A Trollhunter turned King

Oh no

Jim was in an unusually good mood, but Toby wasn't about to complain. biking to school, Jim was popping wheelies and taking his hand off the handle bars. challenging Toby to small races here and there with a big smile on his face. Toby accepted the challenges with pleasure. with all the trollhunter training, he actually had a fighting chance and most of the races either ended in close calls or ties.

Jim was so happy he wasn't the only one to remember the future. Nari had said 'only trollhunter will know' but that was obviously not true. unless it meant the trollhunter'S'. they had proven over and over again that, even if they didn't have the amulet, they were all trollhunters. Maybe the amulet only had the trollhunters memories, as Jim originally thought it was the whole world's memories. that would have been a pain.

skidding to a stop as they both made it to the school yard, they both walked inside, panting and laughing. Steve hadn't given them any problems since the incident but he did side eye them any chance he could. surprisingly, neither had Strickler. which Jim thought was weird but if the blood thirsty changeling wasn't after his head, Jim was ok with it. although he knew the crazy man was plotting something.

school was uneventful, as was rehearsal, but Jim did start to think about how he could give Claire her memories back. packing up after their teacher said they were free to go, he tried to recall how he was feeling when Douxie got his memories back. Just hearing Douxie say he saw Jim as a good friend, even though he was a complete stranger to the wizard, emotions flooded him and memories of good times came to him, he could only assume that those same memories came to Douxie and that triggered them to return. Maybe if Jim was able to trigger something in Claire's memories then she would get them all back.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he walked over to her and fell into an easy conversation as usual. Her parents weren't picking her up today and Jim offered to walk her home. She gladly accepted, it also gave him more alone time with her to try and rejog her memories. As they were walking, they talked about random things, just chatting. Jim was trying every possible trigger he could think of to get any response that she remembered something. Not a whole lot of things were working.

Getting to the suburbs of the city, not a lot of people were out and the canal bridges that split the main city to the housing developments were very secluded.

As soon as they got halfway over the bridge, Jim's hackles stood on end. As he stopped in his tracks to look around frantically, all joy in his face, replaced with seriousness. Claire paused, noticing that his footsteps no longer followed hers, and she looked at him in concern.

"Jim? What's wrong, are you ok?" She questioned, it took her a second to realize he was stopped, so they were a good few feet apart. Jim went into protection mode and closed the space between them quickly while still keeping his eyes out for anything.

"Uh. . . Yeah, yeah I'm ok. Just thought I heard something." He replied, trying not to make her panic. He gently grabbed her arm and tried to push her to the other side of the bridge. But to her, he was still acting weird, so she didn't let Jim guide her across. Claire Broke out of his grip and stood her ground.

"No. You're acting weird. What's wrong?" She said sternly. Jim stopped looking around and stared at her in shock. He hadn't heard her sound mad in a while. Right as he was about to respond, he caught sight of a winged creature diving right for them, and fast. Jim was barely able to tackle her out of the way before that thing collided with the bridge's surface. Jim twisted so that he took the blunt of the fall as to protect Claire. He quickly but carefully put her down as he got in between her and whatever was attacking them. He may be human currently, but his troll instincts were far from silent.

As the dust cleared, Jim realized who the creature was. Strickler stood at his full troll height with his wings spread out. Claire saw him and screamed. Jim was just about to tell Claire to run home before he realized that Strickler stood in between them and their homes.