Previously: Jim skips school, then shows up injured. Toby and Mary are suspicious. Claire and Darci are concerned. They plan to follow Jim next time he sneaks out.
-Text between hyphens- indicates text messages, written with the same spelling and grammar as ordinary dialogue because, although I can read most text-speak, I am not fluent in typing it. (Emojis) are described in parentheses rather than shown, so that they translate correctly onto whatever device the fic is being read through rather than becoming that odd box that means 'there is a character here but the font does not recognize it'.
-Warhammer to Juliet, the Fish has left the Lake. Warhammer in pursuit.-
-… What?-
-It's Toby. Jim snuck out again and I'm following him.-
-On my way. Have you texted Mary and Darci too?-
-Haven't thought of cool spy nicknames for them yet.-
-(rolled eyes emoji)-
-He's going for the canals like last time.-
-ETA three minutes.-
-Last time?-
-Okay, so I followed him last time he snuck out.- -Get here fast, I lost him once he was in the canal.- -It'll make sense when you see it too.-
There was a lot of hissing at each other to "be quiet, he'll hear us" as the four teenagers followed the fifth, who was walking briskly through the woods. The girls had stashed their bikes by the trees and Mary fussed quietly over the lack of narrow saplings or bike racks to which to lock hers.
Jim did occasionally stop and look behind him, but he did not seem aware he was being followed. The trees muffled the sounds of traffic from the surrounding neighbourhood, but the leaves and small animals were far from silent.
Once Jim dropped out of sight, over the lip of the canal, Toby dropped all pretense of stealth and ran forwards.
"Hurry, hurry, if you don't see him do it you'll never believe me –"
They reached the canal's edge in time to see Jim – spraying graffiti? No, carving an arch under the bridge and walking through it like it was just another doorway.
"He did this last time?" Darci asked Toby.
"I figured nobody but Eli would believe me. I needed more witnesses."
"So how do we get in there to follow him?" said Claire.
"Whoa, whoa, time out, bad idea." Toby waved his hands frantically. "This giant thing came out of there last time. Plus Jim came back with a black eye, remember?"
"I thought the whole point of following him was so he wouldn't be alone with whoever – or, whatever – did that to him?"
Toby sagged. "Yeah." His resigned expression became stern. "But whoever makes it out alive gives everyone who dies a very stirring eulogy!"
The four of them snuck down into the canal bed. Darci checked the weather reports on her phone. There wasn't supposed to be any rain that week, so they probably weren't at risk of being swept away by a flash flood. They hid behind one of the bridge's support columns.
Fortune favoured the bold. One of those 'giant things' Toby had mentioned came by a short time later, pulling a cart full of junk. While it – he? – was opening the portal, the humans hid in the cart.
A very bumpy ride down a dark tunnel later, everything lit up.
The teens exited the cart with varying levels of grace and stealth and hid behind a crystal outcropping, and gasped at their discovery.
"It's a city," said Darci.
"And I thought all that was under this town was dirt and plumbing," said Toby.
"What are all these gems?" said Mary. That seemed to snap Toby out of his daze and into a new one.
"Let's see, I spy peridot, topaz, cassiterite, kornerupine …"
"I want to live down here," said Claire. "Think I could live down here?"
"Maybe Jim lives down here," said Darci, "if this is where he's been sneaking off."
"Not sure what the big one is; maybe spessartine or citrine, but I don't think either of them grow in that shape. Or, you know, glow."
They slowly drifted into open view, too busy gawking to realize that they, too, were being gawked at.
The armour did nothing to soothe Jim's bruised face or ribs, but the pressure of his helmet on his scalp was oddly comforting, like scratching an itch.
Sparring with Draal was a world away from being punished by Bular. The troll was still larger and stronger, but Jim was fairly certain Draal was pulling his punches now, not wanting to accidentally kill the 'human'. Jim had time to dodge many of the strikes, and the security to strike back.
Another difference was Blinky, shouting encouragement and suggestions from the sidelines. Not filtering him out was an … interesting exercise in multi-tasking.
"Use your size to your advantage, Master Jim! You can fit into smaller spaces – dodge through narrower gaps to evade Draal's attacks!"
Getting himself cornered in a small space while being pursued by a larger opponent sounded like the opposite of a good idea to Jim.
Although, maybe if Draal (Bular) were chasing him down a street and Jim ducked into an alley …
Draal managed to knock him down. Jim's ribcage cried out as he hit the Forge floor. He was on his side. Draal loomed over him, holding a spear.
"Rule Number Three!" Jim kicked Draal in the gronk-nuks.
Jim scrambled to his feet, but stumbled over the dropped spear. He and Draal both ended up groaning on the floor.
"Ah … perhaps we should call an end to today's sparring session?" Blinky suggested.
"TROLLHUNTER!"
Blinky heaved a sigh and rolled all six of his eyes. "What is it now, Bagdwella?"
"Human intruders!"
Jim was on his feet in a second. Had someone from the Janus Order been tailing him? How had they gotten in? He always waited for the portal to close before going down the staircase.
"Where?" he demanded.
There was a crowd of trolls debating what to do with the humans, who were stuffed in a sack that was dangling in the air. Nobody seemed to be shouting 'Changeling' yet and Jim hoped he could defuse this before it came to that.
"Let them down," he ordered, putting as much authority into his voice as he could. "I'm the Trollhunter. I'll deal with them."
AAARRRGGHH and Draal stood behind him like enforcers. AAARRRGGHH was nonviolent, but he was still very large and deeply respected. The troll holding the rope looked at them more than Jim before letting the humans fall.
The sack writhed and there were muffled complaints from within, spoken in more than one voice. Jim held his sword at the ready and cut the drawstring that kept the sack shut.
"… Toby?!"
"Jim!" His neighbour struggled free and ran up to him. Behind Jim, Draal growled, and Toby faltered. He approached Jim more to the side that AAARRRGGHH was flanking. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, so cool, so cool, so cool! The armour! The sword! Are you seriously glowing right now? Is that the watch thing we found a few weeks ago?"
"Toby, what are you doing here?"
"Following you! After you came to school all beat up, I thought maybe you were in some kind of trouble. The ladies were worried, too." He gestured loosely at the three girls who had gotten out of the sack and were now in a tight pack, guarding each other's backs and watching the trolls as warily as they were being watched. "So after you went through the portal, we waited under the bridge, and we hopped into a cart that brought us down here, and then we … kinda got careless and got caught. Okay, your turn. What's going on?"
"Master Jim, you know these intruders?" said Blinky.
"Toby's my neighbour and my best friend. Claire, Darci, and Mary all go to school with us. You guys need to leave," said Jim quickly. "And swear to secrecy. This is big and complicated and not safe."
"But that's why we're here," Claire protested. "We want to know. We want to help!"
"Do you want to get crushed by angry rock people? Because that's getting more and more likely if you don't get out of here now."
"Master Jim is only slightly exaggerating the danger," Blinky agreed. The crowd of trolls had not dispersed. "Come. We can settle this in my library."
"So … trolls exist," said Mary.
"Yes," said Jim.
"And Jim … basically works for you guys like a combination security guard and animal control officer?" said Darci.
"If that helps you understand it better," agreed Blinky.
"And he's stuck with the job until he dies?" Toby's eyes were wide and his hands were shaking. Jim pulled an energy bar out of his backpack, which he'd left in the library during training, and gave it to Toby, who devoured it in three bites and seemed much calmer afterwards.
"But they're training me, so I'm not going to die for a while yet," Jim reassured Toby.
"And it's all tied to that amulet," said Claire, pointing to the glowing device on Jim's chest.
"Amulet chose," said AAARRRGGHH, nodding.
"There's still one thing I'm not getting," said Toby. "Troll … hunter? Doesn't that make it sound like Jimbo's supposed to be hunting, you know, you guys?"
"The grammar does lose something in translation," Blinky admitted. "A more accurate translation would be, 'the troll who is the hunter', but that's rather a mouthful."
"Hunt bad trolls," said AAARRRGGHH. "Gumm-Gumms."
"Not exactly the most terrifying name," said Mary.
"In trollish, 'Gumm-Gumm' means 'bringer of horrible, slow, painful, and thoroughly-calculated death'," said Blinky.
"Oh."
"Yours in a rich and nuanced language." Jim kept his tone sarcastic even though he meant it.
"So, if Jim's the first human Trollhunter," said Claire, "who or what was the Trollhunter before him?"
"My father," said Draal. "Kanjigar the Courageous. The greatest Trollhunter to ever bear that mantle."
"And Draal isn't just saying that because they're family," added Jim. "Kanjigar was apparently this whole living legend before he died."
"We're … sorry for your loss?" Darci offered to Draal, who grunted and looked away.
"TROLLHUNTER! TROLLHUNTER!"
"And that delightful shout would be Bagdwella." Jim forced a smile. "She's like an informant. If anything happens in Trollmarket that needs the Trollhunter to handle it, she comes and gets me. Like, say, if a bunch more humans were to sneak in when trolls don't want humans to know they exist."
Bagdwella made her usual dramatically out of breath entrance.
"Vendel sent me. The Hero's Forge is malfunctioning!"
"It's a giant mechanical deathtrap; how can it malfunction? Is it suddenly non-lethal?"
"So, what's going wrong with the Forge exactly?" asked Jim as they hurried to it.
"Left running?" AAARRRGGHH asked Blinky, who shook his head.
"I was sure I deactivated everything when we left to deal with the human problem."
"It turned itself on and won't turn off," said Bagdwella.
"And it's not battery-operated, so we can't just wait for it to run out of juice." Jim wasn't actually sure what the Forge's power source was but he suspected it was somehow related to the lava because everything else about it seemed to be designed to be as scary as possible.
"What is this?" Vendel demanded, when they reached the Hero's Forge and he saw the humans tailing the group. "I accepted a human Trollhunter out of necessity, but this is an infestation!"
"Is this really the time?" Once his adrenalin wore off, Jim would wonder at his daring, but Vendel let it slide.
"You need to get to the kill switch inside the Soothscryer," he told Jim.
Jim gave an assessing look at the chaos of the arena.
"AAARRRGGHH, do you think you can throw me to it?"
"Wait, what?" said Toby. Mary got out her phone, presumably to film the impending stunt. AAARRRGGHH reached out to Jim, who climbed onto his hand.
"I think if I go high enough, I can go over the blades and the worst of the fire, and then I just have to get through the pendulums. Throw me as high as you can, okay, big guy?"
"Ready?" AAARRRGGHH asked.
Jim watched the Forge for another moment. Draal had been teaching him how to read its rhythms.
"NOW!"
AAARRRGGHH launched him. Jim literally hit the ceiling, almost dead centre above the Soothscryer, and dropped onto it. He heard Toby and Claire and Darci and Mary scream.
"I'm okay!" he yelled to them. "Don't bite my hand off," he added to the Soothscryer, and reached into it to find the kill switch AAARRRGGHH had used the first time the Forge had refused to deactivate.
The Hero's Forge slowed and stilled. The weapons sheathed themselves. The Soothscryer's red eyes shone blue. Jim shone blue. There was a blinding flash of light, and Jim disappeared.
Up next: We finally see the Ghost Council react to a Changeling Trollhunter.
Spessartine is a type of garnet, also known as a Sun Garnet; I was looking up orange crystals for Toby to make some guesses as to what the Heartstone is, and spessartine can form in a similar shade of orange, minus the glowing. Citrine is usually yellow or brown, but can also be orange. Yellow citrine or yellow topaz is popularly named as the birthstone for November.
Mary and Darci will have the code names 'Gossip Queen' and 'Mole Queen' eventually, unless I decide on something else, but Toby doesn't know any of them all that well yet. Honestly, since Jim isn't in the play in this timeline, I wasn't even sure how plausible it was for Toby to know Claire was playing Juliet. I just went with it for convenience. Also, I'm not sure if Darci is the school mascot yet or if that was something that happened in the month-long time skip between the first and second parts of the first season.