I decided to write a short diary entry of my meeting with Holly Short (made up obviously) Hope y’all enjoy it.

Artemis Fowl once told me: “Holly Short leaves a lasting impression on everyone she meets” I knew this - he had come so far since meeting this mysterious girl that he actually dispensed with the full-body search and x-ray before I entered his Manor. I met Holly Short later on, quite accidentally, and she left a lasting impression on me as well. (At least, a good mark - not the scar from the neutrino blast)

I was relaxing for the weekend at Fowl Manor, surfing the internet on one of Artemis’s high-spec custom-build computers while listening to Gogol Bordello through a set of headphones. I wouldn’t have noticed her at all if it hadn’t been for the gust of wind when she closed the window behind her. I pulled the headphones off my ears and rested them on my neck, and turned my head. I saw nothing but a slight shimmer. It was moving, but then froze when I looked at it. I could just make out that it was a humanoid figure, approximately 5′3″, female, with some kind of probosis on her back. Suddenly it darted to one side, faster than any human possibly could. She crouched and rolled, pulling out some kind of weapon. As I watched, she unshielded. She matched the description Artemis had given me of Holly Short.

“Captain Short?”

“Shut up, mud boy. Who are you? Why are you in Artemis’s home? Don’t lie to me” she said, her voice laced with the seductive mesmer.

“Mesmer? Oh please… ” I said sarcastically. She looked surprised that her seductive mesmer had failed. So she took the only route she could see: she racked the gun up to setting 3, which I later referred to as “medium brown” and fired into my chest. She was even more shocked when the powerful laser blast sank into my flesh and I didn’t immediately fall down, unconscious.

“OW! WHAT THE HELL?” i yelled. “That really hurt! Oooh, i feel sick! What the hell was that for?” Then I fell down, unconscious. Butler smacked his way in, and saw the situation. I wa son the floor, barely conscious, and Holly was crouched there, looking guilty. She quickly holstered it.

“Holly? What have you done? He was Artemis’s guest for the week! You’d better not have had that Neutrino higher than stun.”

Stun was level 2. She gulped.

“I thought he was an intruder. That’s why I opened fire.”

Artemis had come into the room. “Holly, for goodness’ sake, why do you jump to these conclusions? Apologise to my guest at once!”

She did, and knelt to heal the wound with magic. I watched the whole scene sideways, half-distracted by a numb pain in my chest.

“This aside, it is good to see you, old friend” said Artemis. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“Just checking up on you, making sure you weren’t plotting any diabolical plans.”

Artemis laughed. “I assure you, Captain, my days of plotting are almost over. In fact, it is very lucky that you are here, as I meant to consult you about my last and greatest plan.”

I would come to learn and assist with Artemis’s greatest plan in the future. For now though I was still slumped in a chair.

“Are you going to be okay?” asked Holly, genuinely sorry.

“I’ve faced worse. It’s only a little laser blast. You’d better go and hear Artemis’s plan - it’s epic, epoch-making.” Holly nodded, and in one last sign of apology she kissed my forehead, then left.

Soon there were just Butler and myself in the room.

“You alright?” he asked. I nodded. After Butler left, I turned back to the computer. As i reached out my left hand, I saw something new there. It was an example of an ancient and almost-forgotten type of magic that was only unlockable through extreme emotion - anger, joy or in my case, sorrow. Burnt about a millimetre into my palm were two Gnommish runes - initials.

H and S…

Some other stories by LEP-recon124:

• Open war
• Power of the Ancients
• Alliance
• LEP-centurion001 part two
• Pariah (a dreams and nightmares spin-off)