Holly
- Finally we're introduced to an actual fairy character that wehope will do a lot more than be drunk in the shadows of an alley.
- Here's the rundown: "Fairy" describes generally allof the magical creatures, and Holly is technically an elf, but being a leprechaun is her job.
- In a totally random moment, we find out that Holly is thegreat granddaughter of Cupid, who evidently exists.
- First things first: Holly is the first female officer in Reconhistory, and she's currently stressed out by her boss, who hates the fact that she's on his squad.
- We also find out a detail that seems pretty important: Hollyhasn't renewed her source of magic in a long time and is running low without telling anyone.
- Holly showers and suits up in her dull-green uniform, and welearn that Recon is short for LEPrecon (yes—like leprechaun), one of the elite branches of the Lower Elements Police.
- On her way out to her office, Holly pretty much runs intomagical traffic.
- There's a brief, disturbing moment where everything getsracialized and there's a goblin/dwarf turf war happening that Holly walks by—no one likes goblins except their mothers, it seems.
- Holly runs into an officer who is currently being pickpocketedby his prisoner, a dwarf named Mulch.
- She tries to sneak to her cubicle, but gets caught by herboss, Commander Root, and berated for being a minute late.
- Holly steels herself against his yelling, annoyed that she'salways the one he picks on instead of all the other officers who are late.
- Root gives some blunt talk about how he picks on Holly becauseshe's the first female officer and she has to be better than the best.
- We get a brief mention of the mysterious "Hamburgincident" that was Holly's biggest mistake as an officer.
- Root tells Holly she failed as the first female test case inRecon, and demotes her to Traffic so he can bring in a different female officer (whom Holly thinks is an idiot).
- Holly argues for her (mostly) stellar service record and callsRoot out for demoting her for one mistake when he wouldn't have done the same to a male officer.
- Root gets an emergency call about a rogue troll in southernItaly, which is really bad because trolls are giant destructo-machines.
- Her job hanging by a thread, Holly lies about being full up onmagic so she can get another chance to prove herself and go after the troll.
- Holly flashes her badge to get through the waiting line forshuttles to the surface, and a gnome gets in her face about police abusing their position—but she just calls him an idiot and heads to the office of a centaur named Foaly.
- Foaly wears a tinfoil hat to keep human intelligence agenciesfrom reading his mind. And yes, he's also the resident genius.
- Foaly fills Holly in on the state of affairs with the troll,who has apparently been eating cows on his way to an Italian town.
- Holly gets hooked up with audio and video, and we learn thather job doesn't normally require a weapon since she's not Retrieval—she gets one this time, though, and it's a fancy new Neutrino 2000.
- The quickest way to the surface is through the pressureelevators, which take you in a titanium egg and use the magma flares from the earth's core to rocket you to the surface. Perfectly safe, right?
- Holly gets an ancient shuttle instead of the safer-lookingones and tries to ignore the brain splatter on the seat from the last unfortunate pilot. (Um… yikes.)
- The pod gets rolled out into the chute, which is essentially abig hollow tunnel to the core, and Holly hopes Foaly's prediction of a magma flare coming up soon is accurate.
- We get a terrifying description of what it's like to ride theflares to the surface, and for a second there it's unclear whether Holly's pod will crumble under the heat and pressure.
- Holly's skill as a pilot kicks in and she safely navigates outof the chute and onto the landing pad
- The scene is interrupted for a brief environmental message asHolly notices all the pollutants in the air and just how destructive Mud People are.
- Using a pair of old, gas-powered mechanical wings that startlike a lawnmower, Holly follows the troll's trail (say that five times fast) through Italy.
- She comes upon the town where the troll was located, andswitches on her shield, which is one of the few powers the fairies have. The shield isn't really a shield though, since all it does is make a fairy vibrate at a frequency too high to be seen by human eyes.
- Holly sees the troll below her breaking through the town wall,and radios in that the situation is critical.
- Root and the rest of the Retrieval squad are still fiveminutes away in the shuttle, so Holly tells him she's going in before everything goes crazy.
- Root tells her she doesn't have an invitation and orders herto hang back.
- Holly decides to interpret a child's cry for help as theinvitation a fairy needs to enter a human space and disobeys orders by flying in.
- She finds herself in a restaurant with a bunch of shockedpatrons staring at the troll, which has been blinded by the light; suddenly everyone starts screaming and the troll prepares to attack.
- Holly can't kill the troll to save humans, but she shoots itlong enough to knock it out (she hopes).
- All this does though, is make the troll angry, and it throws atable at Holly because... well... it's a troll, and Holly doesn't realize her shield is gone with the rest of her magic.
- The table knocks the gas tank off Holly's wings, which goesflying through the air, while Holly herself flies through the air and lands on the troll.
- In the troll's meaty hands and about to die, Holly turns onher helmet's high beams and blinds the creature.
- The troll goes down, but now Holly has to deal with the factthat a hundred humans are all staring at her and things could get even uglier in a second.
- With the fairy gift for languages, Holly calms the restaurantpatrons and then knocks them all unconscious with some kind of flash grenade. Rude.
- She locks the door and douses the troll (who somehow also caughton fire during this whole thing) with the extinguisher.
- Holly passes out from pain and wakes up to the Retrieval squadthat finally showed up… along with her very angry boss.
- Holly defends her actions by explaining she got invited inwith a cry for help, and uses some legal knowledge to back it up.
- She sees that repairs are underway—the humans are beingmind-wiped and Retrieval put up a temporary hologram of the wall over the giant hole.
- A human toddler that missed being knocked out by Holly'sgrenade suddenly emerges and sees Holly because she's out of magic and can't shield.
- Root finds out Holly hasn't replenished her magic with theRitual in four years (years) and sends her away right then and there.
- Because he's not one to forget that Holly also just saved abunch of lives though, he compliments her on the job she did (looks like she won't get demoted) and then gets all grumbly again and orders her to go complete the Ritual.