"What happened?" Jim asked weakly, even as he hugged his Mom back. He felt muddled and strange and his head was pounding. The last thing he remembered, he had been in the sewers with Strickler and Nomura. "I thought I was…"

It was at that moment that Jim looked up and saw his surroundings. His eyes widened. Strickler and Nomura were still present but in troll form. They weren't in the sewers anymore. Judging by the sleek white walls they were in the Janus Order base.

"Why are we here? What are you doing here?"

He could feel his heartrate picking up. His mom shouldn't be here. She wasn't supposed to know about this part of his life.

"Jim…" She said softly, grip tightening on his shoulders.

Jim's hands twitched and the sensation echoed twofold. Jim pulled back from her in surprise and bumped into the wall.

Or rather something bumped into the wall and he felt it. Now that he was paying attention there were strange sensations coming from behind him.

Something twitched it felt like his arm but it was coming from his back. He let out a yelp and spun around, then twisted his neck and caught sight of leathery blue membranes bordered by armor coming out of his back.

"Jim."

He reached over his shoulder and grabbed one then let go of it just as quickly the moment he felt it both in his hand and the alien appendage. He attempted to take a step back, but his foot didn't set down right and he fell over.

"What… What's wrong with me?!" Jim demanded.

His heart was pounding now and he could feel the Amulet's magic pulsing alongside it as the enchanted relic responded to his panic.

Something was incredibly wrong with his body. Or he wasn't in his body. (His breath was coming too short and fast.) That was something that could happen, right? He thought hysterically as he stared at the clawed feet at the end of his legs.

He was vaguely aware of his Mom settling beside him. She was talking to him but she sounded far away.

He remembered the gravesand, now.

What had Strickler said?

Hadn't he said something about changes? Something about them being permanent?

Was… was he some kind of troll human monster now?

He wrapped his arms around himself and felt the strange new limbs do so as well.

Nomura and Strickler were half turned away, watching the door, as Barbara talked her son through his panic attack; trying to be respectful to the Trollhunter in his moment of weakness. It was generally what changelings did for each other in such an event. The changeling code had never allowed for much closeness, so deliberate ignorance was sometimes their greatest kindness.

Strickler highly doubted his own proximity would make Young Atlas feel any safer at this point. All he could really do was wait and trust that Barbara knew what to do.

Now that the immediate physical danger was past Strickler found his mind mauling over the implications and possibilities of this development. It was partially out of habit and partially to distract himself so he didn't start eavesdropping.

The Trollhunter was half-changeling. That was an even bigger game changer than him being human.

Gunmar may have destroyed the Arcadia Janus Order, but worldwide there were still more changelings. They would be enraged and bitter over their esteemed leader's betrayal.

Jim's new status would offer them an in that they had never had before with the larger trollish community.

Strickler paused his thoughts stumbling over that a little. He grimaced.

That was, of course, assuming that the trolls were still willing to accept Jim after discovering his heritage. A human had been hard enough for them to deal with from what he heard and a changeling would have been intolerable…

But how would they deal with a half-breed?

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. There were too many variables right now. They needed to get Jim to adjust to himself before they could go any farther.

The first test was to see if Jim's trainer… Blinky… could get over his prejudice to accept his student's change. If he couldn't Strickler highly doubted they could expect any more from the rest of trollkind.

"Strickler."

Strickler blinked and came back to attention. Jim was no longer on the floor but rather standing rather awkwardly leaning half on his mother.

"Yes, Young Atlas?"

"What happened?" Jim rasped. There was a slight lisp to his voice. "I thought you said that gravesand was safe for humans. Why did it…"

He gestured stiffly at himself. There was a hint of accusation in his tone. Strickler bit back his instinctual response, reminding himself that Jim had the right to be upset.

"I'll explain, but I think you'd best sit down first."

Barbara helped him over to one of the chairs and Jim awkwardly flopped down on it. He flexed the clawed toes on his feet and flinched, before turning his attention back to Strickler.

"Do you remember what I said about the effects of gravesand?"

The boy frowned, an expression made fiercer looking by the short tusks he now sported.

"You said it was supposed to bring out my feral instincts. You also said something about changes…"

Strickler nodded. He wasn't surprised Jim would focus on that statement.

"And do you remember what I said its effects on changelings are?"

"Not really," He admitted. He cocked his head. "But what does that have to do with me?"

Strickler sighed.

"Far more than you think."

"So Dad was a changeling." Jim seemed to be rather stuck on that particular fact.

"Yes, I have his file on the computer if you would like to look at it." Fortunately it seemed that no one had got around to banning Strickler out of the computer system.

'No, I…" Jim trailed off and tried to run his hand through his hair but ended up catching it on his horns.

There was a moment of silence before Jim looked up through his bangs.

"Did you know him?"

"Not personally," Strickler said. He had met most changelings in the Order in some form or another but there was a far smaller circle that he truly knew.

"Okay."

Jim was quiet again.

"You looked at his file though. Do… What…" Jim frowned. "What did his troll form look like?"

Strickler sighed and turned back to the computer.

"Here, let me just pull it up for you."

"You don't have to…"

"It will be a lot easier than playing telephone, Young Atlas. Your mom has already looked through it."

Jim closed his mouth at that.

"Here you are. Take all the time you need."

Jim awkwardly slid the chair across the floor. It seemed he was not quite ready to try walking again.

Strickler scrolled through his emails as Jim studied the file.

"I don't look much like him," He said finally. "Not like this anyway."

"Of course you don't," Strickler said, mater-of-factly.

"Why not?" Jim asked with a frown.

"That is because you were conceived while he was in human form. Changelings shift from fully troll to fully human. Therefore you did not receive any of his troll "DNA"." Strickler paused. "I say use that term rather loosely in this case as trolls do not have DNA in the way that humans do."

"Then what…"

"Your troll traits are from Nomura and me."

Jim's head jerked up at that, eyes widening.

"How?"

"I believe I explained the spell to you. Because Nomura and I contributed are blood and stone respectively, the magic borrowed from our traits to create your form."

"Oh."

Jim looked down at himself with wide eyes, examining his hands and legs and twisting to look at his wings with new understanding appearing in his eyes.

"But what about the tail?" Jim asked, flexing it and immediately stiffening at the feedback.

"That would be from me. I used to have one," Strickler said.

Nomura looked at him in surprise.

"It didn't match my physiology after I was made a changeling so it was… removed." It was just as well, he supposed. With how big it was it would have been a hindrance but…

But it had not been a pleasant experience. Even after all this time he occasionally still had phantom pains.

"You shouldn't have any problems with it though," Strickler continued, banishing past memories. "You seem to have come out fairly well balanced."

He wondered if the amulet had played into that.

Jim's tail curled up into his lap and he examined it hesitantly brows furrowed.

"So I guess I'm related to you guys now?"

Strickler opened his mouth and paused. He wasn't wrong.

Nomura started cackling.

"I guess you are, Little Gynt," She said a broad toothy grin on her face. "Didn't expect you to go where Peer Gynt wouldn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll have to take you to watch the play sometime. It will make more sense that way. It's been a few years since I last saw it anyway."

"Ah."

Jim smiled slightly at that and then frowned.

"I think I'd like to go home now," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "How…" He paused a rather fearful expression crossing his face. "Can I shift back to human?"

"You should be able to," Strickler said quickly. "It was your latent shifting magic that caused all this in the first place."

"Huh. So how do I shift?"

"I'm not sure," Strickler admitted. "It comes naturally to changelings once we've been bonded to our familiars but you're a unique case."

"Oh." Jim frowned. "Would a gaggletack work?"

"A gaggletack?" Barbara echoed the unfamiliar word.

"Gaggletacks are what trolls call iron horseshoes. They can force a changeling to change form."

"Horseshoes huh?"

Barbara had a bit of a strange expression; her nose wrinkling as her brows drew together.

Strickler's attention was drawn away as Jim cleared his throat.

"So would one work?" He asked. "I mean ran around with one for a whole day and it didn't do anything before."

"It's possible that it would now," Strickler said, vaguely realizing he was starting to stray into his 'teaching voice'. "But I would be rather hesitant to rely on that because gaggletacks burn changelings."

"They what?!" Barbara exclaimed at the exact same time Jim's head jerked up to stare at him in surprise.

"I suppose shouldn't be surprised that your trainers never brought that up," Strickler said scornfully.

"Maybe they didn't know?" Jim offered.

"No. They most definitely did. It's common knowledge."

He almost went further but stopped himself. There were things the boy was not ready to hear about just yet, not today anyway. He'd been through enough.

"How about we get you home," He said instead. "It will do you good to adjust to your new form before we push you any further physically. I can get you excused from school tomorrow so you will have more time. How does that sound?"

"…okay."

The young Trollhunter rose awkwardly to his feet. The daylight armor clinked as he shifted his weight.

Strickler frowned.

"You might want to take that off," He said.

Jim glanced down at himself and sighed. He tugged at the amulet. It didn't budge.

"I'm too tense. The armor is responding to that." His tone suggested something like this had happened before.

Strickler's brows furrowed a little further. A memory surfaced of seeing Jim in the armor for the first time in the school. Was that why? It seemed an inconvenient design.

"I see."

The four of them traveled in relative silence through the remains of the Janus Order. The elevator ride proved to be twice as awkward going up as it had been coming down. Nomura was glaring at the speaker as if she was contemplating putting a sword through it. Strickler wasn't going to stop her if she tried. In fact he might have even been willing to lend her a knife.

At the cars they parted ways. Barbara and Jim returning to their house and Strickler and Nomura going to their respective apartments.

"So… How are you doing?" Barbara asked carefully once they had gotten back into the house.

She was… Well she had no idea how to feel at this point -Aside from drained- Far too much had happened. Way too much for one day.

But she wasn't the one who now had wings and horns and a tail.

Jim grimaced, leaning rather heavily on the wall as he glanced about the house.

"I'm… fine," He said after a moment.

Barbara gave him a disbelieving look.

"Jim."

His shoulders tensed slightly, his ears actually tilted down a little and the tip of his tail (and wasn't that something that was going to take some getting used too.) twitched like an agitated cat's.

"I don't know. Okay?" He said, rather sharply. There was the hint of a growl in his voice, causing her to step back. He flinched again then his wings pulled close to his back. "I don't know," He repeated again a little more quietly, hanging his head.

Barbara hesitated and then carefully came up beside him. He glanced up at her and his lower lip trembled slightly. His face was strange, he had fangs and horns now, but the expression was familiar. She'd seen it before, after a hard day at school or when Jim had taken on a little too much for his young shoulders.

Barbara wrapped her arms around him, carefully avoiding the wings, and pulled him close. He didn't resist, though he staggered slightly before readjusting his posture. He pressed his face into her neck and his shoulders jerked. The armor disappeared with a soft flash of blue. Barbara tightened her grip. She murmured soft meaningless things into his ears as he cried.

There would be time for long overdue discussions later

Author Notes:

Okay. I was supposed to end it at this point, but I think I'm going to do one more chapter to deal with the "long overdue conversations". Also I want to do a little more with Jim dealing with the changes that have been forced on him.

Also I continue to hold to the opinion that having armor that requires you to calm down to remove it is a very unhelpful design if you have panic attacks.

Hope you enjoy!

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