sarcastic, eh?" Mulch queried.
"Shut up, convict. Where's the medallion?"
"Don't know," he said defiantly.
"I know you know."
"Dream on, centaur. If I knew, I wouldn't let you know anyway."
"Hmm… What if I gave you a hundred gold bars?" Holly began in a friendly voice.
"Holly!" exclaimed the centaur
"What? It's worth it," she said innocently.
"…deposited it in the letter box at Fowl Manor…," Mulch said quickly.
Trust Mulch to bring the medallion to Artemis after a couple of years. And this is what he does?
Artemis had just completed saving what he had just typed in his diary disc.
He stood up and stretched. Time to check the mail. Letters, he corrected himself.
He knew that this chore was so outdated. But he hadn't the time yet to call a workman to demolish the letter box of his living quarter.
He had found no need of letter boxes recently. In this age of information technology, people sent e-mails, not letters.
He strutted to the letter box and was about to open it. But suddenly, his eye caught something uncannily strange. Yet, it was equally familiar.
He walked closer to the creature ahead of him. What was it? He couldn't see it clearly for the sun had already set.
Somehow, like how he had felt about the lenses in the sink, he felt that he recognised this being.
It was a humanoid creature with wings…
Deep down his mind, mysteries began to unravel. His head ached and he felt a rush of lost information return to his cerebrum.
"Holly?" he uttered.
"That's right, Mud Boy. Time for payback."
Artemis fell as a punch landed on his left eye.
Where was Butler when he was needed? What's taking him so long anyway? Rehearsing a limerick in Limerick?"
And with that, Artemis fell unconscious from memory overload.
The fairy clapped her hands and 'vanished'. Serves him right, she thought. After all the damages he had done.
Artemis woke up on his bed, with Juliet and his mother by his side. He faintly remembered something about lollipops.
He sat up immediately. "That wasn't Holly, was it? Or was it the foolish sprite which I had fooled into loaning me the Book for thirty minutes? But how could she have remembered me? I thought I added amnesiac…"
Juliet was the first person to respond to Artemis's 'nonsense-talk'. "Holly? Book?"
"Are you sure you didn't knock your sanity out of your head when you fell unconscious, Arty?" Angeline asked, very concerned.
"No, mother. In fact, I feel better than ever," said the Irish boy as he got down from his bed. "I hope Butler will hurry back soon. He has so much catching up to do."
"Book? Holly?" asked Juliet. "Holy Book? The Bible you mean?"
Artemis groaned momentarily.
The LEPrecon team led by Holly was well on their way to the Fowl Manor. Foaly was navigating them through the night sky of Dublin. And as usual, Root was shouting his Adam's apple out of his throat.
When Holly paused at the gates of Fowl Manor as she waited for the next command, Trouble Kelp was disagreeing with his younger brother.
Holly rolled her eyes and advanced towards the letter box. The next command was given and Holly immediately ran an x-ray scan on the letter box.
"Don't worry, metal-head. The medallion's still there."
"Back away, Holly. This could be a trap set by the Mud Boy. Maybe he was expecting us," warned the centaur.
"Or maybe not, Foaly."
"It could be possible! He could've taken the medallion, had a good look at it and replaced it. Luring us…"
"With our stupidity?" continued the elf.
Foaly was silent and intimidated.
"Right, Foaly. Have it your way then," she told him seriously. "And watch the People fall into the Mud Boy's hands again."
"Fine! We'll take the risk then, captain," Foaly said sulkily.
Holly slipped her slim arm into the hole meant for postmen to deliver letters and felt for the medallion.
At the precise moment she came in contact with the gold disc, she retrieved it.
"How sure are we that Artemis is still blank?" asked Holly as she inspected the medallion. "Should we check up on him?"
"No. We'll just have to wait for him outside his house," Foaly told her. "We don't have an invitation to enter, if you don't remember."
"Right. We'll wait. Wait for him to destroy us."
Meanwhile, Artemis was already devising a plan in his mind. He had a feeling that Holly and Co. was outside, watching his every move.
He was getting ready to provoke the LEP.
"My dear fairy friends," he repeated the lines to himself in front of his mirror. No, it was too gentle and leaves not much of an impact. Think, boy, think. Something more evil, more conniving, more like how a meteoroid leaves a crater.
And the line unveiled.
He smiled his vampire smile.
The moon was in the sky, smiling its crescent smile at the squad of fairies staring at it.
Holly was losing her patience with every minute creeping by. She looked around. Every fairy was on guard, watching out for the Mud Boy.
And as if they had wished upon a star, Artemis made their wish to see him come true.
"Hello, it has been a long time, hasn't it?"
Holly aimed her Neutrino 2000 at him. "Tell me you don't know me."
"I'll gladly do so. But first, is Foaly listening? He'd better be, because in a matter of few seconds…"
There were clonks and plops. Every fairy except Holly was knocked unconscious. Butler was right behind her.
"What took you so long, Butler? I was growing rather impatient, you know."
Holly clenched her fists tightly around her weapon.
"Yes, Holly. Surprise, surprise," Artemis said calmly, wrecking her nerves. She gritted her teeth.
"Butler, I don't suppose you know who she is, do you?" he asked his employee.
"Holly? I only know her too well," said Butler. "And I remember all about 'it'. Thanks partially to my contact in Limerick."
Holly almost made a crack in one of her teeth. And Foaly could be heard in the background, stomping his hoofs.
"Isn't it such a wonderful reunion?" he clipped.
Root who was watching this from the beginning, banged on his table.
Artemis smiled his vampire smile again.
Valium n. a drug to make people feel calmer and less anxious, poisonous if taken with beetroots.