This is my first A.F. fanfic! Go me! Anyway, this will have more chapters soon, and I bet you can guess who the red-haired Egyptian is. This takes place when Artemis is sixteen (obviously). Holly is also as tall as Artemis’s shoulder in this, and, yes, I do know that she’s about two feet shorter than him. She’s also grown out her hair.

Chapter One: The Rather Un-Happy Birthday

Captain Holly Short was deliberately stalling waking up. She didn’t want to go to work. The most important reason why she was doing this was the fact that it was her eighty-sixth birthday. Sure, she didn’t look like a little old human woman, seeing as she was a fairy, but her troubles with her birthday was Foaly kept throwing surprise parties for her. She’d told him repeatedly that she hated surprises. She moaned slightly as she sat upright, brushing a longer strand of auburn hair from her eyes, and got dressed for work.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Upon walking into the Ops lab, Foaly looked up.

“Hey. Oh, by the way, happy birthday.”

“What? No surprise party?” Holly asked, dreading the answer.

“No. You told me you’d kill me last time.”

Holly raised her eyebrows.

“What? Don’t you believe me?”

“No, of course I don’t.”

Foaly rolled his eyes as the plasma screen in front of the fairy and centaur flickered on.

“Short, we got a situation.”

Holly turned her attention towards the screen.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Rogue troll.”

“Where’s it headed?”

The fairy on the screen grimaced.

“Fowl Manor.”

Holly paled. A second troll attack on the mansion? That was just crazy.

“Anybody inside?”

“Three heat signatures.”

Holly sighed. Probably Fowl, his butler Butler, and Butler’s sister Juliet.

“All right, I’ll go check it out. Send a secondary Retrieval team in after me.”

The fairy nodded, and the transmission ended.

Foaly was already handing Holly a Neutrino 2000 and was searching the bookshelf for an iris-cam and headset.

“Here you go.” he said, placing the camera on her right eye.

“Thanks.”

She pulled on her helmet and ran towards the pressure elevators.

Foaly switched frequencies on his radio for a second.

“Fowl, she’s coming your way.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Fowl, she’s coming your way.”

Foaly’s voice rang out from the radio in Artemis’s living room where he, Butler and Juliet were decorating. It had been Foaly’s idea to send her topside and have her surprise party there. He had asked how old she was going to be, but the centaur had given him a death stare.

Artemis picked up the receiver.

“All right. We’re almost ready.”

There was no answer. Holly was probably talking to him on another frequency.

“Okay, we need to hurry. She’ll be here soon.”

Butler nodded, and picked up several rolls of wrapping paper.

“Yes, sir.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Holly strapped a pair of wings to her back. Why couldn’t the LEP afford Hummingbirds? They’d had Dragonflies forever.

A bit crestfallen, Holly headed toward her friends’ home. She checked the locator a few times, but the blip never changed direction. It was in a bee line for Fowl Manor.

“Foaly? You there?” she asked her microphone.

“Right here sweetheart. What do ya need?”

“Are you sure this locator hasn’t been tampered with?”

Foaly grimaced.

“Come on, Short. You don’t think that I’d honestly give you a faulty tracker, now would you?”

In all actuality, that was exactly what she was thinking, but she couldn’t say that to his face.

“No.”

“Trust me. I would know if a locator was faulty.”

Holly nodded.

“All right. But I’m not completely sure about whether you’re throwing me a party or not.”

She heard a whinny on the other line.

“Whatever.”

Holly turned off the radio as she landed just outside the wall signaling the beginning of the Fowl Estate.

Biting her lower lip, she glanced at the locator. The troll’s blip was accompanied by three blue blips; probably Artemis and company.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Juliet drummed her fingers on the coffee table dramatically. She couldn’t stand waiting, even if it was for a good friend like Holly.

“How much longer?” she asked, fiddling with the radio frequency dial. She stopped on Holly’s frequency.

Artemis looked out the window. Holly was racing up the avenue, Neutrino drawn.

“She’s right on time.” he said with a slight smile. He quickly hid the side of his face to avoid showing that he was. It was so unlike him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Holly kicked the front door open with her foot and somersaulted into the lobby. Seeing no signs of forced entry, she took off her helmet. Her now longer auburn hair fell to her shoulders.

“Foaly, what is going on — Oh, Foaly! I’m gonna kill you when I get back to Ops! I told you I would if you threw another surprise party for me!”

She turned off her radio and walked towards the middle of the room.

“All right, guys. Let’s get this over with.” she shouted, and within seconds, Juliet had her in a bone-crushing hug.

“Holly! Thank GOD you’re here! I was so worried you weren’t—“she realized that the elf in her arms looked like she was about to be crushed by a bulldozer. She immediately let go, and Holly began gasping for air as she landed on her behind. “Oh, I’m so sorry Holly! I didn’t mean it! It was an accident!”

Holly rubbed her side, allowing blue sparks to heal her broken rib.

“That’s okay, Juliet. I figured that would happen.”

Juliet helped the fairy up, and when Holly turned around, Artemis and Butler were there.

“Hello, Holly.”

“Same to you, Artemis.”

She noticed the radio in Butler’s hand. They’d heard her coming.

“All right. How’d Foaly get you to do this? Didn’t he tell you I’d kill him if he did this again?”

Artemis shook his head.

“He just said your birthday was coming up, and suggested we have it here. The only thing he wouldn’t tell us was how old you are.” he said, ruffling her hair. Holly just glared at the wall.

“Never ask a fairy how old they are. That can make us extremely irritable.”

Artemis threw up his palms in a fake surrender.

“Oh, I wasn’t asking that, now was I?”

“You implied it.”

The two were glaring at each other. Butler now intervened.

“Sorry, but we didn’t know what candles to put on the cake.”

Holly paled, and the small smirk she’d acquired disappeared.

“C-cake?” she asked. She was horrified that they’d gone all out and made her a cake.

Juliet jabbed her in the stomach playfully, not expecting the smaller female to fall flat on her back.

“Yeah! You can’t have a birthday without cake!”

Holly shrugged.

“I guess not.” she said, sighing.

“Oh, come on, you party pooper! Lighten up!”

Artemis couldn’t hide his smile this time.

“Really, Holly. You’re becoming more like me every time I see you.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After the trio of humans serenaded her with “Happy Birthday”, Holly opened her presents.

The first three were from Foaly, who’d sent them up a couple days before. One was a pair of Hummingbirds. He’d obviously seen her expression when she was forced to wear the outdated Dragonflies on a mission. The second was a card for a clothing store she’d been meaning to go by. (Juliet raised an eyebrow, seeing as all they’d ever seen her wear was her LEP uniform.) The third was a new stereo for her apartment.

Juliet had taken the liberty to get Holly a subscription to People magazine and a makeup kit. Butler couldn’t think of anything to get her except books on martial arts. Artemis’s present was last.

Artemis kept taunting Holly, saying she wouldn’t want to open such a worthless gift, but Holly just punched him in the stomach (with the approval of Butler of course). Smiling slightly, he gave her the small box wrapped with silver paper.

Inside the box was a golden comb to hold someone’s hair in place; it had a single diamond in the eye of a likeness of the Egyptian god Ra. Several rubies and emeralds shone in the light of the study.

Holly had gasped and covered her mouth with her hand by this time, her gold fever kicking in. Juliet saw the comb as well. She looked up at the sixteen-year-old boy sitting across from them and grinned.

“That’s the coolest gift ever!” she exclaimed, and it was returned with a shrug.

“Why’d you say that this is worthless?” asked Holly, picking it up carefully, as if she dropped it, it would shatter into a million pieces. “This must have cost you tons!”

Artemis shrugged again.

“Just wanted to get at you, I guess.”

Holly stood up and walked to a mirror, pulling her hair into a bun. Once it was held in place with the new comb, she hugged the person who’d given it to her. Artemis blushed slightly.

“Thank you so much!” she exclaimed, then let go and helped pick up the trash.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Holly was back down in Ops within two hours. Foaly smiled sheepishly when she entered, but it turned into a grin of happiness when he saw her expression.

“So? How’d it go?”

“Pretty well.” Holly replied, smiling and blushing slightly.

Foaly’s eyebrows shot up.

“What does that mean?”

Holly rolled her eyes.

“I’m pretty sure you saw the whole thing with my iris cam. Probably heard it too.”

“Yeah, I did. And while you were gone, we got a possible reference to us from a remote village in Egypt. No mind wipes of shields for this. These Mud People only speak Ancient Egyptian.”

“So I’m going to Egypt?”

“Yep.”

Holly stuck her tongue in her cheek.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Artemis, Butler and Juliet are taking a trip to Cairo soon. Inspired the gift he gave me.” she said, pointing towards the comb.

Foaly came over to inspect it.

“I only saw this on video, and it didn’t do any justice. I can see why you like it so much.”

“You can thank Artemis Fowl II for that.” she said, grinning.

“You better get going if you’re gonna get to Egypt before the next flare.”

Holly nodded and ran back to the pressure elevators.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The computer in the Artemis’s study was running, and suddenly Foaly appeared on the screen.

“Fowl? You there?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Good. Holly’s headed to Egypt right now, and she told me that you, Butler and Juliet are going to Cairo soon. Would you mind meeting up with her?”

Butler grunted behind him.

“Sure. We could do that.”

“Great. I’ll tell Short when she gets topside.”

With that, Foaly dropped the connection.

Artemis slumped in his chair. Meeting Holly meant that the trip would be brought up two days. But, at least he’d see her again. It seemed that he couldn’t spend one day without talking to her over the phone or having her visit him or him going to visit her. And it was getting somewhat tiring.

Some other stories by thecutevillan:

• Update for A.F. and the Red-Haired Egyptian!

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