"Good evening, Arcadia Oaks! It's been two weeks since THAT NIGHT, y'know the one? The one we NEVER talk about, but I'm talking about it now? Yeah…Everyone has been working HARD to finish repairs on our little town; good job, everybody!" The radio presenter rattled through his headphones as Toby tirelessly pedalled his way through the slowly reconstructed streets of his hometown. If Arcadia had been accepting of the strange before, well now it was their goddamn motto.

He spared a glance into the gleaming windows of the restaurant as he turned the corner; spying Mrs Lake having family dinner inside with Aaarrrggh & Strickler, both in their troll forms. He'd been invited too, but Eli had been blowing up his phone all day with urgent but odd-sounding texts that had piqued his interest.

Besides the rebuild, not much had happened in the last fortnight which felt weird after months of magical adventures with his friends. Toby missed Jim & Claire so much! Toby shook his head, trying to rid himself of the grief he felt whenever he thought of the heartfelt goodbye a fortnight earlier and tried not to topple his bike as he merged with traffic. "Didn't I say Arcadia wouldn't be the same after the Battle of the Bands? Jean, dude! You owe me $10 man! I'm just kidding, but seriously, am I? $10 please. Seriously. Hopefully, that's the last of the weirdness here in Arcadia. Just remember folks, what REALLy happened that night is our town's LITTLE SECRET! Shhh!"

Hauling his ass up the ivy-laden trellis of the Pepperjack household was not what Toby thought he'd be doing that evening, but with the sudden slump of magic-fuelled fun that he suddenly found himself in, he had all but jumped at the chance to do something even remotely exciting. That still didn't mean he had to like it, though. "A thousand texts!" Toby shoved his phone through the window and into Eli's face as he flopped inside, showing him the numerous messages the bespectacled boy had sent him already. "You sent me like a thousand texts!"

"Steve wasn't answering my calls!" Eli weakly defended as he helped to heave the stocky boy to his feet. "I have to tell someone!"

"What? That your voice dropped? Man, I'm still waiting for mine to do that…" Toby laughed as he shoved the hands off of his shoulders and glanced about at the bedroom he found himself in. Glow-in-the-dark posters hung from the walls, most picturing movie and conspiracy posters pertaining to the 'Other'. It practically screamed 'Eli' aside from the small photo that pictured Steve & Eli in their Creep Slayerz costumes & covered in flour in what was clearly an impromptu selfie, if Steve's constipated look of surprise was anything to go by."Why's it so dark in here?"

"Focus Toby!"

"Okay! Okay! Tell me what?"

"Something that's gonna rock your world, Toby" Eli shone a torch under his chin as if to make a point. "Things in this town are not what they seem"

"Really?" Toby sarcastically replied, rolling the word around on his tongue. "Was the huge ray of light shooting up from your canals your first clue?"

"That's just the tip of the iceberg. Check it!" Eli hopped over to the roll-down poster which he moved out of the way to reveal a cork board absolutely littered with scrawled post-it notes and Kodak photos.

"Wow" Toby blinked dumbly at the board. "Dude, you've gotta get out more"

"I've been putting the pieces together for months" The torch roved from section to section, each labelled with large headers and each as chaotic as the last.

"Trolls? Sure. Wizards? Yeah, I've met a couple. Ghosts? We know some of those. Wait—aliens? So you think there are what? Aliens in Arcadia?"

"And more! People aren't who they seem, Tobes! Look!" Eli whipped out a snapshot of a pair of four-limbed aliens atop of a roof as they looked off into the distance. It wasn't the best of photos, but there was just grainy enough detail for the Trollhunter boy to recognise both genders and some facial features. Eli then moved the photo back & forth in front of the snapshot of the two exchange students, Aja & Krel, as if that would help to convince Toby. It was working, slightly.

"Okay! I get it! You think Aja & Krel are aliens"

"Aja & Krel are aliens! And if I've learnt anything from watching six seasons of EARTH INVADERS, they're not here to make friends!"

With the presentation seemingly done, Eli moved to flick the lights on leaving Toby to blink rapidly at the sudden change of light in the room. The mess of a cork board wasn't any better in the light; if anything it looked more like the thoughts of a mad man. Toby tried his hardest not to let those thoughts show, but he'd never been the best at lying. Thankfully, it seemed that Eli was far more interested with his impassioned speech.

"…I'm going to need you and your War Hammer!" Eli steamrolled on as he made his way over to the other side of the room where a large black chest set tucked into the corner. Toby thought it'd might've been an instrument case at some point. "We're gonna set traps all around Arcadia! We'll use my phone to notify us! I just downloaded an app called TRAP MY FRIENDS!"

"Whoa! Hold on! Traps? You're not planning on killing them, are you?"

"No, no! My traps are in escapable but their totally humane! Or should I say alienane?"

"…Yeah, you really shouldn't"

"We'll use candy as bait, just like in EARTH INVADERS" Eli popped the chest open to reveal his secret Halloween stash. "Aliens can't resist these Nougat Nummies"

"That's true" Toby wandered over at the sight of the candy, his eyes tracing their almost hypnotic movements. "No sentient being can resist the crunchy chocolatey goodness of a Nougat Nummy~"

"Stay focused!" Eli snatched the candy out of Toby's hands before he could touch it. "The fate of Arcadia rests in our hands! We're gonna catch those aliens!"

To be honest, Toby had stopped listening after 'Nougat Nummies' and as soon as he saw an opening, he pounced on the bespectacled boy with a wary cry on his lips. The two floundered to the floor as darkness fell, wrestling over the irresistible chocolate candy and their 'serious' conversation was soon forgotten in favour of other things.


On the other side of town, Dan sat riding shotgun in the taco truck next to Stuart as they tried to haul the Mothership out of the dugout she had fallen into. Whilst the halfa had been busy devouring a 12th century witch's soul, the Tarrons had spent the Eternal Night trying to ward off bounty hunters, saving Mother and for some reason Vex was a traitor now? Dan didn't know that big blue had it in him because he was always going on & on about his loyalty to the young Akiridion royals. There was also another blue alien who had tersely introduced herself as Lieutenant Zadra of the Taylon Phalanx, before she turned to interrogate him in much the same manner as Vex had done. Dan hadn't really paid it much thought at the time, he had been far more focused on the fact that Amity had finally met her end and sleeping off the after effects of consuming a 12th century witch.

"…Not only are we stuck on Earth, we're stuck in the middle of the stupid forest!" Krel complained for the umpteenth time that day. They'd been at it for quite a while now, and this had to be their thirtieth fruitless attempt. Fruitless, Dan thought, because there was no way Stuart's dinky little taco truck was going to be able to yank the Mothership—who was easily thrice the size—out of the dirt.

"We only need to move the Mothership a few blocks and then you can fix her. Then we can go home to Akiridion-5" Aja replied soothingly as she tugged on the iron chains connecting the two vehicles to make sure that they were secured tight. Dan wasn't sure what they were so upset about (besides Vex's traitorship, another attempt on their life and their failed attempt to vacate Earth) because his own home/lair had been utterly destroyed in the Eternal Night. Nothing had been left of Amity except for her bumper & a few family photos that he'd managed to scrounge from the wreckage.

Beside him, Stuart who had been hanging out of the window to see how the blue siblings were doing, pulled himself back inside and revved the engines whilst Dan sulked over Amity's demise. Ever since the loss of his twelve year old home & pseudo lair, the halfa had been more or less parked out on the Tarron's couch; which honestly, wasn't that different from being parked in their carport, but without Wulf's warmth by his side (the werewolf had returned to the Ghost Zone for some much needed R & R with the Reapers & his little green dog), it was far lonelier than he remembered it being.

"Oh, this is so not gonna work…" Dan braced himself in the passenger seat as the Durian revved the sputtering engine once more before kicking it into drive.

"C'me on Danny boy!" Stuart laughed gleefully as his fingers danced around the edges of the steering wheel. "Have a lil' faith!"

"Alright, then I have faith that this is not gonna work!" Dan snapped back over the tinkling of chains and groaning of the Mothership.

"More liquid propellant!" Aja called from outside, making Stuart press harder on the gas but it didn't help much. They were going nowhere, fast, until eventually the bumper was yanked free and sent flying back towards the awaiting siblings.

"Yep" Stuart sighed heartily as the two in the taco truck disembarked to find the Tarron siblings lain strewn about the ground whilst Luug played with the bumper like it was a particularly large chew toy. Dan smiled at the image as it reminded him of Cujo. "You're gonna need more horsepower than my taco truck"

"Ugh! Every bounty hunter in the galaxy knows where we are!" Krel whinged as he tossed aside a handful of rocks. "We're too exposed like this!"

"W-well, think of it like camping" Stuart tried, "It's a Summer tradition here on Earth. You roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories and sleep out under the stars!"

"Really? My camping trips were never like that" Dan mused as he watched Luug play. "Last one was pretty good though, all things considered"

"Well, I have my own tradition" Krel snarked, "It's called 'Fixing the Mothership' and it's starting to get old!"

"Arf!" Luug barked happily as he retrieved the bumper and urged them to play fetch with it.

Whilst the two elder green creatures stayed outside to play with the Tarron's dog, the two aforementioned siblings ventured inside where they soon found Lieutenant Zadra—formerly a member of the Taylon Phalanx and a leader of the Resistance—beating her fists against Mother's glitching controls in her attempt to make her work. "Ah! Hey, hey, hey! Be gentle!" Krel cried as he raced up the walkway in an effort to stop the lieutenant from further harming Mother. "That's not gonna work!"

"Nothing works on this ship since that blasted Omen tore through it!" Zadra retorted as the young princeling pushed her aside and tried to shut down the numerous pop-up windows to no avail. "I've been trying to contact the Resistance, but Mother is—"

"—Rebooting to…R-R-R-R-R—" Mother crackled before she pulled up a window of Vex's personal logs.

"Urgh!" Krel grunted in frustration as the traitor wandered across their screen. "Why do you keep looking at Vex's logs?!"

"I—I miss him" Aja softly—apologetically— admitted.

"Well I don't—"

"—Varvatos saved our lives, more than once! You should watch—"

"—No! I don't ever want to see that traitor's face again!" Krel turned his sour expression away from his sister & the personal logs flashing before him, instead catching a glimpse of their compatriots through Mother's monitor. Stuart appeared to be weeping over his broken taco truck, whilst Dan gleefully chased after Luug, throwing the bumper about like it was a stick.

"Nor do I" Zadra agreed.

"Krel—" Aja tried.

"—I have to work on the repairs" He rebuffed, not even giving a little.

"Excellent, I'll patrol the perimeter. You and your sister, stay aboard the vessel" Zadra commanded as she spun on her heel to leave.

"What?!" Aja exclaimed like the (frustrated) teenager she was. "But we need to see out friends!"

"Friends? Your human friends can't help protect you! I can. You two must stay put!"

"Kleb!" Both siblings cursed with a roll of their eyes and crossed arms.

"Besides, from what I've observed, the local life forms are rude and lack basic hygiene"

Well… Krel mused, She's not wrong.

"I caught a furry one with a mask going through our garbage"

"Wait—!" Krel confusedly exclaimed after her retreating form. "Do you mean raccoons?!"