Author's Note; And I'm back after yet another lengthy unannounced hiatus! Yeah, I really meant to update sooner, but holidays were eventful, I always seem to be having exams, I recently lost a few of my fanfic documents and I know you really couldn't care less about my excuses, so you may skip this part of you want.
HAHA! TOO LATE.
Sarite; I'm glad you're keeping up with this:) And thank you! Age doesn't play any role in writing. Us fourteen-year-olds, you and I, have greater potential than the world thinks ;)
Gespenter; Thanks! Well..we'll just have to find out about that...
Courage and Love; It's hard to promise anything...all I can say is that I'm trying my level best to keep everyone in-character. But thanks for the review! I'm glad you liked the chapter!
Elisarah; AHAHAHHAHA XD Yes, spot on! We did miss a scene exactly like that, but I might leave that to the reader's imagination...Also, I'm incredibly grateful you're taking interest in how Foaly handles the Pathos situation. In my experience people normally skip over all the non-Artemis planning scenes and never comment on those. I do hope I pulled off the Haven/Atlantis incidents to meet your expectations!
Reza Novaria; I'm so, SO sorry for my Ao3 hiatus. I'm really glad you like this fic and are still following despite having to find it again. Man, that must've been troublesome. I do hope you enjoy the rest of it. And thank you so much!
. ; Thanks! Hope I updated soon enou– my, I am a jerk.
berrybanana05; THANK YOU! That comment made my day:)
Anonymous; And here I've finally updated!
Cheers out to anyone reading this!
Disclaimer: Artemis Fowl and associated characters are the property of Eoin Colfer.
—•:;*"~€/—
CHAPTER EIGHT: CRACK, EVAC
Holly stared into her slightly distorted reflection in the mirror. It wasn't a particularly clean reflection, nor very attractive in most senses. Doubtless Zone had been given the task of carrying her across the desert to the town they were now in; while he'd done a splendid job with her transportation, much could not be said about her personal hygiene. Upon waking up she'd smelt and looked exactly like a person who was trapped in a nightmare for two days. But a nightmare where one found oneself living like a scoundrel under some bridge rather than a nightmare of lavish gardens and co-existing species.
Holly scrawled the popular Gnommish swear word D'Arvit on the mist in the mirror before her.
She couldn't get over it. Ethos had captured her far too easily to mean any good. It had used lost loved ones, childhood fantasies, and a future to never be, and so it had seduced her, and it had worked. A fairy of Holly Short's willpower would not usually find herself drinking in the company of strangers, even, knowing the highly likely consequences; and yet she had fallen, fallen oh-so-completely in love with the garden, a dream from childish ages ago, the promise, a lasting cry for a missed parent, the city, a period that would never come to pass.
And she'd almost paid her life for it.
Red-rimmed hazel eyes looked back at her warningly.
The ensuing future would have to be much more careful. Those eyes would have to stick out for danger, for the unorthodox methods of Ethos and Opal's Freaks. She was already well aware of the consequences otherwise.
Something crashed from outside the bathroom, yanking her from her tangle of thoughts. Holly groaned, leaning her forearms against the soaked mirror.
Get over it.
Get over Ethos, get over Mom, get over that damn kiss.
Holly stared at the disheveled elf in the mirror and saw her red eyebrows knit together.
Ethos hadn't given her a gift, it had made a promise it didn't plan on keeping and she now missed Coral Short even more than before. What she wouldn't give...
Holly physically shook the thought off. No. She wasn't going back. Not now that she's seen its true nature, and not after she'd glimpsed the urgency of their situation. Haven City was under attack. They didn't have a lot of time to find the serum or to stop Opal. She had to forget Coral and the shared surface, by all means. She could do without the distraction.
Having wrung her wet hair a tad violently, Holly emerged from the bathroom dressed in the most suitable of her packed clothes for the current mission; a pair of white pants and a pinstriped shirt, coupled together with the 1937 top hat. She'd briefly toyed with the idea of layering her face with powder and drawing herself a long lipstick grin like one of those Mud Man comic villains, but she had remembered just in time that a certain Mud Man present with them today would wholly make a fuss about not being inconspicuous enough.
Despite her earlier train of thoughts, Holly couldn't help but grin at what she saw in the room. While Mulch didn't look any more attractive than usual, the same thing couldn't be observed about the fussy Mud Person.
Artemis was, indeed, dressed in the ridiculous purple suit she'd found for him and checking himself worriedly in the mirror.
Maybe he should try the powder and the lipstick...
Mulch, on the other hand, had found himself a gem-studded bow tie which glinted under the dim lighting of the room. "Tell me, Holly. Is this fetching enough for the ladies?"
Holly snorted, but couldn't help a laugh as she plonked herself on the bed in order to fit her shoes on easily. "Where'd you get that?"
Mulch winked. "Shopping trip."
"I'm not even surprised. Mud Man joined you?"
The dwarf pulled a face. "Mud Man here was too busy babysitting to be of any use."
Holly raised an eyebrow. "Babysitting?"
"You, obviously. He was getting kinda worried with you talking in your sleep and all that."
Holly froze, strap midway through the buckle. She had been talking in her sleep?
"Caleb said it was pretty serious. That you were getting rooted to the place, something like that," the dwarf rambled on. "I think he said you'd get stuck there."
Artemis spun around to face them and gave Mulch a disdainful look. "By all means, Mulch, tell the patient who was stuck in Ethos that she could've remained there forever. Reassuring to the extreme."
By now Holly was giving him such a concerned look that he didn't half wonder if his words had made the reality clearer.
"What was I saying?"
Artemis spent a couple of seconds only looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face. Finally, just as she was about to ask a second time, he answered.
"It was incorrigible," he started making for the door, but his eyes didn't leave their mark. "Why? Would it have been a problem?"
A sense of uneasiness was starting to take rein.
"No," replied Holly, meeting him dead in the eyes, though the slightest frown creased her brow. "Not at all."
••
"Ladies and gentlemen!" boomed a friendly yet commanding voice over the microphone, one that was neigh impossible not to listen to. "Are you here for a spectacle?" The lead announcer was obviously used to a packed audience, and admirably prepared for the unbreathable crowd compared to which his circus stage seemed minuscule. But it was a stage of wonders and talent, and it was the reason the whole town was here–two nights only. He loved the business. The industry? Mysterious. Exciting.
Ring upon ring of clamouring townsfolk, and perhaps even populace of the surrounding settlements, applauded, hammered and roared their unrestrained eagerness to get the show on. The quiet, dimly-lit townscape seemed to have come alive just now, just for the night, and its thudding heartbeat was the amphitheater and the circus stage. Here the spectacle had not yet started, but its veins were alight with excitement and dizzy anticipation. There were easily two thousand odd spectators clustered in the massive steps that made circles of seats.
The ringmaster, a comparatively minute piece of the picture on whom all attention was focused, walked around the rim of the vast stage, circling the polished floors and the prepared acts with unhidden glee. He shouted a few more words of assurance, reassurance, and further assurance of the brilliant feats they would all now witness. The crowd didn't stay quiet.
"I SAID, ARE YOU HERE FOR A SPECTACLE?"
Louder cheering. The new heart of the town seemed to beat even faster.
The ringmaster flicked the length of whip in his right hand, earning loud approval from those in the crowd who loved such theatrics. "Then a spectacle is what you'll get! I present to you first– our agile, acclaimed, unbelievable trapeze artists to start the show!"
Seven slim figures on the edge of sky-high platforms gave the crowd a wave each.
The music chimed, and their acts began.
Within the packed audience of humans and fairies, from a distance above and away from the stage with an almost aerial view, Artemis's comment on the darker aspects of a circus went blatantly ignored. Holly simply watched, chin in hands, the trapeze artist fling herself easily from the strings suspended atop thin poles nailed to the ground, traversing effortlessly across the stage with the chimes of traditional circus music. What with the crowd that engulfed them from all sides, Holly dared to think it wouldn't be difficult to slip out unnoticed. There was the security Caleb had warned them of; exactly the reason neither he or Zone was present right now. They were to serve as backup when things got messy, which they definitely would get. Covert as the operation was, years of experience with Artemis's plans had rendered Holly a total disbeliever in covert operations.
Artemis, to her left, looked as calm and confident as he always looked, his vampiric skin tone turned a light, pulsating orange from the lights. The dwarf seated on her right hand side didn't seem to have a care in the world either, engrossed as he was in the stick of pink, sticky fluff that his entire face devoured. Two other sticks of cotton candy were clamped in his free hand.
A salesman turned up in their row, moving uncomfortably close to the seated audience's knees in the cramped space, but a lot of people still bought from him despite how he was clearly changing prices depending on who was asking. He eventually reached Artemis, too, and was almost declined before Mulch butted in.
"Doritos, please. Or whatever those are. The chips. Three bags."
Artemis didn't bother sending him an unappreciative glance, and just the exuberant fee into the salesman's hands before collecting his order.
The guy seemed eager for more business, though, and gave Artemis a lopsided grin that meant he wasn't leaving until he had sold more things.
Artemis rolled his eyes and collected two sticks of cotton candy, being the cheapest item on the menu, which finally led the man to happily continue his squeamish journey down the row.
"For me?" Mulch grinned, though not forgetting the three he held. "Sweeeeet."
Artemis seemed to change his mind and handed one stick to Holly, keeping the other for himself although he really didn't look like the type to enjoy such sugary delights.
The dwarf pouted. "Fine. I mean look at you two, eh? I should snap a picture. Really cute."
An exasperated roll of the eyes was the only warning he was given before the elf beside him covertly stomped on his foot.
"Ouch," winced Mulch.
"I've warned you," she retorted, only for him to hear.
She then pretended that nothing had just happened and indulged herself in the cotton candy, watching the acts unravel on stage.
Her inquisitive look soon turned into a frown.
Now she remembered why she hated circuses, and precisely why they were banned in Haven. It was a disgusting and revolting practice, what they forced captive animals to endure. Rings of fire, balancing on minuscule stools. And as this freakshow started to fling itself fully in an explosive of colourful fireworks that didn't even frighten the tamed beasts, members of the audience rose to their feet in awed applause, everything presenting itself as truly spectacular. But there was the constant crack of the ringmaster's whip and the aggrieved howls of the paint-bombed dogs, and her elfin instinct couldn't stand it. This was the worst of tortures. This was supposedly entertainment.
Unable to keep on watching an hour into the show, Holly ripped her eyes away to the side only to find a certain Mud Buy watching her from the corner of his own eye. He only gave her a quiet and understanding nod, but there was nothing either of them could do about it.
"This isn't amusing anymore," commented Mulch dryly from a side. Even the felon dwarf had a greater sense of compassion than the clamouring fairies and humans around them. "I mean, that hornpipe trick was funny, but I wouldn't like to be one of those tigers any day."
And now she saw it again; the striped cats, worn thin, plaintively circling the dancers in the ring of fire.
Massive applause broke from the masses, and the elf couldn't stand the sight or sound of the place anymore. Holding her hat in place and getting briskly to her feet, she ignored Fowl's protest and started to squeeze her way across the row, wanting to leave soon at whatever cost. Her heart thudded in her chest and blood pounded in her ears; she didn't know if it was the pull of Ethos or the disturbing air of cheer around the circus stage that was too prominent and too predominant.
Howls, yelps, hisses.
Eager whipping and the bright, reaching flames.
Cries and cheers.
Happiness.
Amusement.
And this wasn't just Mud Men- this was a mixed populace with fairies.
At the end of the extending row, she rapidly located an exit point and broke into a run. She would get away from this madness if it took her all her energy.
Turning around into an empty stone corridor, she broke her run but kept up in quick pace to get away from all the noise, if that was even going to be possible. The circus had reached its climax and excitement erupted from the theatre. But if she could get away...
The noise faded soon, though. All too soon. She could only hear the echoes of her own footsteps, clad as they were in loud cloth boots.
Cradling the ancient top hat in her hands, Holly leaned against the wall and heaved a sigh of relief.
The ceiling over her head seemed to extend miles. The other wall encircling the corridor was far away. And the passage left for her to traverse, it seemed, turned to a mysterious corner beyond which anything could lay.
Like the garden maze.
Her eyes shot open wide.
Ethos.
Dropping her 1937 top hat in her hurry, the elf made a deliberate turn to head back the way she'd come, but that way was gone. All that remained in its wake was the boundless, coiling passage that trapped her now.
She spun around again, staring at the space before her. Leaving Mulch and Fowl had been a mistake. Now they wouldn't know where to look for her and she wouldn't know how to get back to them. Because she couldn't, even if she wanted to. This was Ethos. This was a prison.
Don't give in.
Wasn't that all she had to do? It had already tricked her once; it shouldn't be allowed to do that again.
"I know where I am," she snapped, as if the prison walls were listening. "I know what you're going to try. Get out of my head."
The walls remained. Glowing, ominous.
"Go away!" she shouted, pounding her fists against them. "Go. Away. Leave. You're not real. None of this is real!"
But panic was starting to crawl underneath her skin. Panic, hopelessness, dead loss. She was very likely wrong about the whole willpower thing. Maybe you just couldn't escape.
That's Ethos talking, idiot!
It was starting to close in on her, all of it. There wasn't even a boundless expanse of corridor to run along. There was no hiding. There was no running away.
Holly dropped to her knees at glared up at the retreating ceiling.
"You're not real!"
Then the ceiling was too close and she was inside a glass box. A translucent yellow tinge consumed its walls. She saw nothing besides, and there was no room left to move.
She pressed her hands against a wall. She pressed them against two of the walls, both within half an arm's reach.
Right now would be a good time to regain that claustrophobia.
Without much else to do, Holly pounded against the walls and kicked the sides of her cage. She screamed, in fury rather than fear, and she elbowed and thrashed against her confines. The impact didn't hurt her and it didn't break the box. All that did happen was the thinning of the little oxygen trapped inside with her, and once her system realized this all it allowed was tiredness. Dread.
"D'Arvit," swore Holly.
On all fours within the restricted space, she slammed her fist hard against the floor. Hard. Harder.
The strength in her arms and wrists were being sapped from her, just like the vanishing oxygen.
"D'Arvit!"
Slam.
"You..."
Slam.
"Aren't..."
She hit the floor hard with as much strength as she could muster.
"D'Arvitting..."
Both fists now.
"Real!"
The glass floor cracked and burst into smithereens that cut at every inch of her body, but she felt herself fall through and land face-down on a different surface.
Snatching a tremendous gulp of air, Holly sprung to her feet, ready now more than ever to fight.
The walls on both sides were stone. The ground was cool, airy, and stone, and the very fancy wide-brimmed hat she had discarded when Ethos had struck laid motionless on the stone.
The amphitheater. Yes.
She grabbed her head in her hands and walked on trembling feet back in the direction she'd first come– or whatever direction, she didn't know. All she wanted was to never fall into Ethos again.
Trouble and the others...Ethos has them.
D'Arvit.
"D'ARVIT!"
Holly stumbled down a single stone step to a slightly lower level in the corridor. She caught the ground before she landed face-first, but she wasn't given enough time to recover.
Shouting. Faint, but familiar. It came from a few blocks away.
Abandoning all fears for herself, Holly briskly walked down the passageway in that direction. She knew it could just be Ethos again, but her instinct told her that she couldn't risk it in the first place.
The risk that it was actually...
Julius.
She froze in her tracks, and all colour left her face.
There he was, alive and yelling, but bound and tied with a huge bloodstain stamped to his forehead. He wasn't in the best of conditions. They had done something to him.
"SERVING KOBOI!" Root yelled. "Right, so what does Her Highness want of me? Where's Holly? Doesn't she have the decency to let me have a team?"
Holly hid herself behind the wall and only listened to what unfolded in the room. There was the Commander, and there were two Mud Men. Large. She didn't stand a chance o taking them both out on her own, and if they raised the alarm it would summon even more burly men.
"She doesn't want you as much as she wants this," she heard one of the men snicker. "But I doubt you even know what it is, and I don't care. Your act will be up soon."
Her ears tingled. Act? That did not sound good.
New plan. She had to get him out of here and fast. The guards they would both deal with.
Root snorted. "Oh, so I'm going to be thrown to the Fronddamn lions now?"
"My dear Commander, how did you guess?"
Holly sprang into action.
The first Mud Man, the one who was talking, had lightening reflexes and dodged the kick she aimed for his jaw, bringing down a heavy fist on her straightened knee. Holly was fast enough to prevent a broken leg, but Root shouted a warning as the second Mud Man grabbed her arms from behind.
Holly found that the first idiot was still giving her a smug look, and added a thick layer of the Mesmer into her voice.
"Let go," she instructed, in what was barely a whisper.
He tried to fight it and shook it off.
"Let go!"
Then he did, much to the confusion of his colleague, and Holly barked her next order.
"Now get this gorilla off of me!"
He complied at once, smacking the underside of the other guy's jaw and making him instantly lose consciousness, releasing Holly from his great height in the process. She landed roughly on both feet.
The first Mud Man held tightly in his hand what appeared to be an ornate golden statue, minuscule in size. It struck her at once what it had to be.
"Hand me the key," she said, looking him directly in the eyes.
"N-No," stammered the human.
"Now!"
He gave up completely and dropped the miniature golden statue to the floor.
"Sleep."
And he slumped beside the key, snoring.
Holly grinned in a triumph she hadn't felt for ages. Things were finally starting to go her way. She picked up the key before heading over to Root, who looked both confused and pleased.
"Good work, Major," he remarked. "Glad to know you're alive."
Holly crouched to inspect his bonds. "Likewise, Commander. No magic?"
Root instantly scowled. "My magic just depleted the moment I arrived. Where exactly are we? Why are fairies hanging around Mud Men?"
"Long story," explained Holly simply, using a spark to tear a hole in the rope. "But we need to get out of here before anyone comes by."
Root groaned, looking over her shoulder. "Too late."
•••
Haven City.
Today was one of those days Vinyayà could perfectly appreciate the toil Commander Root underwent on a daily basis; there were the officers, the insubordination, the goblin triads and the rogue fairies and, impending above everything like a heavy metal dumbbell waiting to fall, the press. She could perfectly understand his anger as well. And after this experience, she'd even be able to relate to it.
Several questions were thrown across the hall, packed and brimming with reporters of every corporation and even several ordinary citizens craving a part of the action. The LEP had never witnessed a press conference of this magnitude ever since the day the goblin rebellion ended, and that was really saying something. It didn't help at all that Corporal Kelp, Chairman Cahartez and herself were the only ones at the table to answer the questions either. Vinyayà knew it was a bad idea to bring along Grub, but she would rather not compete with a Councilmember representing the LEP on her own.
Even the minor corporations had pushed to the front, with the winged ones even hovering above the mass of heads to get noticed. A hundred odd cameras and microphones bristled out from the crowd at them, eager to catch and capture every word and moment.
"Wing Commander, what precautions are the LEP taking to avoid damage by future incidents?"
"The Haven Science Society has put forward a theory that these are a lost fairy race like the demons once were. How far can we believe this?"
"Who is behind this? Opal Koboi, Artemis Fowl, or are they both conspiring against us?"
"Chairman, do you suppose the earlier incident with the troll is in some way connected to this conspiracy?"
"Is this a conspiracy to rid Haven of its Council?"
Having spent the past twenty minutes in impatient silence, Vinyayà tapped on her mic to draw attention. All focus in the hall was instantly snapped her way.
She spoke calmly and clearly. "There isn't much we know about these creatures; where they came from, who sent them, their origins–no. But we have strong reason to believe that Commander Root's and Holly Short's disappearances are connected to this, and while the mastermind behind this may or may not be Koboi, it is someone of her caliber."
One of the main broadcasting companies' reporters took note of her pause and hollered his pertinent question. "And what about fairy public enemy number one, Artemis Fowl?"
"We have reason to believe that he is involved somehow, yes," Vinyayà surveyed the crowd discreetly. Beside her, Cahartez stiffened. He had obviously wanted to answer that question his own way. She continued regardless. "But if Koboi is indeed behind this, Fowl may also be one of her targets seeing what he did to assist the LEP during the goblin rebellion."
Cahartez tapped his own mic impatiently. "Fowl very likely is involved; we cannot make an assumption and victimize him. Until proven beyond all reasonable doubt, he is as much of a primary suspect as Koboi is."
Vinyayà held back the urge to snort at that. Of course the Council would always get its say.
"And is the LEP really in a position to go against Fowl or Koboi another time?"
"I have my doubts," Cahartez didn't even acknowledge her glare. "But I would place my trust in them because they have their best people working on it."
"These creatures, Chairman, they're reported to be in possession of the Mesmer–"
"Is this really advanced mind control? The Argon clinic reports over sixty victims from the last attack–"
"In comatose state? Is it true that certain high-ranking LEP operatives are among the affected?"
The questions continued on, its unpleasant flow never ceasing. The cameras flashed blinding lights and the excited panic in the hall just kept on rising.
"Is there anything that is being done about the afflicted fairies, Wing Commander?"
"Are there some who are immune to this Mesmer? Is it possible to learn resistance?"
Grub saw his opportunity and happily seized it.
"As a meter of fact, we have just done some tests on a live subject for resistance."
All faces in the hall turned towards him, and the questions started to pour once again.
"What live subject, Corporal?"
"Have any results been gathered?"
"Do we have a cure? An antidote?"
Grub beamed like he was delivering the happiest bit of news in the world. "Of course, the LEP didn't want to give you halfway-results or to waste time in a situation like this one, so we ran quite a daring test on one of our officers, who bravely rendered his consent."
There was a new burst of excitement at that.
"Wasn't the procedure highly fraught with risk? Was the LEP willing to be responsible if anything happened?"
Vinyayà sighed, watching the Corporal answer almost every single question that he managed to catch. It was a good thing, she supposed now, that she had brought him along. It gave her time to clear her mind and think about this mess.
Her communicator buzzed once, fast and ominously in her holster pocket.
She knew that particular signal all too well.
"If it's something Vein can handle–"she started to mutter, but one look at the message on screen told her it wasn't. Oh no. It was most certainly not something Vein, Foaly or even herself could handle. Not even Root had any previous experience to deal with a situation like this.
Distress call from Atlantis. Dome has cracked. Under attack by unidentifiable species, not human. Please send help and evacuation immediately.
12 mins ago.
Several protests erupted from the reporters when they noticed her push her chair back and get to her feet, but Vinyayà was headed out the hall before anyone could ask her a thing.
Foaly ran into her with a grave face right before she started barking orders at anyone and everyone who happened to be in Police Plaza's central lobby.
"Distress call from Atlantis," she snapped, breaking into a brisk and fast walk in the direction of the docking bay. As she walked, she continued shouting into her handheld device that would transmit her sound to all nearby speakers for every fairy present to hear. "All personal to rescue crafts, and load them with pressure suits! I don't want an extra second wasted! Atlantis is under attack and we have to act at double speed!"
Nobody dared slack at her tone of absolute authority. Soon the docking bay was crowded with fairies who had heard or received the message, full of shouting and organized preparation that had taken half a million practice drills to perfect. Foaly forgot his own concerns and spared a second to marvel at how quickly the Wing Commander had gotten things into place, but a second was all he dared to take. There were still vital messages that had to reach her before she strapped herself into an evacuation ship and set course for Atlantis.
"Commander," he trotted to keep pace, and still he breathed fitfully. "During the conference we received five calls of creature sightings from five different parts of Haven."
"Wing Commander!" corrected the elf, in the process of urgently signaling a pilot out of docking. "Sightings, Foaly. There are far more lives at risk under that Dome, prioritize!"
"But Vein and Newt responded to those calls!"
"D'Arvit, call them back. And have those crates of the resistance pill arrived yet?"
Foaly groaned. "No!"
"D'Arvit!"
The LEP's massive hangar for crafts and shuttles, dimly lit now like it always was, bustled with real rush and activity for the first time in decades as every possible preparation was made for the Atlantis rescue mission. Lights flashed in maddening brightness, then dimmed, and the next few moments were all a distorted, lightning blur to the Wing Commander before she was met with a sight straight out of an Atlantis fairy's nightmare.
"I'm missing the delightful Major's company," admitted Mulch, chewing through the cotton candy that Artemis had all too willingly given him. "Hey, what's next on the program?"
Artemis snorted in a somehow dignified manner. "Circuses don't come with programs, Mulch. Circus generally means a disorganized lot of madness in one place."
The dwarf elbowed him a little too hard in the ribs. "Come on, don't get like that."
Despite every instinct willing him not to, he went ahead and asked anyway. "What do you mean?"
"Moody and all that, of course," grunted Mulch. "The good Major will come back eventually. It's not like you're the one who upset her this time."
Artemis stole a glance at his watch before settling back into his uncomfortable seat to distastefully watch the acts on the faraway stage. The circus was actually just kicking off; they had a lot of time left, because the stage was actually devoid of most people yet. Holly would hopefully have the sense to return soon, though. Any moment soon could be their opportunity to sneak backstage, when the animal acts were done with and centerstage would be manned with performers instead. It sounded like a long shot, alright, but this wasn't a plan he'd conjured out of nothing. Some digging in and asking around had confirmed that this particular traveling circus, while visiting around once in three to four years, always threw at the audience a spectacle of performing human and fairy artists once the animal bit was done with. It was apparently a breathtaking series of acts that awaited them, but it wasn't like they knew that his interest lied more in acquiring the first key to the city of Logos.
"I do hope she would hurry," he remarked under his breath.
Because the ring had started to clear of its dazzling, decorated beasts, and poles, strings and tightropes were set up at astounding heights. The stage lights blinded a halo around the ring, looking like a very deliberate distraction, and soon the tigers and the seals were gone, and the ringmaster stood menacingly at the center looking ready for another big announcement.
"But before our closing act for the night," boomed the surround speakers linked to his mic. "We will leave you gasping with awe at the talents of our most daring performers. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the world's best escapologists!"
A deafening roar filled the ever-enthusiastic crowd as two wooden chairs on minute wheels were rolled onto the center of the round stage, bearing each an occupant with arms chained wrists and feet firmly bound and sacks over their heads, but the bloodied state of their clothes suggested they were prisoners rather than glamorous circus artists. Much to delight of the audience, two enormous male lions were brought confidently along by the ringmaster's assistants, collared at the neck and led on leashes. They snarled and snapped in all directions unlike the tamed beasts of before. The leashes were loosely and carelessly tied onto thin trapeze poles and the circus staff made a quick exit into a secured backstage area. Despite wanting nothing more than to get their mission over with, Mulch squinted in the bright lighting to get a closer look and Artemis peered though a binoculars they'd brought along with other supplies.
The getup of one escapologist was utterly unfamiliar, but they were both definitely elves. The other, slim but well built and female, wore a pinstriped shirt and stained white pants.
"Hellfire," swore the human quietly.
"What? You know that lady?" inquired Mulch dubiously, correctly identifying which he was looking at.
Artemis responded by getting to his feet and starting to head out of the crowd. He was already putting the plan into action, the dwarf realized. Sheer madness.
"Where do you think you're going?" he caught up to the Mud Man with considerable ease and grabbed him by the sleeve. "We don't stand a chance of making it out alive without Holly!"
"Mulch," started Artemis with barely restrained impatience, glaring in the direction of the brightly lit stage. "That is Holly."
Edge of the Dome, Atlantis.
The LEP rescue crafts were greeted with a wholly unwelcome, traumatic state of affairs when they descended into the depths that bore the fairy city of Atlantis. No scanning and no calibration was needed to pinpoint the location of the shielded civilization; no, the massive Dome and all its residents, along with all the chaos ensuing inside, was in full visibility to the LEP and any human submarine that happened to be in the vicinity.
Still most prominent of all were the slowly spreading ominous branches along the spherical walls of the one thing that protected the city and its civilization from the crushing depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Making up for their heartbeat's hesitation, Vinyayà commandeered her own shuttle into the runway that extended from within the confines of the walls, in turn instructing all evacuation vessels to follow suit. Doubt hit her hard the moment her shuttle's headlights flickered at the masses crammed into the singular research facility, then beyond at the paved streets of barely breathing comatose bodies that spread outwards in thousands. The buildings in the visible spectrum were wrecked, ruined; less than ghosts of what they would have been a mere hour ago. Roofs had caved in, walls had given way and even the steel streetlights were twisted in surrendering angles, and, even though she knew that none of these fairies were dead, the metropolitan area of Atlantis had transformed into a death-scented ghost town that screamed the return of a formidable enemy hell-bent on destruction.
Foaly's voice buzzed in robotic tones over the comm. "Koboi's...freaks have moved onto the Southern precinct. They're moving as a single body and emitting this...high-frequency screech that's cracking the Dome."
Her breath was heady against the glass of the pressure suit she already donned. "Affirmative, Foaly. I'm sending manned battle crafts into the precinct."
"I'll pass the message."
Zipping through into the city, Vinyayà skittered her craft off the ground and led her limited group of shuttles with blasters in the direction of where the danger lay. She noted the civilians inside the building load into evacuation shuttles in hurried, disorganized and scattered paces, panic mounting with every second passed. Survivors, she realized. They haven't escaped, they've just been ignored because they're immune to it.
But how did Atlantis have the good fortune of that many residents with natural immunity? It would have been a far better yielding task to target more of Haven. Their enemy had made a miscalculation somewhere. That or they were simply doing what Koboi wanted them to do.
Vinyayà gritted her teeth as they arrived in the airspace of the danger zone. People need to be saved, that's all there is to it.
Koboi's monsters. Freaks, as Foaly had called them. There were a number of civilians fleeing or taking refuge in panic, but a vast majority lay limp across the pavements and on the roofs of devastated buildings with the army of anomalies leaping on their thin, long limbs and howling low in their shriveled throats.
Above the airspace, the Dome cracked a fraction more.
"Team Red, take up position North," she ordered into the comm. "Major Fugu, descend and standby. Fire on three."
An automatic readout appeared as a holograph before her eyes.
Three.
Vinyayà shifted her gears and prepared for descent. Clustered as the enemy was, it wasn't going to prove a difficult shot.
Two.
The Freaks started craning their necks, suddenly aware of their impending doom. The howling grew more pronounced. The Team Leaders winced at the sensation it brought on, but the Dome would not hold for much longer.
One.
Vinyayà strangled her blaster controls in her fists. The Freaks started to languidly break apart.
Zero.
"FIRE!"
And just like that the target scattered. Freaks leapt on top of dilapidated roofs, swung from eaves and scurried into narrow alleyways. A few took to directing their screams up at the crafts and circling whatever civilians left standing, knowing somehow that the LEP shuttles would not open fire when fairy lives were at stake. The first to be blasted were the ones that positioned themselves primely, but picking them off individually was proving a task with ridiculous chances. There were plenty more. And soon enough, appearing from a literal nowhere, hundreds more, and all were taking up the scream in the direction of the battle crafts.
The explosions dropped on the ground below were far and few because of the centrally hustled group of fairies who could do nothing about their predicament. But the fight was already drawing to a close, because the Freaks had a much more powerful weapon that they weren't afraid to use. Vinyayà first spotted Major Vein slump in his seat at the front of his shuttle, breathing but lifeless like the rest of who turned out to be victims; then a smaller weapon-shuttle in his command crashed to the ground and exploded in luminous ambers as its pilot lost all coherent senses. Major Fugu went next. His shuttle did not crash, but he powered down and set it to hover right before he succumbed to the shrill luring of the shriveled anomalies.
Vinyayà hit her comm in a desperation she had never before felt during her tenure with the LEP.
"Urging all pilots to set crafts on hover. I repeat, set crafts on hover."
Two more shuttles fell simultaneously, bursting into flames dangerously close to the captive group of fairies. Vinyayà could only watch it all in gut-wrenching horror. They had assumed they would be safe in the interiors of the double, triple reinforced shuttles. Their error had been a contingently fatal one.
All her command units were down. Every one of the Team Leaders she could spot, trapped now like Foaly had previously been.
Everything had suddenly gone deathly quiet. Even the shrieks of the monsters were gone now, and they appeared to be heading in a new direction. But to what? Atlantis was already wrecked; any fairies remaining were those who could not be affected, and by her readings the rest of the city was done with evacuation. The Freaks had no one left to attack. Couldn't they tell?
Vinyayà thumbed her comm this time instead of a hard slam against the vital button; her tones were tinged with defeat and painful loss when she spoke into it.
"This is Silver Team Leader. Unaffected pilots, please respond."
There were nothing in the second that followed. In the several seconds that followed.
"Anyone left conscious, please respond."
The garrison of shuttles in the airspace before her only hovered on low power in reply.
Despondent for the first time in her career, Vinyayà followed the sickly anomalies with her eyes. The small cluster of civilians remained where they were, on edge and not believing the danger to be gone.
"Foaly, there are about thirty survivors here. Send a rescue ship."
Static.
"And the affected, Wing Commander?"
Vinyayà didn't rip her eyes from the twisted forms of the creatures who now retreated into the furthest reaches of the city, that appeared to be entirely devoid of life.
"Around two hundred. And count every pilot in the garrison."
Static, but this was because the centaur had released the communication button on his end as the realization dawned on him.
"The Freaks are headed further North, the commercial district. Already evacuated?"
Foaly brought himself back. "Yes. We set out to that district even before you took flight. Hold on a moment, though."
The guilt and failure wrenching her insides were still as insistent as ever, but Vinyayà found some consolation in the fact that the Dome was no longer cracking, even though it couldn't be that way forever.
But when Foaly's voice sounded again, it was urgent. "They're not done with the evacuation. There are...I'm guessing about a thousand civilians left."
Her senses spiked. She sat ramrod straight in her pilot's seat and gripped at the controls. "And the Freaks are headed their way?"
"Yes," confirmed Foaly gravely. "I'm afraid we'll have to order takeoff."
"No," snapped Vinyayà, and energy burned in her eyes again. She glared through the plexiglass of her pressure suit at the slow-paced tyrants. Moving in one body again. They might scatter, but she was going to make the best of her one sure shot.
Stepping hard on the acceleration key, Vinyayà's craft shot out of the mass of hovering shuttles, its engine buzzing at first but soon shutting into silence. The singular body of creatures before her did not look up or show any signs of alertness, but still she waited for the chance. That chance came when the whole body had to pass the narrow space between two wrecked towers.
Vinyayà worked fast. Unlatching the emergency escape shaft underneath the seat, she held onto the floor and lowered herself down into open air outside of the shuttle. She hadn't intended to drop down that far, but the explosive in her hand had been swept away with the windspeed and she'd caught it between her feet only because of the dangerous amount of herself that hung outside of the shuttle now. Had she been flying much lower, her feet would've grazed the heads of a few creatures. But even her dangling was careful and calculated. Bracing herself for swift action, the elf swung her feet that bore the explosive into the clustered bunch of Freaks just as they squeezed in between the two towers; and she hauled her entire body back into the shuttle and sealed the hatch not a moment too soon. The resulting explosion was tremendous and sent her craft hurtling back in he direction it had come, but the improved reinforcement protected her. The Freaks didn't get that lucky. They were thrown back in pieces of limbs and contorted figures, in smithereens or damaged beyond timely recovery. A gnarled arm hit and stained her windscreen in dark blood and a featureless face flew past her right window with no more than a head and neck. The towers collapsed and trapped even more detached body parts. There remained only a few whose resolve to venture was put behind a resolve to flee.
Vinyayà glanced in the direction of the civilians. They had long since retreated to a safe distance.
She hit the comms button again, but the command that issued from her lips didn't sound nearly as dejected and desolate as before.
"Tell them to evacuate all civilians, get backup sent for the affected number. We've only just landed our first blow, Foaly."
Author's Note; Oh, how I love writing Vinyayà! Please do give me your opinions on this chapter. And how about the cliffhangers? ;)
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yours in Foulness,
Shaadia.