Chapter Text
Johnny J. Worthington the Third was Fucked with a capital F.
The sound of crickets droned loudly in his ears, nearly drowning out the wail of emergency response vehicles coming from the now out-of-sight cul-de-sac. No doubt the human family of the kid he’d been trying to scare was responsible. It also meant he could kiss that route home goodbye. Unfortunate, because according to the guidelines they’d started handing out at Fear CO, your chances of getting back through a door halved when you couldn’t make it back to the same one. Not that it mattered, considering it was power outs that had prevented him from making a swift exit in the first place.
Now, he’s stuck. Stuck in the dark, in the woods, with glass in his palms and thankfully not in his eyes thanks to the nosedive he’d had to take out of a child’s bedroom window. Stuck in a world full of things that could kill him just for touching them with no way to get back to his now arguably crummy job. Effectively banished because there wasn’t enough power to keep the doors on longer than sixty damn seconds.
None of that matters right now though. He can’t magically wish a door open to transport him back his own world. What matters now is survival, for as long as possible, and staying leaning against a tree in the middle of the woods at night is a bad idea in any dimension.
“Right, shelter. Shelter, shelter, shelter.” Johnny chants under his breath, hauling himself to his feet and deeper into the woods. Absently, he notes that the sky is lightening on the horizon. Also not great, daytime meant a larger chance of running into a human, which could be deadly for any number of reasons (none of which were pleasant or desired). Unfortunately, the pickings for suitable shelter were very slim, which meant that instead of finding somewhere to hole up and pick glass out of his palms, he was forced to dodge from shadow to shadow to keep as hidden as possible in the face of the rising sun. Unfun, especially since he couldn’t put his arms to use in keeping himself low to the ground, due to glass-related issues.
Despite his cautious maneuvering, it still manages to escape Johnny entirely that he’d managed to stumble across a dry canal. …Right up until he manages to slip and go careening through the bushes directly into it. There’s no graceful way to recover during a fall like that without using one’s hands, so Johnny ended up curling up, squeezing his eyes shut, and hoping he didn’t break anything on the way down. With a thump and a disgruntled ‘ow’, his fall comes to an end in the cool, dry shadow of an overpass. Cracking an eye open, Johnny lies perfectly still, listening to see if he’d been noticed. When there’s no screams, shouts, or other exclamations of discovery, he quickly rolls to his feet and shakes off his fur; doing his best to play off the fall. A quick examination of the bottom of the canal yields…practically nothing. A few storm drains, trash, the empty rafters of the overpass, and a conspicuous pile of stones sitting in the sun.
Or, well, they would have been in the sun were the sun not currently blocked by a formidable array of clouds. Not gray ones, thankfully. Johnny was not in the mood to be wet on top of lost, bleeding, and stuck in a hostile environment. The overpass might work for shelter though. It was dark, and he couldn’t smell human (at least not fresh human), but there was a strange, kind of earthy smell that made his hackles rise as he skirted around the pile of rocks. He’d just been about to pass it fully, b-lining for the darker shade directly under the overpass, when he was half-scared out of his skin by the sound of a voice very loudly saying his name.
Johnny Worthington.
Johnny spun, hackles fully up and fight-or-flight fully engaged, looking around for whoever knew his name on this side of the doors only to find…
Nothing! Absolutely nothing. Just a large swathe of empty canal and a pile of rocks. A. Glowing. Pile of rocks. A glowing pile of rocks that was now saying his name again, apparently.
Despite all better judgement, Johnny found himself stepping closer, and closer, to the possibly-haunted rocks. Despite the fear, it honestly felt like this was something he needed to see, and if he didn’t see it, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. Still wary of his hands, he ended up awkwardly kicking at the pile of stones, trying to uncover the source of the glow. It was slow going, but by the time he finally toed aside the last obscuring rock, his fear had abated and been replaced with anticipation.
Which was why it was decidedly disappointing when his efforts paid off in the form of… an astrolabe? A fancy one, sure. Probably expensive, if it was solid silver and actually inlaid with mother-of-pearl like it appeared to be. That didn’t change the fact that it was an outdated hunk of navigation equipment. Still, it had been talking to him. Probably. So, he hesitantly reached down and picked it up, minding the abrasions in his palms. The thing was way lighter than he thought it would be, and warmer. There were some sort of runes etched along the outside, and Johnny took a second to squint at them, swearing he saw them move, before being startled from his examination by a car horn from the overpass. The sound had him skittering back, quickly, into the shadows of the overpass just as the sun saw fit to come out from its cloud cover, bathing the spot he’d occupied seconds ago in sunlight. Johnny stood still, attention on the overpass as he waited for any other commotion. When none was forthcoming, he returned his attention to the astrolabe, which now bafflingly displayed characters written in something he could read.
“For the glory of Merlin,” Johnny mumbled, turning the disk delicately between his claws, “daylight is mine to …command?”
The astrolabe chimed suddenly, the center lighting up bright blue, and Johnny could practically feel electricity in the air. Before he could think much more than ‘oh, fuck.’ the tension was suddenly and unceremoniously snapped by the sound of a new, different voice.
“Master Worthington!”
Startled once again, Johnny does the first thing that comes to mind. Whip around, lob the thing in his hands at - wait was that a monster ? - whoever had snuck up behind him and haul ass in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the opposite direction happened to be directly into the chest of another…monster? Johnny unfortunately didn’t have much time to properly contemplate that, as he’d cracked his skull very unceremoniously against this particular individual’s rock-hard sternum and promptly lost consciousness.
Still amongst the land of the living, one Blinkous Galadrigal and his mate, Aaarrrgghh, stand over their new Trollhunter’s unconscious form. Blinkous was left agog, and a bit chagrined, clutching the amulet that had been lobbed at his face moments before. Aaarrrgghh was shamefaced at having rendered their Trollhunter accidentally unconscious, and gently scooped his bleeding body off the ground and into his arms with a quiet ‘oops’.
The two trolls made eye contact, each holding the two pieces to the newest puzzle of a Trollhunter as they stood in the shade of the overpass, mere steps away from the entrance to Trollmarket. “That,” Blinkous said, “…could have gone better. Come, we should deliver our new Trollhunter to Vendel, it seems he may require a healer’s services.” With a clap of his unoccupied hands, Blinkous leads the way back to the Trollmarket door, drawing an arc with his horngazel in one smooth motion. Behind him, Aaarrrgghh hums in agreement, tilting his head. As the portal begins closing behind them, Blinkous gives a huff. “Not even a minute declared the Trollhunter and he’s already gotten himself into trouble. Things are off to a great start already.”
“Technically our fault.” Aaarrrgghh chides.
“Not the point.” Blinkous declares, right before the portal finally seals in a flash of orange light.