Holly woke up, blinking blearily at the bright lights that shone in her eyes. She struggled for a moment, trying to remember everything that had happened when she was talking with Artemis.
"I'm sorry I lied to you." He said, before taking a needle and stabbing it into Holly's neck. Holly froze in shock, staring at the spot where Artemis was injecting something into her.
"Artemis... how could you?" Holly whispered, her body failing. As her world collapsed around her, Holly managed to see none other than Opal Koboi step into the old shuttle and exchange a few friendly words with him. Finally, Holly's legs failed her and she crashed into Artemis for support, with only one thing swirling in her head. As her eyes started failing, Holly suddenly lost all connection to her body, floating out her her body like it was a shell.
Artemis...
"You are just a TRAITOR! Did you trick Butler, too, or was it just a lie like you tricked the People? The People who trusted you and believe you to be the nicest Mud Man anyone had every seen. Well, I'll tell them they were wrong! I can't believe they trusted you! How could you do that to them? To me?" Holly gasped, tears pooling at the bottom of her eyes as she screamed her pain and anguish towards the cameras she was sure were there.
"I thought I loved you..." She finally whispered, calming down slightly.
A few doors down, Artemis clenched his phone tightly. He had hardwired the computer room, changing the cameras in the room where Holly was to a video loop, with occasional changes. Meanwhile, everything Holly said went to his phone, where he could hear it.
Artemis heard every single word Holly Short said, and they caused him pain.
Pain like he'd never felt before.
"Holly!" Coughed a centaur who was nearby. Holly spun to find Foaly hogtied so he couldn't move an inch straining so he could talk to her.
"Foaly!" Holly shouted, straining to stand up. For some reason, she wasn't tied like Foaly, but she merely shrugged it off. Foaly, however, couldn't.
"Why aren't you tied?" He whined.
"Because, maybe Artemis thought I couldn't do anything. Because I am just a stupid elf who was tricked and deceived." Holly ranted, stumbling over to the centaur, pulling off the rope.
"Did you really love Artemis?" Foaly asked quietly, after a minute of rubbing his flank.
"I loved the Artemis Fowl I thought I knew." Holly replied, turning away so Foaly couldn't see her face. And see her lie.
"Okay. Well, let's go find Mulch-"
"You go ahead. I'll look for a way to escape." Holly said, well, shortly, finally looking the old centaur in the eye.
"Come here." Foaly opened his arms, enveloping the elf in a huge bear hug.
"It's going to be okay. Are you sure it was Artemis anyways?" Foaly asked.
"He did it on his own, with Opal Koboi posing as Butler. And no, she couldn't have used the mesmer on him. You can tell by the pupils." Holly spoke as Foaly opened his mouth to cut in.
Foaly opened and closed his mouth like a fish for a moment, before grunting and turning away towards a door.
"I'll look for Mulch." He said, and trotted out the door.
Holly sighed and walked towards a junk heap, where a large box rested. She tried and move the box away, but it was too heavy. So Holly tried to open the box flaps, but they were stuck tight. Shrugging, Holly skirted the pile and the box, and turned away.
"Hey, Holly-" Spoke a voice which Holly thought she would never hear again.
"What do you want, Artemis?" Holly snapped, whirling around. Her hair, which she had chosen to grow out, whipped around her head, snagging on some of the junk behind her.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I had no choice-"
"You had no choice? The great Artemis Fowl had no choice! That is another lie you have told me. What, you 'had' to take a few thousand dollars, or euros, or whatever kind of payment you want now?" Holly shouted, her cheeks coloring like another Commander they both knew.
"Holly, I really am sorry-" Artemis pleaded, reaching forward to touch her shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" Holly shouted, slapping his hand away and stepping out of his reach. "Now here you are, siding with Opal Koboi, who, by the way, was the one who killed Julius Root, and do you care? No. Did you even care for Root? Did you care that he died?" Holly asked, tears once again pooling in her eyes. She turned away and ran behind the pile, leaving Artemis behind with his hand raised, reaching out for one of his best elf friends.
Holly paused, listening for the sound of Artemis. Surprisingly, something clinked to the ground and then she heard his footsteps leaving the room, and the unmistakable sound of a door opening and closing.
Then silence.
Holly shielded herself, using up a little bit of her magic, and crept around the pile. She saw her old LEP helmet she left after Artemis kidnapped her, along with a spare LEP suit with her wings. After she donned the clothes and helmet, Holly scanned the room and saw two more things that Artemis left behind. She whimpered in relief as she saw her Neutrino on the ground, and she placed that back into it's place on her hip. The last item she found, thought, was not a weapon. Artemis had left her hope, and a way to escape.
He left her a single acorn.
Holly stared out the door which Artemis left from, until she suddenly shook her head violently, erasing all of the doubts she had of Artemis actually tricking Opal...
But it was too good to be true.
She had one betrayal from him, she wasn't going to give him another one.
Holly scanned the room with her helmet, searching for another exit than the two in which Foaly and Artemis left. But there wasn't one. So Holly left through the door she left Foaly at and found herself in a brightly lit hallway.
There was a door at the end of the hallway, slightly ajar. Listening carefully, Holly heard the unmistakable sounds of Mulch and Foaly, although they sounded slightly muffled.
"Hey guys-" Holly burst in through the door, but she found something she thought she never would have come across.
"D'arvit." She swore, staring at the top of a pixie's head.
But this was no pixie.
The pixie in question was facing the other direction, towards the computer screens at the front of the room.
"Holly Short. Ex-Captain of the LEP service, and you were there at Julius Root's death. Have you been shooting at any other red buttons lately?" Opal Koboi taunted, finally swinging around to show Holly her rounded, Mud Men-like ears.
"You killed Julius Root. You are a monster!" Holly shouted, flushing.
"Oh, really? Did Artemis tell you anything about Julius lately?" Opal asked, smirking smugly.
"I don't trust Artemis." Holly snapped.
"Well, I guess you don't want to know anything about Root's condition." Opal sighed, still smirking.
"What do you mean?" Holly asked after a moment.
"Root is alive." Opal cackled, pulling out the exact gun Julius Root was previously know to use, a tri-barreled water cooler. Holly ducked at the last second, narrowly missing the red laser of heat aimed her way. Without thinking to pull out the Neutrino at her hip, Holly scrabbled for the door, bursting out into the hallway with Opal Koboi hot on her heels.
Holly ran, screaming for Foaly and Mulch. She knew that pixies couldn't outrun trained LEP members, and sure enough, Holly was on her own in the hallway. She still zigzagged back and forth through the hallway, hoping to make a harder target as she never stayed in the same spot.
Suddenly, Holly ran into Mulch and Foaly, grabbing Foaly's hand, who in turn, grabbed Mulch by the beard.
"Ouch, ouch, cut it out! This beard is extremely sensitive!" Mulch groaned through clenched teeth. "Who are we running from, anyways?"
"Opal Koboi." Holly replied, well, shortly. Mulch yelped as Foaly suddenly ran ahead, and the three of them were moving faster and faster, until Holly pointed towards a single, black door at the end of another hallway.
"I think N°1 is in there!" She shouted, and Foaly swung the door open, allowing the elf and dwarf go inside. As soon as the last hoof went into the room, Foaly slammed the door and panted.
"I never want to go on another field mission again." He said wearily.
"It wasn't and it still isn't." Holly couldn't help teasing the old centaur.
"But my kids..." Foaly moaned.
"If we don't stop Koboi, you won't have kids." Mulch mumbled, and the two of them started fighting.
"Enough, enough!" Holly shouted, and then shivered.
"Wow... it's cold in here!" Foaly grumbled. Each gulp of air they breathed out shone for a minute like a ghostly fire from a dragon.
"Why is it so cold?" Mulch mumbled, as Foaly started to check all the corners for N°1.
"Holly..." Mulch gulped, tugging on Holly's sleeve. Holly glanced up, too, and they both froze.
There was a huge block of ice, and inside the ice was an elf. It was a male, and he was broad-chested, and his hair seemed like it used to be a buzz cut, but now parts of it had grown out. The color itself was gray and ragged, and the man was in simple elf clothes, though the elf and dwarf outside the ice could clearly imagine him in the required LEPrecon uniform.
Suddenly, Foaly cantered up to them, still not noticing the elf in the ice.
"Is that-" Foaly started, finally seeing the ice.
Holly nodded, finishing his sentence.
"Julius Root."
Very much alive.