Disclaimer: if I owned Artemis Fowl, this wouldn't be fanfiction, it would be canon!

Cudgeon and the Swear Toad

Corporal Briar Cudgeon and Lieutenant Julius Root were on stakeout duty in E53, below ruins of an ancient human town in the middle of nowhere. Again. The two of them had been on stakeout duty for several weeks now. It was Briar's fault. He'd botched up the dual assignment he and Julius had been doing. The punishment? Stakeout duty. Go figure.

The two friends were sitting in the cham pod, arms crossed, identical annoyed expressions on their faces. Julius was annoyed at Briar for his mistakes, Briar was annoyed at himself and the LEP commander who had sentenced them to stakeout duty. Not to mention annoyed at Julius for being annoyed at him.

Julius stopped being annoyed long enough to curtly inform Briar that they needed to do a flyby so he could run a thermal. Briar grinned. He was glad to get out of the stuffy pod.

"Lieutenant? I'm seein' troll tail ends. You want me to investigate?"

"Negative, Corporal. Wait until the owners of the tail ends are out of infrared sight, then rush in and get yourself sighted by humans."

Briar sighed. It sounded like a rush of static over the ancient speakers. "Very funny, Julius. Seriously, there are no humans around here a there will probably never be. Just trolls and ruins." Sheesh, talk about paranoid.

"Fine. Go get yourself done in by a troll."

Briar shielded and started prowling around the ancient, mossy lumps that had been the human dwellings. Eventually, he powered down his shield, certain that nothing was there to see him.

Bad move.

Next thing he knew, a swear toad had chomped down on his behind, right in Julius's line of view.

Julius was hysterical with laughter.

Swear Toad: 1, Cudgeon: 0.