A/N: Hi! Firstly let me please start by apologising for the length of my absence from this story – unfortunately work, volunteering and university have taken over for the last year (I should be graduating with a First though and I have an offer to study Medicine – so it wasn't in vain!). I am going to try to pick up where I left off and I will do my best to see the story through to completion over the course of this summer/Autumn; I hope you all enjoy where it goes and as always please drop me a review, it really does mean a lot!

Also, as an aside; I realise that my grammar was somewhat less than ideal in the first few chapters and I will at some point aim to go back through and correct that! Also, I'm going to be travelling in the USA for a month in June/July and would love any tips/advice that any American readers want to share :)

Jasper National Park, Canada:

"If you laugh, I will kill you." Holly glared at Artemis over the bonnet of the Mercedes.

"What possible reason could I have for laughing?" Artemis replied coolly, raising one eyebrow fractionally. Holly's glare hardened and she kicked the front tire ineffectually before replying.

"I am not wearing this Artemis, I look ridiculous!" Holly groaned, gesturing in exasperation to the canary yellow SpongeBob t-shirt and blue jeans that Artemis had found for her. Clearly the previous occupants of the vehicle had been travelling, as the boot had been full of suitcases.

"Whether you look ridiculous or not is irrelevant; the only thing that matters right now is that you look passably similar to a human child. The only problem is your ears…Ah! Perfect." Artemis extracted a violet beanie from one of the suitcases and proceeded to pull the hat down until it covered her ears.

If looks could kill, then Holly was pretty sure that Artemis would be reduced to ashes by the glare that she was currently giving him.

D'Arvit but I hate it when he's right!" she thought irritably.

"I look like something that even a troll wouldn't eat" Holly grumbled, before adding "I'm sure you planned this…"

"Hardly; it was simply good fortune on our part that the car we decided to borrow happened to have some children's clothing in the boot."

"And I think you look positively delectable" Artemis added suggestively, the slender fingers of his right hand moving smoothly from the rim of the hat to trace the corner of her face before settling on the lobes of her ears, which he proceeded to roll gently between his index finger and thumb."

"Ohh Frondddddddd!" Holly literally purred, "You have no idea how good that feels!"

"I have some notion." Artemis smirked as he increased the pace whilst his left hand slipped to down to encircle her waist.

In one swift motion Holly found herself pressed against his chest and staring up into his mismatched eyes – eyes which were the mirror image of her own. She could feel his heart beating against her chest and his gaze held her own with an intensity that made her feel as if the teenage genius was devouring her with his eyes.

"Holly…"

"Shut up, just shut up and kiss me."

She almost growled as she jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist, tangling her hands in his messy black hair and crushing his lips against her own. Frond but she needed this – how could Artemis affect her like this?!

It took a considerable force of will but Holly was eventually able to pull herself away from Artemis for long enough to catch her breath.

"Want to tell me where you learned that trick with the ears?!" She panted with mock severity.

"Trick? If I have deceived or otherwise manipulated you Holly then I assure you that was not my intention."

D'Arvit, when did that smug grin stop making me want to punch him?!

"For the record, I noted that your ears became disproportionately flushed during, well, last night…Based on this observation it seemed a logical assumption that Elven ears could be erogenous – and in the name of scientific enquiry it seemed only appropriate to test the hypothesis at the first available opportunity."

"Scientific enquiry?" Holly's voice took on a dangerous tone "If you ever want a repeat of last night Arty, then never compare me to a scientific experiment again." Holly kissed him once more before pushing herself away.

"We're wasting daylight and I could swear you're trying to distract me – we are going to return this car, right?" Holly asked suspiciously as she moved towards the vehicle in question, running her hand along the rim of the bonnet and admiring the finish.

The Mercedes was certainly no supersonic LEP attack shuttle, but it would do. The events of the last few days had left Holly feeling more stressed than she could remember being since…well since Artemis had died.

What she needed right now was speed. Under normal circumstances Holly might have given some consideration to the ticking off she would get from Trouble if she got pulled over for speeding in a human vehicle – however given that she had already broken public enemy number one out of LEP custody, assaulted two officers in the process and subsequently come worryingly close to sleeping with said fugitive, getting a speeding ticket didn't rank too highly on the list of potential problems.

"Of course, you saw me leave the note…" Artemis feigned indignation as he climbed into the car beside her.

"Wait, Holly, what are you doing?"

"Just getting the engine started Arty, don't worry."

Hold on to your lunch Mud Boy!

"Holly I really think I should drive, in case anyone sees uSsss!"

Whatever else Artemis had meant to say was lost in the roar of the engine as Holly floored the accelerator and the car rocketed onto the main road.

XXX

Tara Shuttle Port – Ireland

To say that Foaly was worried would have been an understatement; if concern could be assessed using a scale of 0 – 10 then Foaly would have ranked at about 11 on a logarithmic scale. Haven was in chaos, two of Foaly's closest friends were fugitives from the LEP and now this…The 'big cat' that the Mud Men were blaming for the attacks in London, was in fact a manticore – although the beasts were supposed to be extinct so how one had found its way to central London was anyone's guess.

Manticores were the monsters that haunted the nightmares of young fairies; they were supposed to have a head and body similar to a lion, leathery, bat-like wings and the tail of a giant scorpion. Until today they were also supposed to be extinct – the last of their kind having been died out before The People had been forced to migrate below ground.

In the days when their ancestors were only just beginning to understand electricity (while the Mud Men were still learning how to make stone tools) manticores, having evolved to be the perfect predators of magical beings, had been the greatest threat facing The People – and now one was not only alive but somehow in the centre of a major city!

How could this possibly have happened? More to the point, how could this possibly have happened without me knowing about it in advance?!

Foaly only ceased mentally chastising himself when their shuttle reached the port. Tara (not for the first time – although at least Holly couldn't be blamed on this occasion) resembled a war-zone. Visibly stressed security sprites in high-vis vests could be seen struggling (and largely failing) to pacify the large crowd of tourists that were now stranded in the port, due to Haven being in temporary lockdown.

Foaly drew his attention away from the chaos of the shuttle port in time to see the Commander exit the shuttle behind Retrieval One. Commander Trouble Kelp must have been exhausted – Foaly and most of the Retrieval Team had spent the journey up from Haven resting but Trouble had spent the time planning and now, it seemed, he was going to brief the rest of the squad.

"Gentleman…It would be an understatement to say that we have all had a long day, so I'm going to keep this short and to the point."

Which implies that you know any other way to do things…Foaly thought, but wisely decided to keep those thoughts to himself.

"Let me first say how proud I am of each and every one of you; this has been a dark day for Haven and Retrieval One has already done more than any fairy could have asked." The Commander's words were met by applause and a few encouraging cheers – the Retrieval jarheads might be exhausted but they were still receptive to praise from their commander.

Personally Foaly just would have preferred to just get the entire sorry incident over with so that he could get back home to Caballine. One hoof pawed the cement floor nervously, as Foaly's thoughts turned to his wife and the ordeal that she had gone through the previous day.

Trouble raised his hand to stall any further cheering, before continuing "You have done more today than any fairy could ask, and yet I must ask more still." Trouble paused for effect and made a point of meeting the gaze of each member of the team in turn. Whatever else Foaly might think about Trouble, he certainly couldn't fault his motivational speaking.

"I can confirm that the rumours some of you may have heard, are true. We have credible Intel that there is a manticore hunting Mud Men, in the centre of London. I cannot tell you how one of these monsters managed to escape extinction, but I'm sure that I do not need to tell you all how imperative it is that we capture, or if necessary kill, the beast before the Mud Men do. If we fail in this, and I know that you will not, then we risk nothing less than the exposure of The People."

Foaly suppressed a nervous whinny. Ok, so only the end of the world as we know it then, that's a relief…Where are you, Holly and Artemis?

As Trouble drew to the conclusion of his briefing, Foaly found himself missing his friends more than ever; 'end of the world as we know it' situations certainly fell within their area of expertise. He couldn't help but worry about them and what they might be doing – if Foaly knew them at all then he was sure that far from 'laying low', they would be heading directly for the eye of the storm.

But do they know what they're heading towards?

As Foaly thought this an image from the Police Plaza security feed came unbidden to the surface of his mind; Artemis leaning in to kiss Holly and Holly moving forward to meet him…No! He couldn't think about that, the consequences for both of his friends were far too awful to imagine.

A suspicious and decidedly offensive smell, which seemed to be emanating from the jumbo-sprite on Foaly's left, distracted Foaly from his thoughts in time to hear the Commander finish.

"…and we will not let the People down! Thank you, thank you all! Take ten and grab some rations while we get the shuttle prepped for the journey to London. Foaly – a word if you don't mind?"

Trouble drew Foaly to one side while the remaining Retrieval and tech fairies went about either finding food or readying the high-tech Retrieval shuttle for use. Only once the others were safely out of the way did he allow some of the exhaustion, that Foaly knew he must be feeling, to show on his face.

"Foaly, I wanted to speak to you on the way up here but there wasn't enough privacy. Please tell me that you have something on Holly and that D'Arvitting Mud Boy?"

"Our scanners detected an unauthorised shuttle entering E20 shortly after Artemis escaped from custody, but they never reached Tara so Holly must have gone off the grid – given time I'm sure that I could find them but-" Trouble cut Foaly off before he could finish.

"No, you're right. As much as I would like to string Fowl up and use him as troll bait, that will have to wait until the present crisis is resolved."

Trouble was clearly struggling to speak about Artemis and Holly without physically harming something; not wishing to encourage Trouble to focus on his friends, Foaly ceased upon the opportunity to change the subject.

"About that, Commander…I've been thinking and I have a theory as to how the manticore came to be in London; I think we need to-" Before Foaly could finish his sentence, one of the tech fairies shouted over from the transport shuttle.

"Sir, shuttle's prepped and ready for launch; waiting on your go!"

"Excellent, we're just coming!" Trouble shouted back.

"I'm sorry Foaly but we can talk about any hair-brained theories you may have, once we've dealt with the current problem and are all safely back below ground."

Trouble shot Foaly a half-hearted smile, which did nothing to ease his sense of foreboding, before boarding the new shuttle.

If I'm right then there might not be a 'safely back below ground' for any of us! Whatever is going on here is bigger than this and we are playing straight into their hands…

With great reluctance, Foaly followed Trouble onto the shuttle. While the pilots ran through the necessary pre-flight checks, Foaly activated his wrist-mounted computer – whatever the Commander may have said, there was something that he needed to check before they got to London. Foaly had a hunch and he knew just the person to help him confirm it…

XXX

Vancouver Airport, Canada

"You know I'm never entirely sure where I stand on totem poles; obviously they lack the grandeur of the ancient Greek sculptures or the finesse of Renaissance art, but there is a certain rustic majesty about them. What do you think Holly?"

Artemis, currently critically appraising the large totem pole situated in the middle of the passenger lounge, was being his usual self-absorbed self and Holly (still wearing the yellow SpongeBob t-shirt) was less than impressed.

I think you're lucky that I haven't broken anything important in retribution for making me wear this…outfit. Like your arm for instance.

The drive from Jasper National Park to Vancouver had been uneventful, the freedom of the open road and a fast car had enabled Holly to temporarily forget about the events of the last few days.

Unfortunately that escapism could not last and Holly certainly was not appreciating being forced to pretend that she was Artemis's baby sister – the security guard that had tried to tell her she was a 'such a brave little girl' for not being afraid of flying was, frankly, fortunate to still be in one piece.

Holly had once broken the record for flying closer to a magma flare than any other LEP officer in history – including her former Commander Julius Root; anything that she didn't know about flying, wasn't worth knowing.

The true cause of Holly's bad temper wasn't the humiliation of having to dress as a human child; if she was honest with herself then she was angry at the fact that she had to drive to Vancouver where previously she would have soared above the Rockies on a pair of state-of-the-art hummingbird wings. The fact that she had to wait around in this damned airport in order to fly on an archaic, pollutant belching tin-can with wings, when a week ago she could have commandeered a LEP fast-pursuit shuttle.

Circumstances beyond her control had forced her, in an instant, to choose between Artemis Fowl and her career, her friends, her home and her life. Looking up at the Mud Boy, her Mud Boy; Holly knew that however frustrated she might be right now, she had never really had a choice.

"Holly?" The sound of his voice snapped Holly back from her temporary introspection.

"Miles away, sorry Arty. What were you saying?"

Artemis raised one eyebrow fractionally, the way he looked at made her feel as if he could see straight through her into the depths of her soul. Artemis didn't need magic to read her mind it seemed; although if he guessed at her thoughts then he made no mention of it.

"I was curious as to your opinion on totem poles."

"Are you planning to re-decorate Fowl Manor?" Holly asked, suppressing a giggle at the mildly offended look that Artemis gave her in reply.

"I think they're great but probably not for the same reasons that most Mud Men do – my people built the first totems to scare your ancestors off, before humans even reached North America." Holly said, before adding sourly "not that it did us much good."

Before Artemis could reply he was stopped by the tannoy "British Airways Flight B736 to London Heathrow will now begin boarding from gate 52"

"Well that's us, I must confess at looking forward to having a proper bed again, camping is definitely not for me; that is not say that the experience has been entirely unpleasant…" Artemis smirked as Holly elbowed him playfully in the side.

"For someone that still hasn't gotten lucky yet, you seem awfully pleased with yourself." Holly shot him a playful wink as they reached the cue to board their plane.

"I am confident that luck has nothing to do with it." Artemis replied indignantly.

Holly just smiled and said nothing.

"Boarding passes please; make sure you have your boarding passes ready." A middle aged stewardess waited to check Artemis and Holly's passports. Fortunately Artemis had been able to make a call to one of Butler's associates in Vancouver and the necessary documents, including passports for both himself and Holly, had been waiting for them at the airport.

The stewardess treated him to a very clearly forced smile as he handed her their documents.

"Thank you Mr…O'Reilly? And this would be-"

My little sister, Kayleigh O'Reilly. We're visiting relatives in London." Artemis provided the stewardess with a truly vampiric smile; plainly disconcerted she wasted no time in returning their forged documents and showing them to their seats.

Once they were safely out of earshot of the cabin crew, Holly turned to Artemis.

"Your little sister?"

"Well I couldn't very well introduce you as my girlfriend, could I?" Artemis stopped almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"Sorry, that was presumptuous of me Holly, I didn't mean to imply that we-"

"Its fine, Arty, really. This is just going to take a bit of getting used to – let's worry about getting to London and clearing our names first, then maybe we can think about…us."

"You're right of course." Artemis buckled himself in to his seat and extracted his phone from his pocket.

"I thought I would check up on recent events while we fly, see if there has been any further mention of events in London."

"You do that, I'm going to sleep." Holly lifted Artemis's arm up and over her, enabling her to rest her head against his chest.

"Mmmm, definitely beats the free pillows." Holly murmured into his chest as the plane began to taxi towards the runway.

Despite everything that had already happened to them, and despite the uncertain dangers that they were flying towards, in that moment Holly was absolutely content – she would deal with tomorrow when they got there.

XXX

Unknown Location, Somewhere dark and generally unpleasant

Stryker reclined in his seat and allowed himself a rare moment of utter self-satisfaction – well ok, maybe they weren't that rare but so few people appreciated true evil genius these days…

On the wall monitor before him a single image was frozen - LEP Commander Trouble Kelp and LEP technical director Foaly standing in the Tara shuttle port.

Perfect! They've taken the bait more readily than I could ever have hoped.

With a swipe of his hand the screen changed to show live footage of downtown Haven. The devastation from days of rioting could clearly be seen on the monitor. Even as he watched Stryker could see a new group of protestors begin to mass, evidently the anti-Mud protests in Haven were showing no sign of abetting, despite the best efforts of the LEP.

Yes, things were progressing precisely according to plan – and it was high time for a change of scenery. One could only spend so long orchestrating the dawn of the New Age from a cave after all…With Foaly and Commander Kelp out of Haven and Captain Short and her Mud Boy pet fugitives from the LEP, now was the perfect time for his grand re-entrance.

"Bron!" Bron was an elderly gnome that had served Stryker ever since he had first decided to leave Haven for a life of isolation and plotting. He had been a servant to Stryker's father before he had died – no, not died, before the D'Arvitting Mud Men murdered him.

"Yes Master?" Bron replied

Stryker took a second to calm himself before speaking.

"Prep the shuttle – we're going home."

"Home…Sir?"

"D'Arvit! Do I have to explain everything twice?! Yes, home! We're going back to Haven Bron…After all, it seems only right that The People should meet their new King, don't you agree?"

A/N: Once again, massive thanks to everyone for reading (and particularly for reading this far!); if you are enjoying the story so far and/or want to leave some constructive criticism, advice or speculation on where the story is going then please leave a review! I will try to reply to as many of them as possible but no promises.

Also, once again, please accept my apologies for the unacceptably long period of absence!