Ch 3

Dave for one of the many few points in his life was genuinely excited, he had kind of missed the trolls, they certainly were entertaining for the extent that they were on the meteor, and not just that, but he had been with them for a lot of time, it would be good to be able to see them. Plus it gave him an excuse to travel, which he assumed he'd been sick of considering all the moving around he had to do during the game, but whatever…

He didn't fully understand why Jade had so vigorously refused to house the trolls at first, but he had a pretty good idea why.

She, for a very large portion of her life, had no contact physically with any other living being except her dog, herself and the creatures that lived there, and her first experience outside of that was battling fucking demons in a sick twisted ass game, in which she saw a few of her friends die several times. It wasn't all that surprising that she was less than thrilled of coming in whole physical contact with people again.

Also.

Harley herself liked her alone time, she wasn't a loner, no...independent was more like it.

Dave thought of his brother briefly, his brother had always valued his privacy, but he never seemed like he had anything to hide, and when anybody tried to get too close to him he would always thwart away their attempts in a way that you didn't even realize he was avoiding you.

He grimaced, that was probably why he himself had been so unnerved by Jade and his brother for the longest time, you couldn't read them fully, if at all.

Sure Jade was goofy and a little weird, but she still had a strange way of getting around questions and changing the topic.

Dave sighed, well he was about to board this plane here, it would take him about a day to get to where Jade was, he had heard John and Rose were coming too. That would be cool, having everyone together would be a swell idea, if he hadn't known what the trolls were like.

He had to admit that there were probably too many conflicting personalities to peacefully coexist with each other for a week...or two or-how long were they staying anyways?

There was bump and a stutter before the ground began to move beneath him, the plane had started it's departure, Dave looked outside for a moment and closed his window; the sun wouldn't rise until a few hours from now, but he certainly didn't want it blinding the fuck out of him when it did decide to show it's shiny ass where there weren't any clouds to block it. Even with his sunglasses on the sun was still pretty damn bright. The blonde boy rested his head on the cushion of the seat, this was going to be a long ride if he was left to his thoughts for too long…..

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo Oo

*CRASH!*

Jade woke up with a start.

She heard a crash from below, and if she could hear it four floors up then it was probably something significant. A wide-eyed and slightly confused Jade went to see what the commotion was about it, she decided that she was going to actually walk down the stairs this time. If she had apperified down there using the transporter she could very well get injured, or caught up in whatever was going on.

She didn't hear people yelling or screaming so it probably wasn't a fight, so what was going on?

When she finally got to the fourth floor she poked her head out of the door way to see what had been going about this - SWOOOOOOSH! A robot head flew right past her own, at first she was startled and upset because she thought it had been one of her own robots, but no it looked alien, and…. it had, horns?

Grunts could be heard a few paces away, Jade walked into the room to see a very large troll, taller than herself by at least a foot, he grabbed another robot and started beating it to a pulp.

Now she was angry, whoever built that robot must have worked hard on it, she knew she did when she built her own robots. Jade stomped over to the troll and tapped him on his shoulder and made her best crossed face (which was actually just her eyes furrowed and lips tightened) and demanded that he tell her what he was doing.

The troll stared for a moment in her direction a little longer than considered normal, not to mention it was slightly unnerving considering his eyes were hidden beneath his sunglasses, then he spoke.

"I'm…..sorry to have disturbed your…slumber, but I'd appreciate it if you go back to sleep and leave me ….. alone in peace.", and then he went right back to beating up robots. Jade, confused, took a step back and tried making sense of her current situation 'did he just ask me, to leave him alone, while he's beating up random robots within my home!' she whole situation was weird and upsetting and he had no right to say what could and couldn't be done within her territory!

Jade tapped him on the shoulder again, this time, however, he took no notice to it, so she did it again, same result, and again, still no response. Finally she slapped him, across the back of the head.

Hard.

The result was not what she expected.

Jade reeled her arm back and stared down at her quickly swelling hand, 'owww, that hurt!' she dully noted.

However despite her brief moment of pain, slapping the troll did get his attention. He had turned to face her fully and had risen up to his full height, which was pretty tall. He gave her a disdainful look, similar to someone looking down at an ignorant animal, and said "I thought I had asked you….nicely, that you would return to your room to rest, and leave me be…."

"Well I mean you did and- wait! That's beside the point! You're within my home aren't you?" Jade crossly asked.

"Yes…" the troll replied flatly.

"That means you abide by my rules, not the other way around." Jade explained.

" I…uh….wait."

"Yes."

"Where do you stand on the hemospectrum here?"

"I umm….Wait, what?"

"Where do you stand on the hemospectrum on Earth?" he repeated.

"Does this even matter?" Jade asked in a slightly agitated tone.

"Yes it does."

"Why?"

"So I know whether abiding by your rules is necessary." he said matter o' factly.

"What do you mea- of course it's necessary!" Jade said in a exasperated tone.

"Oh, so you are very high on the hemospectrum then?"

"No, Yes, ugh that doesn't matter, here on Earth when you come into someone's home, no matter their status you only allowed to do what they allow, and I say no more robot beatings."

He regarded Jade for a second, but instead of the look he gave her earlier this one projected a sense of fascination and intrigue.

"How odd, human systems of operating are quite different than how they work on Alternia."

"Really?" Jade asked

"Quite." the troll replied.

"Huh, how about that."

Jade looked up at the troll and finally took a good look at his physical apperance: his shoulders were very broad and his muscles rippled every time he moved, there was a small layer of sweat that covered his arms, and she noticed that he was missing a few teeth. He was, if not anything else, and interesting person to look at, it finally dawned on her that she didn't know the troll's name.

"What do I call you?" Jade asked.

"I'm…uh….Equius." he replied.

"Well then nice to meet you." Jade said slightly cheery, and she held out her hand in greeting.

Equius looked at her hand and almost grasped it before pulling away, she was about to ask what was wrong, but there was a loud spark from across the room, which reminded Jade why she was here in the first place.

A robot laid rattled, and broken past the point of absolute repair, Equius stared at Jade uncomfortably when she had noticed the robot in the corner. He shuffled about from side to side much like a child caught in a wrongdoing, as Jade walked over to the broken machine she noticed that it's circuitry wasn't all that different from her own robots- save for the sensors added for the horns. Her anger toward Equius for beating the robot earlier had subsided, but its purpose was a question that nagged at the back of her mind.

Her first instinct was to inquiry about the reason of the robot's destruction, however she decided against it.

If Equius's shuffling about wasn't enough to deter her away then his uncomfortable looks certainly did the trick. Whatever the reason for the robot's suffering Equius obviously didn't want to go into explaining it, and Jade certainly didn't want to force him if he didn't want to.

Equius brushed past her quickly and picked up the surviving bits of his metallic victim, he excused himself and bowed in Jade's direction before disappearafying to a lower level. Jade made no immediate movements after the troll had disappeared from view, she scanned over the floor looking for a piece of the robot that maybe he had missed, but she found none.

Jade eventually did go back to her room, the sun wouldn't set for quite a few hours, but her body needed rest. On her bed she thought about the events that had transpired since the trolls had landed on her island and one word stood out in her mind: 'interesting', and it accompanied her into her dreams when she fell asleep.

A/N: So yeah another chapter

EDIT: This story won't dive into relationships until later on, if that answers anyone's questions