Thank you OnlyHere4Puckabrina for pointing out a plot hole! Consider it fixed.

Artemis went over the plan once more, searching for holes and missing details. There would never be such a thing as a perfect plan, of course, however Artemis could and would insure it had as little flaws as possible.

After his secret excursion to Tara the last full moon, led there by rumors and myths the local folk spread online, he had been able to infiltrate the People's network without much difficulty.

It was disgusting how easy it had been, actually. He simply had to walk into a late night bar a few miles away from Tara, which had had a happily drunken atmosphere and a lot of light and noise, join a few teenagers at a table and whisper covertly about 'amazing weird glitter floating in the sky' for a few minutes for two drunken teens to follow him to the clearing full of dancing, shielded fairies.

He had, his pride curling into a miserable ball at his actions, stumbled around pointing drunkenly at the sky shouting loudly about how he was right and glitter was shiny, until finally he had briefly hit something solid and soft in midair.

There had been panicked cursing- or well, it sounded like cursing- from seemingly nowhere and Artemis had looked on in hidden satisfaction as a shimmer became a form, and a clearly moondrunken fairy in a bright blue tutu approached, loudly reassuring the shimmers that he was an authority figure of some kind, he could handle this. Or something like that. Artemis couldn't exactly tell, as the fairy was speaking a language Artemis didn't recognize, but going by tone of voice and behavior patters of drunks, that was exactly what he'd said.

The two tagalongs had just looked on in a drunken daze as they were hypnotized. Artemis hadn't doubted that the other two thought they were hallucinating the whole thing.

The fairy finally stood in front of Artemis, who had simply stared back with the most idiotic gaping expression he could muster.

"You ffforget this too, alrigh'? And scram." The fairy had leaned in to Artemis' face and waved with large motions to somewhere behind Artemis.

Sloppy, unclear and weak, but it was effective nonetheless. Or it would have been, had Artemis not been wearing mirrored lenses.

He had not been sure they would work, of course, but in all the more realistic myths and stories about fairies using hypnosis, they looked straight into the target's eyes. It was simpel logic to assume the 'windows to the soul' were an essential part of the process.

Artemis had blankly turned and walked away from the clearing, mimicking the other two teens, and decidedly not reacting to the fairy mass collectively relaxing in relief and going on with their get-together.

When he was several miles out and completely sure no fairy eyes were on him, Artemis had pulled out his highly upgraded mobile phone and stopped the process of scanning all nearby devices for code and network information.

The next step in the plan was one Artemis had taken already too. Infiltrate the People's network, lead the trail to a random fairy in wherever fairies lived(Haven or Atlantis, he now knew. And wasn't that interesting, the mythical sunken city was actually home to a fairy folk) and gain actual factual information about the People.

The language barrier had been expected, and the translator Artemis made was more than capable of its task.

Then there was the next step of the plan, which Artemis was waiting for right now. He was certain that, upon discovering a twelve year old had hacked their system, the People would send one of theirs to hypnotize- no, Mesmer him.

Artemis suspected that the only reason they had not tried already was because it was weekend and Artemis hadn't left the manor yet. The Rule of Dwelling was such a fickle thing.

Come Monday morning, Artemis had learned spoken and written Gnommish, finding to his surprise that the written characters corresponded to the Latin alphabet pronunciation-wise. For once, he almost felt like a typical teenager, the way he remained in bed simply out of unwillingness to go to school.

Alas, for the fairy to interrogate him, or kidnap and then interrogate him, he would have to venture out. Artemis could only hope the fairy got him before he arrived at school. His plans were on the move now, and Artemis didn't think he could spend another dull day at Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen.

Even the name was inaccurate; the school had begun to allow female students a few decades ago but refused to change the name, as the latter was associated with a rather good reputation. In light of friday's happenings, which he refused to think to deeply about, Artemis wished it would've simply continued to refuse females.

Artemis was up and out the door early as always, only taking a moment to convince Butler that he had been walking to the school by himself every morning for nearly a year and no, he definitely didn't need the huge bodyguard to come along. They'd had this discussion every morning for that same nearly-a-year.

His heart was hammering, but Artemis k ept his face composed as he walked out the door. There were so many things that could go wrong here, and no matter how prepared Artemis was, there was always a possibility of failure.

He certainly did not squeak in surprise as he was pulled off of the empty street into an alley.