A/N: I am simply overwhelmed that this Drabble series that I started for fun now has 47 followers. You guys, my readers and reviewers, are simply amazing, and I will continue these drabbles because of just that.

Straying from the humor genre a very little bit and for what I promise won't become a habit, this particular chapter is an extra of my own fanfic, "Regards from my past, present and future", and is also related to "The Cross Species Battle"—call it shameless self promoting, but the truth is that I want to put this out there and break the circle a bit. This story will be narrated in the point of views of all the characters, just like my original Fanfiction, and will contain a considerable amount of the humour genre and the Hartemis ship. Of course afterwards, these drabbles are going to continue having all the hilarity I can include. So sit back, relax and enjoy the tale from LEP Aboveground.

—•-

Holly p.o.V

I woke up to the extremely irritating sound of my personal alarm. Ah yes, one of the many perks of being promoted to Major. You get a bigger room, yeah, but you also have to wake up an hour and a half before everyone else, jog three times around the building, inspect it for any Mud Man surveillance equipment and spend a while target practicing with a prototype shuttle.

"Mmmlp," I slowly slipped out of the queen-sized bed with the fluffy pillows, yawned, and went for the shower. It was an extremely lazy shower, even if the water Aboveground was relatively cold, but my mind was partially fixed on other things. For instance, what those holsters on the new uniform were supposed to hold. They looked like dagger pouches.

A moment later, I was staring at myself in the half-length mirror that came with the bathroom. I could certainly get used to the new uniform—this particular one had metallic grey shoulder stripes while the whole thing was pitch black, though I cared more about how weightless it felt. The thing was beautiful in that way.

Next step of the day, jog. Circle the building. That's about five kilometers in each round. Pause at intervals to check if our cameras work. Then do another jog farther away from the building scanning potential threats put around by the enemy.

Messing with Foaly's prototypes, though, was fun. As of yet I was the only Major stationed at LEP Aboveground, so I had the personal pleasure of laying my fingers on them before any other officer did. The badly named AwesomeHoofPower9000 was definitely going to be mine someday, as long as it was released under a different name.

I had barely noticed the time when the common alarm went off. It was more like a stampede of trolls with weaponry. Some of the Junior Cadets had had bad cases of bleeding ears the first time they'd woken up to it.

Grinning, I dashed towards Foaly's door with the prototype affirmation letter already in hand.

KNOCK.

"D'ARVIT FROND, DID THEY ADD A NEW NOTE TO THAT BLASTED ALARM?!"

"No," I replied. "Affirmation letter."

The door was immediately swung open. Foaly hadn't even taken off his emergency thick wollen brain-reading-signal-blocking sleeping cap yet, but he was suddenly in the same good mood as I was. "Which one is it?"

—

I met Artemis at breakfast.

Surprisingly enough, within the two months this division had been in existence, we had already managed to prepare a timetable and stick to it. Breakfast, then off you go to your respective training sessions. Simple and straightforward. The way it should be.

"I think I've got used to it," Artemis commented before I could ask. "The odour, that is. It isn't half as bad now as it was on the first day."

"You appreciate that now because of your incident with the gas masks—" began Foaly, but I elbowed him hard and glared.

"Not over breakfast, centaur."

Artemis continued to take pathetically small bites off the veg taco. Well, compare his to that of the officers, it was pathetic. Otherwise they'd just be seen as very well-mannered. He stopped for a while, pondered over something, and took another bite. "Don't think I didn't notice the uniform, by the way," he said, casually. "In my opinion, it's Foaly blatantly trying to show off."

Foaly smirked. "You're admitting that you like it."

Artemis rolled his eyes. "It's exaggerated. All those designs could very well suffice in a crime show."

I sighed, sensing a banter coming on. I needed to get out of here fast. "Overall, you don't like it?"

"It suits you," admitted Artemis. "But back to my original point that it's only more expenditure that I am not willing to fund."

Foaly gave an amused snort. "And by it suits you, you mean it suits Holly and no one else, which also makes it a compliment to Holly which has nothing to do with the new uniform."

Artemis sighed. "Cut it out, Foaly. You know better than to jump on that bandwagon."

I didn't miss this. "Bandwagon?"

Foaly snickered. "Just little rumors going around about what you two do at the balcony every night..."

"What?" I exclaimed. It suddenly occurred to me that I had been a little loud, so I spoke only for them to hear. "Foaly, just from where do you pull those ridiculous ideas?"

Artemis shrugged. "He's Foaly. He has a lot of them."

Foaly looked offended. "Hey!"

Artemis tapped the tabletop impatiently. "Well, centaur, you can take a look at your own cameras and put your doubts to rest. As for this conversation, it serves no purpose whatsoever and I'm sure we all have work to do."

The centaur whinnied, annoyed. "I don't want to redesign those blueprints for the tenth D'Arvitting time because some stupid Mud Man rejected them again."

"The previous nine times was your fault," I pointed out. "You'd better do them again and properly."

It struck me exactly what blueprints he meant.

I said my next line with complete seriousness.

"Because this may well be our last chance to save Haven."

•—

"On your feet, cadet," I heard Trouble yell from the far end of the grounds. "We are at war, we have no time for slacking!"

I tried my best to hide a grin. My trainees would no doubt appreciate that my method of training was not driven by pathos. Not that I had many trainees; there were about twenty of them in total and that didn't account for even a fraction of our grounds. But rest assured, new recruits were on the way.

Corporal Piper, the only one with a rank among the elves I had to train, was attempting a more obvious show off than Foaly had earlier, just by stubbornly continuing to hang upside down from the ten-foot high monkey bars after everyone else had stopped on my orders.

"Fifteen minutes," I said. "You do know that that is the easiest task we planned for today, right?"

The nine other cadets immediately looked at me, horrified.

Piper blinked. "It is?"

I sighed. "Yes, it is, and we're off to the shuttle range later. You're going to have a mock battle with programmed simulators, and believe me. There will be a few of you ending up under a team of medics."

Did I say I didn't scare them at times? I blame myself for the hypocrisy.

The Corporal was suddenly on her feet again, looking a lot less happy about her achievement. "I get to be on your team, right?"

I grinned. "You get your own team."

Piper's face fell.

Ops Consultation Booth, LEP Aboveground.

Foaly p.o.V

So this is the story behind those accursed blueprints. I'm pointing fingers at the absolute mess that Artemis and Trouble made together last month. It wouldn't have turned out so bad if the Mud Boy had taken my advice—excuse me, Mud Man, seeing as he's eighteen now—but noo, this is a minor agreement. Even Zidan's not stupid enough to reject it. We'll give you the treaty, let you add some stuff to it, sign it off. That was for a ceasefire on Haven, in return for a set of attack conditions on our part. Conditions which, and this is rather obvious, I had to design. There was no ceasefire as of yet, because that was until I "got my act together".

Stupid Mud Man. I think he did it on purpose.

See, in the good old days, you had warlocks. A whole tribe of 'em. They could weave spells, cast shields, break in and enter human dwellings as they pleased. Not that the last one was a problem now, seeing as Human HQ didn't have anyone staying there overnight because of our last attack, but my point is that the Warlocks made things infinitely easier. One spell and woosh, their weapons turned to dust. But we had one warlock in this fight, and that one warlock couldn't be risked even if the situation called for it.

That's why this time, it's called the Second Taillite.

•–—••

Butler p.o.V

LEP Aboveground. 5:30 p.m

In recent months, Artemis had taken to risking his life on an even more regular basis than during any past adventure with the People. I'll admit it. It was beyond me to protect him any longer, and it was only so long that a Butler could last. After the healing at London, things had started going downhill fast.

Now he was only eighteen and I wasn't enough.

Walking into Zidan's building to strike deals. Staying on-site for Recon missions. Dismantling nuclear bio bombs with his life at stake. Things I had never imagined he'd consider doing for the People, just started happening in front of my eyes. He learned to pilot a shuttle within a week. He actually knew how to hold a Neutrino, could fire at least twice a day without missing.

My visits to LEP Aboveground were pretty frequent, but I was the only other Mud Man allowed in. Our population had taken sides when the War had begun to flare up; half of them stayed with the People, another half wanted dominance, human-fairy hybrid Zidan Collision at their lead. A lot of the helping humans were granted evacuation to Haven, Artemis's family included. If the fairy population had stayed constant, this wouldn't have been possible, but a quarter of a million lives were lost because of the War. The People were starting to fight for vengeance.

The building was not one built for three-footers, and was massive even in my standards. A fact I was extremely thankful for as I sat somewhat patiently outside a private gym quarter, waiting for the inevitable.

I heard a loud thump from inside.

There, it happened. He had finished early again.

I didn't need to ask for permission to walk in, and I was less than surprised to see a drenched Artemis laying flat on the floor, a pathetically light pair of weights fallen beside him.

"That's 10kg," I raised an eyebrow. "You told me you were doing well."

Artemis scowled from his tired position. "Considering my musclemass, 10kg is at least slightly impressive, don't you think?"

I rolled my eyes and helped him to his feet. He had changed a lot, alright, but if there was one thing that had always stayed constant from day one, it was his musclemass of zero.

"I thought Holly was training you."

Artemis suddenly coughed loudly, and I didn't miss the spot of colouring that came to his face. "No, that was...ah, that was the initial plan, but she can't really..."

"Because the others would take it the wrong way," I guessed.

Artemis groaned. "They already have, apparently, and that's for something as trivial as meeting at the balcony."

I knew better than to believe this. "Meeting there once?"

Artemis looked fairly flustered. "Maybe a few days."

I tried to hide a grin.

"Alright," admitted Artemis. "More often than that. Maybe a month. But I assure you that there is nothing—"

"There's no point, really," I interrupted. "Convincing me, that is. If you want to have a conversation, I suggest having a conversation in the middle of the hall like everyone else. If you love her, well, you're old enough to propose. It's going to be a new thing at a time like this but better than letting people have suspicions, right?"

Artemis's reaction to my piece of advice was something in between shock and embarrassment, the only clear expression being the profuse colour that consumed his already sweat-soaked features. The silence that followed was no less than two minutes long, when he was finally able to produce a reply.

"I...what..."

He suddenly snapped out of it and asked in the most incredulous tone possible, "What makes you think I love her?!"

I sighed. "You really want the list?"

Artemis scowled. "I don't want sarcasm, Butler, I want a straightforward answer."

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I asked her myself."

My principal blinked. "What?"

"I'm joking," I looked down at the pitiful weights he had been attempting to exercise with. "I hope you remember that your two-months-at-a-time voucher has expired and Angeline wants you back in Haven. Spend some time with the family."

Artemis nodded, apparently not realizing the change of topic, pushing himself off the rowing machine he'd sat on. "Excellent, so long as Beckett hasn't attempted to grow anything under my desk."

I chuckled. "No, it's not necessarily the desk..."

Artemis groaned, immediately catching onto what I meant. "You just have to be the bearer of bad news every time I ask about Beckett, don't you?"

••—•

Artemis p.o.V

Butler didn't want to pass the opportunity to witness a mock battle with simulator shuttles, and so I was forced to watch from Foaly's Booth, too.

The simulators looked all too real, with holographic pilots who barked commands and turned their heads whilst firing everywhere, but they were shut down and replaced with hidden simulators on Holly's request as two actual shuttles met at the center of the programmed sky, each carrying four passengers including two pilots.

When the training started, the simulators fired actual shots.

Foaly looked at me from across the room and put all his phrases for gloating into one annoying wink.

••—••

Holly p.o.V

Model shuttle battles were the most dangerous kind of training. They were programmed to last for as little as seven minutes, but those seven minutes held the most unpredictable threats and danger zones. You could sustain injuries if your shuttle took more than five shots. In this case, that was completely possible—the conditions set were realistic. Foaly's new models possessed the same blast power as the new Human ones, and one team was the enemy of the other. Not to mention the simulators, which served as four other equally powerful shuttles firing at both teams. So it was hit and avoid being hit on all sides.

The first simulator fired a stray shot, and the others followed suit at once, forcing everyone aboard to stay vigilant should any strike the shuttle hull.

Piper's shuttle fired twice at mine, and I managed to avoid hers with a not-so-easy risk of getting caught to the sim-fire.

I fired once and it struck the edge of her left wing. The point of this test is to stay alert, Corporal, and you aren't having any success.

I manuvered mine just in time to avoid a programmed blast from below. It struck the other shuttle's hull.

The three Junior cadets behind me started praying that the five minutes would end.

Piper's team had far worse reactions, but the Corporal fired twice again. One missed. The other struck the center of the nose and sent shock vibrations throughout.

I grinned. Three more shots and down you go.

Piper didn't stop. She fired two at a time yet again, missed by a yard, but managed to hit a simulator behind me and break it to pieces.

Now that was impressive.

I'm going to adapt your method and beat you at it, I smirked, pulling the joystick to fire twice. Both shots struck the hull of her shuttle. I could almost hear her teammates scream.

Realizing that there was just one more shot I had to get right before her shuttle went down, Piper got her act together and did a double-fire again. One hit, one missed.

Then another unexpected blast from below narrowly missed her, but my final strike didn't. The stadium shut down at once, both shuttles powered down. Time's up, and I had won.

Officer Leaf was the first to leave my shuttle when the doors opened, and also the first to leave for the bathroom. All our team members soon followed.

I outstretched a hand at Piper, grinning. "Pleasure working with you."

Piper held her stomach instead. "I'm going to be sick," she proclaimed. "May I leave too, Major?"

I absolutely had to give her just one compliment before she left. "Blasting off Foaly's simulator, that was impressive."

Piper gave me an incredulous look.

"Alright, dismissed."

••—•

Artemis was at the Ops Booth when I entered, with Butler standing at his side. I gave the bodyguard a greeting hug—risked my bones with it—before nodding at his Principal.

"You watched that?"

"Yes, and it looked like a death wish," said Artemis. "You're not serious that you think I can ever do that well."

I smiled. "You'd better learn, Mud Boy. Who knows, the day you'll be in one of those is probably closer than you think."

Butler chuckled. "Not until he learns to lift 10kgs."

That revelation was too funny to be ignored. "Ten, Artemis? Ten?" I laughed. "Beckett's hamster could do better than that."

Artemis scowled.

I patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Mud Boy. I'll teach you on my days off."

Probably the worst mistake I had ever made in my life, as it turned out.

••—

Author's Note; Read my Fanfiction, "Regards from my Past, Present and Future" for the main story this was derived from; read "The Cross Species Battle" if you're interested in LEP Aboveground, the training and the interspecies war they're fighting. It's a request, guys. I know you're awesome enough to read 'em both.

It's been a while since I've had these; Reviewer challenge! The best new review on this chapter, along with the best new reviews on the above stories, get to decide what my next Drabble will be. It's to celebrate 47 followers, 39 favs and 120 reviews. I thank you guys so much for everything.

If you don't want to be in the review challenge, just leave me your opinion and your take on this chapter. Milk toffees as always :)

-love, The Princess Of Weird.