Author's Note: Takes place after time travel, but in this universe, Root didn't die and there are no twins.

Thanks to my Beta, TexasDreamer01!

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C h a p t e r 1

D r e a m

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It had been five years. Five years since that damn war started up on the surface, since that fateful day when the third, and by far the greatest Word War started. Total warfare. Nobody quite knew how it had started, but it had, and standing in the middle of a charred, radioactive ruin, not bothering to switch on her cam foil, Holly Short knew what those humans hadn't.

Over seventy percent of the world population dead. Nothing was worth that.

She bent down, lifting up a soil sample and pouring it into a tiny canister that she then tucked away into her suit, careful not to put it under the second layer of clothing that protected her from radioactive and biological weapons. Foaly was working triple over time, too tired even to complain. Too weary from the war to want to.

Root stepped up beside her, face twisted with emotion. He had stopped chewing his cigars. They made his hands shake, he said, which was true enough. They shook anyways, though, Holly noted dispassionately.

"We're not here to take samples, Short," he barked, though the edge of his voice had dissolved into breathlessness as his eyes fell on the remains of a baby carriage, the fringe charred and the entire thing covered in a fine layer of dust. Everything was covered in dust, a mix of plaster and ash and kicked-up dirt dying every surface grey.

Holly knew Root was wondering the same thing she was: what had happened to whoever had occupied that carriage? Where they alive? And if so, for how long? After all, with the amount disease spawned from too much dirtied water and nowhere to bury bodies, alive was a relative state of being.

Holly flipped over a flattened piece of metal with her toe in the silence that followed, waiting for further instructions.

"Are you going to tell me why we are here?" She asked, when it seemed none were forthcoming. Her eyes flickered to her captain's face, a new habit since he had gained a range of expressions beyond angry and angrier.

He spat on the ground, a habit born from chewing tobacco. "You wouldn't believe me."

"I already don't believe you, Captain. We're not here on a Research Mission, a Collection Mission, or a Topside Rehabilitation Mission." Topside Rehabilitation Missions, or TRMs, were a breed of mission instated to resurrect the human race, along with all of the animal species that had perished during the bombings and rampant fires. They were becoming increasingly common, rendering the division between humans and faeries almost void.

Holly had always thought it was a pointless law anyway, retreating to live under ground while the humans scrabbled overhead. The agreement ensured that nobody was happy.

She sighed; turning her head to avoid the disapproving glance she knew would be shot in her direction. "Can't you just give me a strait answer for once? I am your second in command. I think I have the right to know what you are ordering me to do."

"This order isn't from me," he said, pulling something mechanical from his pocket and staring fixedly at the screen as he began to walk forward. "It's not even an order, really. But it's information straight from Foaly and he thought we were best qualified to investigate. No LEP involvement whatsoever. Except for us, of course. If what he says is true, though, LEP might just make us Generals."

Holly fell into step behind him, not quite sure whether or not to take his word or to press the issue. In the end, the part of her that had been a low ranking soldier for a good twenty years before being promoted won out, and she remained silent, falling behind him without protest. He made an irritated noise and gestured for her to walk by his side, which, after a moment's hesitation, she did.

The rubble began to thin as they entered what she assumed must have been a wealthy neighborhood at some time. The remains of houses, huge, white, empty- windowed, were even more foreboding than the twisted metal leftovers of skyscrapers with rooftop cafes. As she passed, Holly felt the soulless eyes of each house watching her, endless rows of ghosts. The footprints they left behind were covered almost immediately after being made by resettling dust. After perhaps an hour, they stopped before a tall, hunched, iron gate.

Holly blinked up at it, memories shifting in her subconscious. She frowned, noticing the sparkle of some high-level alloy lying on the cracked pavement. She stepped forward and crouched on the ground.

The metal was cool even through her gloves, but slightly brittle from fire damage, so that when she turned it over a shower of golden flakes rubbed off on her fingers. She pulled off one outer glove and began to rub away at the ash, leaving a simple declaration visible, written in a fancy, curving font.

Fowl Residence.

Holly's breath went out in a whoosh, and though she could feel her heart hammering in her chest, her arms and legs going numb, the world spinning beneath her feat, for a few second she didn't know what had elicited the strong reaction. Mental barriers set up to preserve her sanity bent and broke like a dam under too much water, and a name that she hadn't allowed herself to think for too long, far too long, came blasting through her mind: Artemis, Artemis, Artemis….

A wordless cry fell from her lips, clattering to the ground beside the address plate. She spun, whole body shaking, and grabbed the front of Captain Root's uniform.

"Is this some kind of joke?" She screamed, face right in his. "Is this some kind of sick joke? I don't want… to see… I don't want…" she tried to continue but gave up, trying instead to calm herself, trying not to hurt Root and his perfectly smooth, emotionless face. It was perverse, insulting, that this time she was the one unable to maintain control over her body.

She let go of him as soon as she could feel her fingers, staggering backwards until she was leaning against the fence, closing her eyes to familiar sights.

A hand touched her shoulder and she stiffened, though she did not try to pull away.

"Come inside. You will have to come to terms with this anyways, one way or another."

"If I find out we're here to collect the stolen gold, or… or raid the house for the book, something, I swear, Root, I'll knock you three shots before you can blink," she growled, shoulders hunched to hide their trembling.

Of all the words Holly would have used to describe herself, weak was not one of them. At that moment, she was sure she looked it. She pulled her 3000 from her hip and turned off the safety before jerking her head for him to continue. He paused, then nodded and pushed open the gate. The flaking bars hissed. They crossed the lawn, bare and flat, and reached the front door. Root glanced her way.

"Three shots, Root," she reminded him as he pushed open the wooden door. Already off balance on its rusted hinges, it fell forward onto the floor in a cloud of grey and a clatterer that came back at them a second time from the vastness of the room beyond..

Root stepped inside, and Holly followed after cranking up the air filter on her helmet.

Walking inside was like walking into a dream. She recalled in flashes her captivity there, remembered the silly girl, Juliet, her cautious brother, Butler, and the clever, haughty boy, that boy…

The Decree of Invitation of been lifted, she reminded herself. Being able to step into the house without repercussion didn't mean anything. Didn't mean any of them where dead. Certainly not.

"Holly. Root." Holly halted mid step and spun, eyes focusing and refocusing on a figure standing before a shattered picture window. Sunlight streamed in behind them, and she couldn't make out a face to fit the voice. The smart filters in her goggles snapped into gear, and an over lay of his features covered the screen in cool blue.

"Art-Artemis?" she whispered, hardly daring to move. Hardly daring to breath.

"It's me." His hand fell from where it had been resting on the banister beside him. His voice was familiar in pitch, but something pure had been sucked out of it, the confidence erased.

Her insides felt as though they had been filled with crawling insects.

He stepped out of the beam of sunlight and his face came into focus. What she saw made her draw in a gasp so sharp it was almost a scream.

He looked almost exactly the same, face too pale and hair dark as wet bark. A little bit older, but hardly. He was frail looking and wispy, his clothes were filthy and he hadn't grown more than an inch or two, still the size of a thirteen year old. A long, ragged-edged cut laced down from his forehead to his chin, dried blood darkening half his face, a second thin trail ran from his left nostril over his top lip. But none of would have made her gasp. It was that his eyes, once so devious and bright, constantly whirring with ideas, where as empty as the broken window behind him, only a field of charred grass and overcast sky.

Her lower lip trembled, and she bit it hard enough that a bead of blood ran down her chin and disappeared into the folds of her uniform. Seething emotion took on a new form, and she rode on a swell of anger towards him, hands balling into fists.

"Artemis Fowl… how could you?" She asked, standing only a foot from his body, one twitching finger poking into his chest. "You let us think you were dead. Dead, Fowl! Do you know how much we lost while you were gone? I thought… and Butler, and Juliet, and, oh, all of them! And you let that happen. You… you bastard!"

He blinked down at her, face a mask of apathy. "Juliet and Butler are dead, Holly. I am the only survivor," he said.

Behind her, she heard Root shifting around, but Artemis's face didn't change as he spoke.

"What?" She whispered, refusing to register what he was saying. "You can't even cry? You won't even pretend to be sorry?" Her fingers were digging into her palms and the pain of it sliced through the buzz of her mind, but she couldn't bring herself to stop. If she released her grip, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't just float out of her body like so many others.

And then there was Artemis, just standing there, just looking at her like he would look at a slide on business statistics. Did he know? Did he have any idea what she'd been through?

Before she could stop herself, she punched him hard in the gut.

He grunted, folding in half, forcing her to step back. When he didn't straighten after several seconds, however, simply remained crumpled and panting in obvious pain, Root appeared at her side. He pushed her away and knelt beside the younger man, lifting his head to better see what his hand were clutching at.

Where Holly had punched him, a disturbingly large stain of red was blooming across his stomach. Artemis's eyes pressed closed when Root lifted the hem of his shirt, revealing a map of scars and cuts. The fabric peeled away like the skin of an orange, leaving tuft of white fuzz in sticky wounds.

Holly made a soft noise and turned away, so that when Artemis collapsed, she only had the sound of his body hitting the ground to alert her to his descent into unconsciousness.