AN: Here's a fairly long chapter to make up for my shorter Chapter before :) Enjoy. Also, I won't be updating in a while, because my exams are coming up, and I've been banned from the computer during that week. I'll post the third chapter as soon as I finished it though. I'm also enjoying writing this a lot more than I thought I would, so expect more chapters for this story :)

Also, during my exam week, I have been writing more. I've jumped ahead to chapter 5, and now I've written about four more chapters. I'm working on chapter four now, to join them all up. So no more long waits ;)

Thanks to all my reviewers. I wouldn't want to write all this if it weren't for you guys.

Disclaimer: Arty and Holly and Root and Foaly and Juliet and some of the settings belong to Eoin Colfer. The plot and extra characters belong to me.

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Chapter Two

Contact Again

St. Bartleby's, Ireland

Artemis was trying very hard not to listen. It wasn't a very hard thing, if someone had a normal voice box. This particular teacher though, seemed to have approximately the same noise level and voice texture of a chainsaw. She screeched on and on, with Artemis mentally correcting her every sentence. The period had started just ten minutes ago, but he personally could not think of a reason why he was there at all. It was as if his mother had expected him to learn something from here…

His bitter train of thought however was interrupted when his name was screeched out.

"Mr. Fowl! Please tell me the answer to this question!"

Artemis turned his eyes from the window, and scanned the board. He had heard the question, but decided to play a game. It would make the day more interesting, at the least.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."

The old teacher grew bug-eyed. Artemis had a sardonic smirk on his face as his teacher appeared to have an aneurysm.

"Why weren't you listening then, Mr. Fowl?" She screeched. It sounded like nails on a blackboard. Artemis guessed that she never won any singing talent quests when she was young.

"I already know this." He replied bluntly.

"Oh, do you? Perhaps you know the way to the principle's office as well."

"Sorry, don't know that." Artemis said, his eyes widening innocently. A look that did not look right on him, by the way.

"It's the fifth corridor to your right down the second corridor from here." She said through tight teeth. Artemis heard a distinct whistling noise.

Artemis stood up, walking to the door. When he made sure that no one was watching him, he veered towards the computer lab, slipping a piece of paper out of his pocket and scribbling a fake note on it, and forged a signature. He waved it to the supervising teacher, before sitting down on the computer that faced away from the teacher so that he couldn't see what he was doing. This was too easy.

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Fowl Manor, Ireland

Holly dipped into the thick, low hanging clouds, soaking herself in water before activating her shield. She circled lower, before landing lightly on the window sill of Artemis' bedroom. The closet door was hanging open, empty. So the boy was away then. Holly couldn't stop a smirk from flitting across her face before entering the lightly heated room, her Dragonfly wings hovering her slim frame a foot off the ground.

Holly came to the Mud Boy's desk, and rummaged around for all his disks. The metallic glint reflected against the wall, before Holly slipped them all into a little bag Foaly had supplied for her. She turned and unplugged the laptop, sagging under the weight. Her feet almost touched the floor. After strapping that to her Moonbelt, Holly looked around, and went back to Artemis' desk, pulling open the drawers and rummaging around.

After about five minutes, Holly found nothing, after searching the whole room. She dropped to the floor, walking over to sit on the neatly made bed. Sighing, she bounced lightly on the bed, wetting the sheets with the water she had soaked up from outside. It was so warm…

"Holly, you missed one."

Holly nearly had a stroke. She had forgotten about Foaly. She adjusted the mike.

"Erm, yeah. Where is it?"

Foaly's voice was amused. "It's under his pillow."

Holly removed one, two, three, four, five pillows, and saw a miniature golden CD case.

"Geeze, talk about comfort." She muttered, before cracking the case open. It was the same disk he had used to retrieve his fairy memories. Under his pillow… Holly shook her head. "We don't need this." She said into her mike.

"Ah, well, why don't pry a bit into Mud Boy's life when the opportunity arises?" Foaly asked smugly.

Holly shook her head. "You've been around me too long, pony boy." She teased, popping the miniature disk back into the case and tucked it into her pocket. She took one last look at the room before turning and flew out the window.

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St. Bartleby's Ireland

Artemis was sitting on an extremely uncomfortable wooden bench, the bleak sun doing nothing to warm his mood. Juliet stood next to him, arms crossed, her expression again startlingly not unlike his. They had two reasons to be annoyed however.

Juliet was annoyed because she had absolutely no fun anymore. Despite being almost twenty years old now, she still had those teenage tendencies, still was a fun loving girl. There wasn't anyone one of the female gender within a ten mile radius of her current position that wasn't over thirty years old, and she was personally feeling more than a little stifled by Artemis' firm behaviour. She was having a little trouble from restraining herself to challenge anyone she met of particular size or strength to a wrestling match. Artemis probably wouldn't have minded but then she'd probably go and get herself banned from the school grounds. You could just trip someone nowadays and be accused of assault…

Artemis was annoyed because he wanted to check something on his laptop. He had decided now that he wouldn't talk with anyone that didn't know where Mafeking was, which ruled out about ninety-nine percent of the people in the entire school, not including the Geography teachers. True, no one had paid any particular attention when their teacher was babbling on about South Africa, Artemis himself included, but it was no reason why they shouldn't know. All this just added to his irritation when Juliet and her stunning appearance kept drawing unwanted attention to him as well as Juliet. Artemis also registered the sour look on Juliet's face, but he saw his own discomfort on a rather larger scale than hers. Typically.

So, while the two of them fumed about their own problems, no one was particularly aware of a pair of black eyes that watched the two scowling figures from the outside.

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Police Plaza, Haven

Holly dumped the entire contents of her bag onto Foaly's desk, but snatched a tube from the table as it rolled out of her bag and threatened to capsize onto the floor. Foaly wasn't looking though, and Holly tucked it away in her pocket. She had just straightened up again when Foaly turned to load all of Fowl's disks onto his system. About fifty pages of notes flashed up onto his screen. Holly decided not to try and follow Foaly's reading after she had read her tenth ten-syllable word.

"Anything?"

Foaly murmured something, his eyes still dashing down the page as quick as he scrolled it. Holly waited less than patiently, her mind thinking about things like the few coins she had lost to that damn food machine. When Foaly closed the window however, her attention drifted back slowly to reality.

"So?"

"Oh, nothing too discriminating, I doubt that Arty even knows something's wrong down here."

"I doubt he does, since only two people I know so far know about it, whatever it is." Holly said scathingly.

"Since when did Retrieval count as one person to you?"

"Well, I'm thinking that you didn't tell them what your suspicions were."

"And I told you?" Foaly asked, loading Artemis' mini disk onto the computer.

"No. That's why I'm guessing why you didn't tell them. You didn't tell me." Holly said, walking around to get a closer look at the computer.

"Since when did you get all smart?"

Holly decided not to reply, watching Foaly hack into the disk. She was a little more than curious to see what Artemis had told himself to trigger the memories. Not anything boring, surely. Artemis and boring were two words that didn't mix, except when he was lecturing people. That was the time that he only had Foaly's attention.

"Ah, Fowl, still haven't gotten over gold…" Foaly said.

Holly smirked as a long list of files came up. "Well, you really can't expect Artemis to forget about something as important as gold, now, can we?"

Foaly shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. "So, it is Artemis now, is it? Not Mud Whelp?"

"Oh, shut up and get on with it." Holly snapped, her good mood instantly disappearing. Foaly was so irritating.

"Oh, now you sound like Root. Honestly, why do people volunteer to spend time with that guy?" Foaly whined, clicking on the folder that said 'View Me First'.

An image of thirteen year old Artemis appeared on the screen. Holly sat back on a spare swivel chair.

"Now all I need is popcorn…"

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St. Bartleby's, Ireland

Juliet was using an unfortunately sapling as her punching bag. There was no room for a proper one in the car, and the gym teacher wouldn't let her use another one when she had demolished the first one. She gave the trunk a deft kick.

Crack

She sighed. Juliet moved on, leaving the poor tree snapped in half, foraging for another sprout. It was so boring… she found a tree, bigger than the previous few, but she needed something more stable. A few punched left her with shallow scrapes, but Juliet had long ago mastered how to control pain. The stinging barely registered. Another few kicks and the tree shook, groaning. Juliet was just about to see if she could crack this one in half when a voice behind her nearly made her jump out of her skin.

"You know, if the school finds these you'll be sued, thus, I'd have to pay for it."

Juliet turned to Artemis, whose pale skin seemed to glow in the dim light. He was leaning gingerly against a tree, no doubt thinking that it would ruin his suit. Juliet shrugged.

"Oh, and the cost of a few trees would damage your bank balance so severely that we would have to sell Fowl Manor?" She replied sarcastically.

Artemis leaned away from the trunk when he saw the spider scuttling down it. He brushed the non-existent dirt off his clothes, and turned his cool blue eyes on Juliet. It had taken her much practice to not flinch when he did that.

"Merely a fact, Juliet. No need to get all snippy about it." He said lightly.

"Why are you here then?"

Artemis scowled. "To get away from those bimbos that they call professional teachers. Honestly, you can lose brain cells by just listening to those idiots."

Juliet smiled. It was funny how Artemis put down everyone who tried to teach him something. She personally thought that Mr. and Mrs. Fowl should stop forcing tutors on Artemis before they get a law suit against them.

"Well you could always try to look like you're listening."

Artemis shot her a sour look. "And you could always try to pretend you're having a great time here."

"This is different!" Juliet protested.

"Sure."

Juliet turned to the tree, wrapping her fingers around a branch, and ripped it off. Artemis watched her throw it away.

"What exactly are you trying to achieve by doing that?"

"It's called the Boring Factor. If you destroy a lot of things," Juliet ripped another branch off. The tree looked sad. "Then that means you're really bored. If you only destroy say, a single branch," She ripped off a foot thick branch, tossing it aside as soon as it had departed from the now bare trunk. "It means that you're not bored at all."

"Uh huh."

Artemis watched her slowly demolish the tree. Well, he thought, at least she seems to be entertaining herself thoroughly. That's more that can be said for me.

"It's fun." Juliet said brightly, throwing another branch over her shoulder. Artemis leaned away slightly as it landed a meter away from him. Only Artemis and perhaps Butler would've been able to hear the thin layer of sarcasm in her voice.

Artemis turned to face the way he came and started walking away. Juliet watched him go, disgruntled. After throwing a few more vicious kicks at the tree, another loud crack ran through the air and a huge fissure ran up the tree, leaving a gaping hole to let Juliet see the creepy crawlies that were scurrying frantically to find darkness again. She turned and followed the figure out of the trees.

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Fowl Manor, Ireland

Butler closed the door to the library, feather duster in hand. He walked to Artemis' bedroom, wanting to go somewhere where he could think about Artemis. He opened the door, and knew immediately that something was wrong. Artemis' bed, for one, was wet, and no one had been there to wet it. No one he knew of, at least. Butler advanced cautiously, ears perked. He noted the opened window, slightly open drawers with paper sticking out of them, but more importantly, Artemis' missing laptop.

Butler ran out of the room, his instincts telling him where to go. He opened the door to the security cameras, and selected all the tapes that recorded the room since Artemis had left. The first five showed the room empty. He froze them all a couple of times, but the image in the still-frame never changed. Butler started wondering if he was getting paranoid.

But finally, he saw what he was looking for on the twelfth tape. A very familiar elf, unshielded, by the way, shuffling through Artemis' things, taking every disk that she found. Butler watched the elf with increasing humor, before ejecting the tape when it had finished running, chuckling to himself.

He exited the room, a wide smile on his face, wondering what Holly would do when she found out that Artemis had planted fake disks over his room.

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Police Plaza, Haven

Holly and Foaly both watched the Artemis-on-the-screen. Nothing was said for a minute.

"You know, I don't think Mud Boy was right in the head when he recorded this." Holly muttered, tapping her foot impatiently.

Foaly was watching the screen, his eyes intent. Holly wondered what he was looking for. Suddenly the Artemis-on-the-screen's mouth opened.

"Holly, Foaly, thank you for trying to contact me, but I doubt that this would be the way I would prefer you to do it."

Holly stared at the screen, gaping.

"Next time, just call me on that communicator that you had so conveniently slipped me, since I'd rather you not go rummaging through my room again. Foaly should know how to do it."

Holly turned, and was about to ask if Foaly if this was all a joke, but Foaly's face was just as surprised as hers. The Artemis-on-the-screen continued talking, oblivious to the reactions of his audience, a smug smile on his face.

"And don't bother to return those other disks you took. I have the real copy stored away safely."

Then the screen went black.

Holly turned to Foaly, her face still surprised.

"How…?"

"That little weasel." Foaly muttered. Then he turned to Holly. "You gave Fowl a communicator?" he asked, eyebrows raised and a trace of a smirk on his face.

"Hey, it was nothing special or anything!" Holly said defensively.

Foaly snickered, and Holly resisted lashing out at him with her foot. Foaly saw the thought crossing her mind. He immediately looked wary.

"Don't take it too seriously Holly, I was only joking."

"Sure." Holly replied, miffed. "But the more important matter now is that now we don't have any of Fowl's stuff."

"Easy. You just call him on that communicator that you had so conveniently slipped him." Foaly mimicked, snickering again.

Holly raised her foot threateningly. Foaly struggled to keep his face straight.

"You do it, smarty pants." She replied grouchily.

Foaly locked the door, and secured the line before typing in a code. Holly told him the number, and he dialed it.

They waited.

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Artemis was in his room when the communicator started vibrating. His face showed a millisecond of surprise before settling back into his blank mask. He slipped the electronic gadget from his pocket, and flicked it on. Foaly's face flickered onto he small screen, and he saw Holly disgruntled face behind him. Artemis' face broke into a smirk. It was so entertaining to see Holly in a bad mood.

"So, Holly, I hope that you haven't messed up my room too badly."

"Very good, Mud Whelp." She shot back, her voice slightly muffled.

"Anyway," Foaly cut in. He could sense another fight coming. Holly and Artemis could shoot insults at each other faster than he could understand them, and that was saying something. "We need some information."

Artemis smirked. He couldn't help it. "I figured. No one ever calls me just to say hello."

Foaly struggled on. "Well, yes. Um…"

"Have you done anything illegal lately?" Holly said bluntly.

Artemis pretended to think about it. "No, not lately… Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Bye, then."

"What?"

Foaly turned to look at Holly.

"You're about to believe that Artemis Fowl hasn't done anything bad lately!"

"Illegal, Holly, not bad. Two different things." Artemis corrected.

"All the bad things you get up to are illegal." Holly snapped back.

"Okay, okay!" Foaly interrupted again. "Well, then Fowl-"

"Wait!"

Artemis turned the volume setting to mute, before putting the gadget back into his pocket. He had just gotten off the bed when a boy – Mark – opened the door. Artemis proceeded to walk on, ignoring him. Mark jutted out his shoulder, pushing Artemis back.

"So, computer freak, whatcha doing?"

Artemis folded his arms. One of his existing rules was to ignore anyone that talked to him in slang. 'Watcha' was not a word.

"I'm talking to you, computer freak."

Artemis wondered when Mark would get tired of this 'computer freak' name.

"Hey!"

Mark pushed him roughly, and Artemis stumbled backwards. Almost immediately, Mark was slammed against the wall and Juliet had his arms pinned down, her eyes glittering dangerously. Artemis stood up, smoothing a crease that was in front of his shirt.

"I think that next time you should watch how you attempt to get my attention." Artemis said in a clipped voice.

Mark's eyes were wide as he watched Artemis walk out the door.

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Police Plaza, Haven

"I think that next time you should watch how you attempt to get my attention."

Holly rolled her eyes.

"Geeze, I don't think he'd get through one day alive if Juliet weren't there for him." She stated.

Foaly shrugged, leaning back in his specially modified wheelie chair.

"Well, a genius can hardly be expected to be a muscleman, can he?"

Holly smirked. "You're only siding with him so it gives you an excuse to not work out." She sniggered.

Foaly pursed his horsy lips. Just then the screen lit up again. Artemis' scowling face filled the screen, his sapphire eyes annoyed. Holly's mood grew noticeably happier. It was funny how when one of them was upset the other one of them was always happy. He seemed to be back in the forest, according to the dimmer light and the thickly nettled trees behind him.

"What's wrong, Mud Boy? Are there bullies at your school?" Holly mocked.

"Well, obviously. You, Holly, would get a much harder time dealing with them I think though."

"I have no problem defending myself, unlike some people." She said snippily.

"I wasn't talking about your fierceness, Holly. You have more than enough of that. I was talking about your size. Your height, to be more exact."

"Whatever." Holly said, miffed.

"You two seem to be unable to speak to each other for more than one minute without bickering so I think we're done here." Foaly said briskly, unlocking the doors.

"But we need his disk!" Holly protested.

"No you don't." Artemis said, watching Holly's face grow annoyed.

Foaly sighed. "You two, seriously-" he started saying.

He was cut off though, by Ark Sool storming in.

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AN: Oooooh, cliffy :) I love writing cliffy's. Yes, I know I'm evil –evil laugh- I've found more and more that I love writing cliffy's, but I also know how it feels like to read them, so I won't write them too much :) see, I said I was nice, didn't I? Next chapter will have to wait until my exam week is over, and that's about a couple of weeks. You have been warned! Now, go review and I might update earlier ;)

xx Athemia