————<•>————
"Your that gremlin who knocked me out!"
————<•>————
I woke up to find me and Claire on the ground, my legs on top of her legs and our arms laying everywhere. I slowly sit up to see we had fell asleep during the little mermaid (a crime I know).
Suddenly, a knock on the door made Claire's eyes crack open, a disgruntled expression on her face as she pushes herself into a sitting position. She glances over to me before letting out a loud snort—apparently I looked very tired and wasn't doing a good job at hiding it.
"Shut up" I grumble to her, grabbing a pillow next to me and roughly throwing it at her face—smiling as Claire lets out an oomph!
"You girls awake? There's someone here to see you Y/n" I hear Claire's mum say as the door is slowly opened to a figure standing there.
I rub my tired eyes and let them adjust—but frown as I realise who's standing at the door.
My mum—standing there with a smile on her face and her arms open wide expecting a hug.
I stare at her with a straight face before laying back down and going back to sleep.
"Oh come on Y/n, don't be all grumpy and give me a hug" She says happily as Claire awkwardly looks between me and my mum.
"Good to see you mum" I say in a bored voice. "It's been awhile, couldn't be bothered to call?"
"I've been busy" She says with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Too busy to even ask your daughter what's going on in her life? I have had a weird week and would've liked to talk to you about it" I exclaim as I finally get up and start packing my things, knowing I'd be going home.
Although Claire's house has been my home for the past few weeks.
"Well, why don't we talk about it now" She offers making me sigh and nod my head.
"I'll see you later Claire" I say as I give her a quick hug before following my mum down the stairs.
"Thanks for having me Mr and Mrs Nunez, I appreciate it" I say as I give them quick hugs before following my mum out the door and into the car.
"So...I can shoot energy blasts out of my hands" I mutter with a shrug of my shoulders, getting my mums full attention (when it should really be on the road).
"I'm guessing you've figured your powers out" My mum says happily as I nod my head."And I'm assuming you've found out how the bracelet works"
That makes me freeze.
"M-my bracelet?" I ask as I look to the bracelet on my wrist.
"Yes, your bracelet. Oh you haven't figured that out yet have you?" My mum says with a cheeky smile.
"No, and I'm guessing your not going to tell me either" I say in a bored voice as I lean against the car seat.
"In a time of need, try saying saying 'γόησσ', it means enchantress in Greek, which is what you are" My mum says making my eyes widen.
"I'm an enchantress" I say in wonder.
"Yes" My mum laughs. "Wow, you really didn't learn as much as I hoped you would"
"Sorry, I was busy with things" I say nervously.
Just because she knows about my powers doesn't mean I'm going to tell her about the gremlins- I mean trolls. I usually would've told her but we've drifted a lot and I'd rather keep this to myself, not to mention it's not my secret to tell, it's Jim's.
"Wait. Amora's from Norse mythology? Why do I have a bracelet that works from a green command?" I ask confused.
Makes no sense why I'd speak Greek.
"That bracelet isn't Amora's. It was made by a Greek magical engineer apparently" My mum shrugs. "I really don't know the details. I've never really been interested or believed in things like this"
"Right" I mutter.
If she didn't really believe in things like this, then why did she get mad at me when I didn't?
————<•>————
When we get home, I quickly put my stuff in my room before getting changed for school. I've been meaning to talk to Jim.
I run downstairs and grab my bike before making my way to school.
"Y/n!" I hear Claire yell as I put my bike in the bike rack. "You alright? You didn't seem very happy when you left"
"Yeah, totally fine, I had a talk with my mum and I found out some stuff" I tell her with a shrug of my shoulders—the two of us walking to my locker to grab my stuff.
"Have you spoken to Jim?" Claire asks making me shake my head.
"No, I've been meaning to ask him about the whole Enrique thing" I say making her smile.
"Really? You're trying to help find Enrique" Claire asks excitedly.
"Of course, he's important to you therefore he's important to me" I say with a shrug of my shoulders before Claire throws her arms around me, almost squeezing me to death.
"Oh your the best!" Claire says making me laugh.
"I haven't done anything yet, but I promise we'll find him" I say, giving Claire's shoulder a quick squeeze before we walk into class.
I go and take my seat next to Jim and quickly scoot my chair so that it's touching Jims chair.
"So...when are we saving Claire's brother?" I question with a smirk as I lean towards him, making him nervously chuckle.
"Y/n, we can't just waltz into the darklands" Jim says as he rubs his neck.
"Why not?" I ask, fully ready to walk into the darklands, whatever that is.
"We just saved the trolls by keeping Killahead Bridge closed. Imagine what they'll do to us if they find out we want to open it." Toby says as he inputs himself into the conversation.
Jim made a small gesture towards Toby and gives me a sorry smile, hoping I understood the risk now.
I don't.
"Guys, this is Claire's brother, we can't do nothing" I sigh as I lean my cheek on my hand.
Claire's head perked up at the mention of her name, deciding to input herself into the conversation.
"And NotEnrique's driving me nuts. You know how many times I have to change him? He knows how to use the toilet. He chooses the diaper." Claire exclaims as she turns around in her seat.
"I get it. We'll get him back. We just can't risk releasing Gunmar." Jim sighs sadly making me pat his shoulder awkwardly, trying to comfort him?
"Admit it, you're going back on your word." Claire says with narrowed eyes, referring to him promising me that he'd help find Claire's brother.
"I'm not" Jim says immediately before looking at me. "I swear I'm not"
"You are" Claire says.
"He isn't Claire, he's trying" I say in defence of the stressed boy—Jim give me a small smile.
"Okay, if it makes you feel any better, Blinky said we can bring you." Jim says making me excitedly sit up.
"You mean we get to meet all the other gremlins!" I say excitedly with a huge smile on my face.
"Trolls" Jim corrects.
"To Trollmarket? Seriously? When? Are we going now?" Claire asks, just as excited as I am.
"After school. But try not to let the whole world know." Jim says making me pretend to zip my mouth closed.
"Secrets safe with us" I say while nudging my shoulder with his.
"All right, butts in seats. You too, Nunez. Since Strickler's a no-show, I'm subbin' in. We got some book-learnin' to do." Coach Lawrence says as he walks into the classroom.
Mary suddenly turns around in her seat from her spot next to Claire—looking to me with a teasing smirk that immediately puts me on edge.
"You spend so much time with Lake, you're practically swimming in him." Mary whispers to me, making me glare at her before quickly checking that Jim wasn't listening.
Thankfully, he wasn't.
"We're just friends. End of story." I whisper back.
"Okay people, who can tell me what happened in the year 1989? No, seriously, I don't remember. It was a crazy year." Coach Lawrence asks as I casually scrunch up a piece of paper and throw it at him.
Coach Lawrence's pauses as the piece of paper hits his face—taking a shaky breath in before looking towards me.
"Really, L/n?" Coach Lawrence questions me, making me shrug my shoulders with an innocent smile.
————<•>————
School went by quickly after that, mostly because all I was thinking about was being able to go to the Gremlin Market. Maybe they'll even know stuff about my powers?
We all rode our bikes to where Jim says the Gremlin place is, but all we do is stop near a bridge?
Jim, Toby, Claire and I made our way down to the Canals underneath the bridge before stopping at a wall.
This is it.
I stare at the sealed entrance of Gremlin market with excitement as Claire grips the key to this hidden world in her hand.
"You ready?" Jim questions us, making me excitedly nod my head.
"If this helps me get my brother back, yeah, I'm ready." Claire says nervously, making me reassuringly pat her shoulder.
"It'll be fine" I say, making her give me a small smile.
"Just remember, saving Enrique is our little secret. If any of them were to find out-" Jim starts to say, making me cut him off.
"Don't worry Jimbo, our lips are sealed" I say as I pretend to zip my lips up.
Toby headed over to the concrete, holding a rock and scraping against the stone wall.
"Now, you're gonna want to start drawing a semi-circle." Toby says before looking at Claire who's already done it.
Claire's always one step ahead.
"Oh! You have it. Okay, never mind." Toby says making me laugh quietly.
The palm of her hand pressed inside the semi-circle, the concrete breaking beneath her touch and a glowing blue had filled the cracks. Soon, it broke away, the split pieces disappearing and the entrance opening.
"Holy shit" I say in wonder, as I slowly start to walk towards it.
Toby and Jim followed me, the wall rebuilding itself as if nothing ever happened. We headed towards the ledge of the tall cliff, the staircase appearing from within the wall.
"The crystal staircase. This is more than I...I-I never would have-" Claire starts to say before quickly running down the stairs.
"And she's off" I say laughing, watching as Toby quickly went after her.
"Hold up a sec! We need a few ground rules here, okay? The locals are not friendly to outsiders. The first time we came here, Jim almost got killed." Toby says before huffing.
She's already gone.
"You think she heard any of that" He asks Jim and I.
"Not a word" I laugh as I look around in amazement. "This place is awesome"
"We haven't even gotten to Trollmarket yet" Jim laughs.
We continue to walk down the stairs before we finally make it.
"Welcome to Heartstone Trollmarket." Jim says, as we finally catch up to Claire.
"This is so cool!" I say as I grab Jim's hand and pull him around.
Trolls were walking around us, stalls set up around the edges and lights of all different colours lit the room.
"I want to live here! Can I live here?" I ask as Claire nods excitedly while jumping around.
"Mm, yeah, no, I don't think so. I don't think that's a good id-" Jim starts to say, but I pay no attention as I race through the market.
Trolls gasped, watching me look through the market. Not caring what the trolls were doing, I inspected every little shop, shocking nearby trolls.
"Is that a flesh bag?" A troll asks another one, as I roll my eyes.
"These Trolls are so rude" I say to Jim as he finally catches up to me. "What are the rules again? I don't want to do anything that'll make them put me in jail again, jail is not fun"
"You've been to jail?" Jim exclaims making me laugh.
"Once...in monopoly, don't recommend" I say with a smirk as he rolls his eyes at me.
I suddenly crash into a really hard body making me fall back a bit before Jim catches me.
"Hey! Watch where your goi-" I start as I rub my head before stopping as I see who I bumped into.
Him.
"Hey! Are you the gremlin who knocked me out!" I exclaim as I point my finger at him.
"Troll" Jim corrects me. "And no, that was Draal. This is-"
"Aaarrrgghh" It grunts making me raise an eyebrow.
"Oh. Hi" I say with an awkward wave.
"Well, if it isn't the fair Y/n. We've been expecting you" The other gremlin says as I look at him with wide eyes.
"How do you know my name?" I ask as Jim's eyes suddenly widen.
"Why, master Jim never shuts up about you!" It says excitedly as Jim groans and rubs his face—but I smile widely at the news.
"Really?" I ask with a smirk, looking towards an embarrassed Jim. "I didn't realise I interested you so much Jimbo"
"Surprised you didn't know." A voice says, making me turn around to see Claire.
I then look back to the the gremlin and my eyes widen at the realisation.
"You must be Blinkous Galadrigal. Jim told me you helped him face Draal and slay Bular. And that Vespa! Best birthday gift ever, apparently" I laugh as I shake Jim excitedly.
"Your wisdom must rival that of the Venerable Bedehilde" Claire says making Blinky's eyes widen.
"You've read A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore?" Blinky says excitedly.
"Y/n made us research before we came here" Claire says as she throws her arm around my shoulder, as Jim looks at me with a smile. "Volumes one through forty seven. It took me a while to decipher the symbols. But once I got past the Fifth Declension, I started to get the hang of it."
"They read the book! They read the book!" Blinky exclaims excitedly as he grabs me and Claire, jumping around with us.
We laugh before me and Claire decide to adventure more.
"Bagdwella's Fine Gifts! Is that where Toby adopted the gnome? What's a Rotgut's? Is it food? Oh, is that the Troll Pub?" I ask excitedly before turning to my friends chasing after me and Claire.
Claire grabs my arm and drags us to a pub. We look inside and see a troll sitting by himself at a table.
"Mind if we join you?" I say with a smile, making him turn around and spit out his drink at the sight of us.
Damn, I cant be that horrible to look at.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" I ask, while rubbing my hands over my face.
"You're Vendel, aren't you? Claire Nunez and this is Y/n L/n. We are so humbled you've accepted us, the first human females in Trollmarket" Claire says formerly while holding her hand out to shake.
"No!" He suddenly yells, making me and Claire raise an eyebrow.
He does not seem happy to see us.
"I accepted a human Trollhunter and allowed the pudgy one to stay for moral support." He starts to say. "But this? Two females? It's an infestation!" He yells making me narrow my eyes at him.
Infestation? There's two of us!
"Vendel, I, um I can ex-" Jim starts but me and Claire cut him off.
We start speaking troll. We had learnt some phrases from NotEnrique, more complicated then I thought it would be, but manageable.
Claire definitely knows more than me, but a few phrases seems to be all it needed for Vendels eyes to light up in delight.
"They speak Troll. And Trollmarket is honored to have you as well. Oh, Blinkous! If only the amulet had chosen such learned and delightful fleshbags like these two ladies" He says excitedly—gaining a laugh from Claire and I.
"Hey!" Jim exclaims in an offended voice.
"You speak troll!" Toby asks us after Vendel left.
"Yeah. NotEnrique's been tutoring us" Claire says happily.
"We don't know much, but we're learning" I shrug.
"That was awesome!" Jim says excitedly as he gave us both a high five. "Vendel loves you and he hates everyone!" Jim says, not being able to comprehend it.
"We're likeable people" I say with a shrug of my shoulders.
"Mr. Blinky, Trollmarket is amazing and there are so many cool things. But if it's okay, there's one thing I have to see." Claire says.
————<•>————
The team stepped up to a revolving door, Claire watching it with her heart slowly breaking.
Aaarrrgghh stepped up, placing his hand on the sensor and the carvings were filled with a golden color. The gears above the door began to spin as the door dropped into the floor, followed by the next one, and the next.
Aaarrrgghh walked in with a stoic face as I looked at Jim's awaiting hand, grabbing it and smiling at Jims shocked face.
They all followed Aaarrrgghh into the tunnel, a single spotlight falling onto the pieces of the bridge.
"The bridge" Aaarrrgghh says as Claire dropped down onto the eye stone, making me tightly squeeze Jim's hand.
"More specific what used to be Killahead Bridge. Every piece accounted for, even the Eye Stone. Hopefully, this will give the girl some closure." Blinky says.
Let's hope.
"She does understand why we cannot allow the bridge to open?" Blinkys asks.
"She just misses her brother" I say quietly as Jim's squeezes my hand.
"Well, you said it yourself. We'd be fools to open the bridge and risk letting Gunmar out." Toby says as Claire touches the stone sadly.
All I want to do is give Claire a hug.
"Right, Jim?" Toby says as he nudges the boy, causing his eyes to stray away from me.
"Oh, of course. We'd be crazy to do that." He says with a small frown.
Claire gently kissed the stone and wiped her eyes before standing and walking back to her friends.
"Thank you for giving me that" Claire says as I let go of Jim's hand to instead hold Claire's—bringing the girl into a much needed hug.
"Young Tobias, would you be so kind as to give Miss Claire and Y/n the rest of the tour? I need to share a word with our Trollhunter" Blinky says.
We started walking towards a stream of lava, walking on a thin path of rocks. Aaarrrgghh, Toby, Claire and I were heading to the Hero's Forge.
"Prepare yourself for the Sacred Grounds, where Trollhunters are broken and remade into warriors. The Hero's Forge!" Toby says.
"All this for one trollhunter?" Claire asks as she looks around the large room.
"I mean, I train here, too, when we need to up our game, get ripped, maximize our squat cores. You know, hero stuff." Toby says while attempting to flex his muscles.
"Whoa! Is that Draal? Kanjigar's son?" Claire says as we catch sight of a troll making a statue.
"In the flesh- stone. Stone flesh." Toby says as we walk towards Draal.
"What's that statue he's making?" I question.
"I do not make statues" He says harshly. "This is my father"
"Took a while to track down all his remains." Toby says casually as my eyes widen.
I was going to question Draal—now knowing that he was the one who knocked me out—but I'd feel horrible doing it when he's putting together the pieces of his dead father.
"Hate to be there when we have to rebuild Jim, right? What a mess" Toby says before grimacing at himself. "Well, I just grossed myself out"
"You fight in an arena surrounded by the remains of dead Trollhunters? That is the most heroic thing I've ever seen. Can we turn it on?" Claire asks excitedly.
"Maybe now's not the best time" Toby says.
"It'll be fine" I wave off.
Toby glances between the two of us before sighing in defeat. He turns the fighting arena thing on and immediately chaos.
Axes start swinging and I quickly jump at Claire, pushing her out of the way of a swinging axe and causing us both to roughly fall to the ground
"Oh no!" Toby yells as he attempts to dodge them.
"I got ya!" I say as I raise my hand, F/c energy surrounding the axe, stopping the axe mid swing, giving Toby enough time to move out of the way.
Suddenly the platforms starting moving, and soon all three of us were separated.
This is definitely not fine.
I quickly jump out of the way as an axe comes swinging at me, making me land roughly on the ground.
"Y/n!" Jim yells making me give him a thumbs up.
"I'm fine! Help them!" I say, pointing to Toby and Claire who were not fine.
The platform that I'm on suddenly began to tilt, causing me to climb up it and hang off the edge as an axe swings by.
"Okay! Help! I need help now!" I yell as I hang on for dear life.
"I'm coming! Just hold on!" Jim yells while running over.
"What do you think I'm doing!" I yell back.
I was beginning to slip. Fortunately, Jim had made it to his destination, stabbing the stone with his sword and using it as a stool to reach the mouth of the carved Troll head. He looked at the teeth that rotated viciously and without thinking, shoved his hands inside.
The gears below me were grinding and I had lost my grip on one hand. Jim kept working with the Soothscyer, shoving himself almost inside. I gasped as my hand was about to slip while up above, Jim's eyes grew as the teeth had stilled and the machine died.
My grip finally faltered, plummeting me to a painful death, however, Jim had shut it off in time, the platforms straightening out and stopped me, instead sliding me down to the ground.
The gears stopped turning and the axes stopped swinging. Once the arena went back to its normal position, the gang ran to me and helped me stand.
"Is this normal!" Claire asks as she holds onto my hand tightly.
"Nothing's normal around here. Get used to it, sister." Toby says.
Above, the six eyes of the Soothscyer began to glow, the blinding light catching everyone's attention.
"Uh, is that normal?" I ask, pointing to the glowing light.
"It's calling to him, at last" Blinky says, proud of the moment.
The light was too bright, causing me and everyone else to shield our eyes, a ringing noise occurring as well. Jim went eye wide before screaming as he was sucked inside the machine.
The light and ringing dying down. When we all looked where Jim was last standing, we saw no one.
What the fu-
"Jim? Jim? Jim?" Toby's starts to yell.
"No Jim." Aaarrrgghh grunts.
"What do you mean, no Jim? He was just there!" I exclaim frantically.
"There was definitely a Jim" Claire says.
"He has been summoned" Blinky says with a smile.
"Summoned? To where? For how long?" I ask with wide eyes.
"Patience" Blinky tells me.
I realise that neither of them are stressing, so I probably shouldn't as well. I sigh and flop down on the ground, deciding that patiently waiting would be better than pacing and stressing.
Turns out, waiting takes forever.
"What do you mean, he's in the Void? The Void sounds like a very empty word. A bad word." Claire says to Blinky, after he explained where Jim was.
"Yeah. And are these happy ghosts we're talking about here, or soul-sucking poltergeists?" Toby asks.
"They will not suck his soul. They will merely peer into it. He is now under the spiritual guidance of Master Trollhunters." Blinky says.
"Peering into his soul? Yes, because that sounds so much better!" I exclaim from the floor.
"Ghost guidance counselors? Jim gets all the cool stuff." Toby says with a hint of jealousy.
Suddenly, blue poured from the cracks in the floor, causing Toby and Claire to back up, Jim's body appearing from the blue smoke, his fists balled as he groaned. Finally free from the void, Jim fell to the ground, his butt landing on the ground.
"Jim!" I yell as I jump up from the ground and throw my arms around him.
"Hey! You're back from the other side, dude!" Toby says happily.
"Wow! So trolls and ghosts exist. What's next? A Midsummer Night's Dream? Fairies?" Claire says with laugh.
"If there's fairies then I want to see them!" I say as I pull away from Jim a bit, instead having Jim's arm around my shoulders.
"Fairies? Preposterous! Fairies lost the war to the pixies centuries ago." Blinky says with a roll of his eyes making my eyes widen.
"Holy shit" I mumble, making Jim quietly laugh.
"What did they say?" Blinky asks Jim eagerly.
"They said they won't stop us." Jim says.
"What would my father stop you from?" Draal asks.
"From going into the Darklands. But if we're going in, they said the only way we're getting out alive is if we kill Gunmar. And with Strickler gone, maybe we have a chance." Jim says, making me smile.
"There's a chance" I mumble as Claire and I share a hopeful smile.
————<•>————
Authors note:
Now that Im into the episodes where Claire knows, there's now so much more to write and it's so difficult ugh
I suck at fight scenes so I'm sorry if they are kind of boring, but I'm trying!
I don't really like this chapter but I hope you enjoyed it!