Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Good mooorning, Arcadia Oaks! You're listenin' to TOA 122.3, playin' the hottest hits out there today! We've got some new songs coming up to start your morning, and..."

He had vaguely tuned out the radio broadcast, a little girl's voice starting to hum along to the next chart-topping hit the station was going to play as the car was pulling up to the school now, giving him an actual look at it since he'd heard about it weeks prior.

It looked like something out of a 70's-based concept art, boxy, but bright in large part due to the glass reflecting from the large building on the right, which he assumed was the gym, and the other one to its left, which was small but wide enough to be a cafeteria. Even so, the red and white paint job, even the sign displaying the name of the school, didn't deceive him to the fact that Arcadia Oaks High was just another high school with a similar layout to other high schools in California.

"We're here, Jamie," an older woman's voice announced, turning his attention away from the school back to the driver beside him.

Glancing to the driver's seat, the young boy, Jamie, could see the driver, dressed in her blue blazer and slacks, her brown hair the same color as his own tied back into a ponytail, looking right at him with bright green eyes behind her spectacles. The look she was giving him was a encouraging one, but unbeknownst to him at that time, it was one hiding underlying concern and worry. One whose focus was elsewhere and distant.

"You ready?" she asked, smiling despite whatever she was feeling.

Jamie returned the smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yep." He twisted his head to look over his shoulder, reaching out to the little six-year-old sitting in the back to ruffle her hair as she was about to sing the next chorus to the song playing on the radio. "Have a good day, yeah?"

His little sister shook her head to get his hand off, giggling as she tried and failed to give him her best pout.

His mom returned a similar gesture, leaning over to him the same time he did, both briefly pecking each other on the cheek. "You have a good day, too, mister. It's your first day of school."

"I know," he assured, stepping out of the sedan as he tugged his backpack with him. "I will. Be safe at work."

Jamie's mother rolled the window down, smiling one last time as she cried, "I'll be here to pick you up after school!" With that, she waved at her son one last time before she safely drove off, paying heed to the rules of the road as more cars started to stop by the school's front yard.

Jamie kept his smile up as he waved at them, keeping his eyes on the departing vehicle until it finally turned a corner and left his sight. It was then that the teen let the anxiety and trepidation take some semblance of expression on his face, looking at his new school with unease, internally realizing how intimidating it looked now that he was standing before it fully.

It would have been one thing because this was high school. But this wasn't just any high school. It was a high school from a town he wasn't from. A kid from Burgess, Pennsylvania now found himself among the high school class in Arcadia Oaks, California. That was a twofer in that it was a new school, and he was the new kid.

Taking in a deep breath, fourteen-year-old Jamieson Bennett - 'Jamie,' to his friends - began trudging along, letting an exhale of breath as his eyes fell on his black jeans and red sneakers, before glancing back up to face the new day head on.

*-*-*

As he walked through the entrance corridor, Jamie spotted his reflection on the glass of two handle-less doors. Looking back at him was a mirror image of him with the same brown short-length hair and brown eyes that belonged to his father, the BRB Brand jacket he was wearing over his white t-shirt, the sleeves rolled up before his elbows, hands on the pockets of said jacket. The brand was called BRB, but often he would joke with himself that it was called that because the jacket was colored from the shoulders a dark shade of blue, cut off by a line of red in the middle, and the rest of it was a lighter shade of blue. Similar to that winter jacket he'd worn all those years ago, back when...

The jacket was kind of loose, he realized, prompting Jamie to readjust it before going back to what he was doing.

In short order, he managed to walk around the school, memorizing what he could of the layout. The oldest Bennett boy was also making extra sure to know where his classes would be, coming up with multiple paths and scenarios he was going to use to get to them. After all, there was only 6 minutes between classes, barring lunch. Jamie was able to do all of that, but saved finding his first class of the day, Geometry, for last in favor of finding his own locker.

It was when he wrote down the locker number, mentally familiarizing himself with its position and any other landmarks, that the first bell to get to class rang throughout the campus, causing his eyes to go wide with surprise and dread. Yanking his smartphone out of his pocket, Bennett's face turned pale upon noticing that there were six minutes left until class started.

However, any reaction to this on his part, be it verbal or physical, was cut off as another voice right next to him cheered out, "Told you we'd make it in time, Tobes!"

Yanking the locker next to him open, Jamie watched as another boy around his age proceeded to shove the locker next to him open. He had blue eyes and short dark hair almost the same length as his own. With a slim build, he wore a blue zip-up jacket, the sleeves also rolled up to his elbows, with a white shirt underneath like his own. Unlike Jamie, however, this boy had a pair of blue jeans, and a pair of blue and white sneakers.

As he practically threw some books, journals, and supplies into the locker, another boy, shorter and more chubbier, hustled right next to him, out of breath, shakily reaching out open his own locker as his green eyes found it, his other hand resting his on his left knee. He had ginger hair with a hairstyle that had his bangs swept to the side, the ends of his hair curling in the end. It honestly looked like something out of the 70's, which explained the rest of his attire, consisting of a red diamond-patterned sweater vest over a yellow and orange button-up shirt, the brown pants, and white pair of shoes being the closest thing that could be considered 'modern' about the outfit.

Wheezing, allowing Jamie to glance the braces on the other lad's teeth, 'Tobes' whimpered, "Yeah... But maybe... Maybe next time we can just go through the... the canal when we're really late, Jimbo?"

'Jimbo' merely laughed it off. "C'mon, Toby, where's your sense of adventure? Besides, we made it in time, right?"

"Yeah. In time for the Geo teacher to chew us to pieces for being in late on the first day! Only thing we don't know if it's gonna be in rectangles, or squares, Jim!"

"Yeah, you're right," the other boy, Jim, agreed. "Let's hurry up. Class is this way, if I remember Orientation right!"

It was true, there had been an event prior to the new school year for freshmen to familiarize themselves with Arcadia Oaks High. Unfortunately, Jamie and his family had been unable to attend due to... personal problems. Hence why he was trying to quickly get the lay of the land right before classes started.

Still, if those guys' comments about 'Geo' and shape puns were anything to go by...

"H-hey, Geo? As in Geometry?! Hey, can you wait for me?!" he cried, running after them as they had already sped off.

*-*-*

Fortunately, the Geometry class they were running to beat the bell for was indeed the same one that was the first period in Jamie's class schedule. Mostly just finding someplace to sit down, the rest of the session was just the teacher introducing themselves, as well as going over the syllabus for the class' curriculum.

This went on for the rest of the school day, all of the teachers introducing their course, and going over a rough outline of what subjects they would be going over for each quarter. Jamie vaguely paid attention to most of those explanations, simply trying to survive the day and get home in short order.

Bennett did, however, keep a close eye on most of his classmates, however, wondering who, if any, were going to be sharing classes with him. And sure enough, there were several, including those two kids from this morning, Jimbo and Tobes.

Another one that had caught his attention, albeit he mostly kept this to himself, was a girl who happened to have all his classes. She was an Asian-American teenage girl, and was very pretty, with long black hair, and pink eyeshadow over eyelids. She was wearing a striped blue shirt, and had a pair of khakis and black flats.

Other than them, though, he didn't bother to pay attention to the other students in his class, figuring he'd get to know them as the year went on.

Jamie was secretly glad that they weren't really doing any assignments for the first day. In truth, he was eager to get home as soon as possible.

That where he felt he was more needed, after all.

*-*-*

"So nothing really happened, then?" his mom asked as they walked in through the door, Sophie, his little sister, dashing through with her arms wide, her blonde pigtails trailing behind her in her school uniform.

"Just introductions, and all that. Just like in middle school," Jamie answered, hefting his bag over his right shoulder, taking an extra second to wipe the soles of his shoes on the welcome mat before walking in. "Nothing too exciting."

"Any new friends?"

"Nah. C'mon, Mom, it's the first day," he shrugged off.

"A lot of kids make friends on the first day. Just ask Sophie."

"I would if she could sit still for a second," he snarked.

"Hey, Jam-Jam!" a new older voice called from the kitchen, garnering his and his mother's attention.

Looking up, the teenage boy grinned as he spotted a grinning, elderly dark-skinned man with grey hair, his graying bushy eyebrows high, and brown eyes alight with joy as he wore an apron over his dark grey shirt with light grey stripes and black trousers.

"Pop-Pop!" Jamie greeted with a genuine smile, rushing over to hug his Grandpa Phil Rockefeller, also relishing the scent of meats and fried veggies, making him eagerly start to look forward to dinner.

"Hey, Dad," Jamie's mom greeted, making her way to hug him next, and kiss him on the cheek. "Smells good! What're we having?"

"Medium rare steak with creamed green beans. Still got some time before they're ready though," he revealed, walking over to the stove to flip a steak over on the frying pan.

"Okay. Let me go get changed out of this monkey suit and I'll help out. And mind your hearing aid! We don't want you to drop it like last time!"

"Nah, nah, I got it, Rachie! I know what I'm doin'!" Grandpa Phil waved off, before looking over his shoulders. "Say, where's Lil' Sophie? Didn't you pick them both up?"

"I did. Probably went to go see Mom first."

Jamie heard this as he ascended the stairs to second floor, chancing a glance of pictures from his mother's life, spotting a full family portrait consisting of his mom as a teen, Grandpa Phil, another girl next to his mom, this one dark-skinned, and another older woman, this one clear-skinned.

"...and they put is into groups, And then they had us draw a picture of what we wanted to do when we grow up, or if we wanted to draw anything we want. I drew a bunny, and the teacher said she really liked it! And...!"

Jamie made it to the top pf the stairway, taking a short turn to his left to lean on the doorway to his grandparents' room. There he saw his baby sister Sophie regaling his Grandma Hope with stories of how her first day of school went. The older woman smiled as she nodded, listening as best she could, not letting the oxygen machine's noise keep her from being the audience for her granddaughter's little show.

He, for his own part, could wait as long as he wanted to make his own story heard, regardless of how bleak and boring it was. Just as long as Grandma was okay, then he was okay.

*-*-*

Feeling pretty full from that dinner, Jamieson laid back on his bed with his arms behind his back, having discarded his sweater to the side in favor of listening to the music on his smartphone.

It had taken him a bit of a while, but now he finally felt that this room well and truly his, having added his own spin to it with posters of his favorite book series, some Gun Robot vintage posters, and other smaller collectibles he owned. A lot of it collectibles he had made by hand.

This was his home for the past two months and a half. Ever since his Aunt Priscilla passed away suddenly from an undisclosed organ failure. Her passing had been abrupt and sudden, catching everyone by surprise. It had certainly panicked his mother, especially since Aunt Priscilla had been the sole caretaker for his grandparents. His mother had opted to transfer to a curator job from Burgess to California, where his grandparents' had been living ever since he'd been born.

At first, Grandpa Phil waved it off, saying they could handle themselves just fine. Then, unfortunately... Grandma's health taken a downward spiral. And seeing that there was nobody else on his mother's side left, not to mention his father's...

It had been hard to say goodbye to everyone, and he'd been able to keep up with them on social media. But there was distance now, and they were far, far away from where he was. Now he was here in Arcadia, alone, none of his old friends in sight.

TAP-TAP. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP.

Well... not all of them.

A wide grin growing on his face, Jamie removed his headphones, sitting up to look over at the window. Sure enough, there, sitting on the window sill, was a tall, slim teenager who, at first glance, looked to be only a few years older than him. Almost everything about him stood out, from the pale white hair the color of winter snow, to the striking, piercing blue eyes, and the unnatural pale hue of his otherwise clear skin. The young man was wearing a blue hooded sweater, but oddly - or at least odd to those who didn't know him - had frost lining around the ring of his collar, as well as the cuffs of his sleeves. On his legs were a pair of brown trousers bound with lighter wrappings around his feet, bare to the toes, frost lining the tattered cuffs on the pair.

Leaning over his shoulder, to add to the list of oddities about him, was a long, wooden staff with a G-shaped arch; a shepherd's crook, one would think. If one looked closely, however, they would see that where this boy made contact with the staff, the area where it touched would frost over, glowing slightly with something that could only be magic.

Hopping over to the window, Jamie lifted it open, prompting the youth on the other side turn his head over to him, giving him a relaxed smile whilst raising his right eyebrow.

"...Why the long face?" the older boy asked. "What, don't tell me your first day of school was that bad?"

Jamie's expression fell slightly. "You know why."

At that, the white-haired boy's expression fell to one of concern. "Wait, did something happen while I was gone?"

The brown-haired teen shook his head. "No, nothing new, thank heavens. Just... It's still hanging over our heads, you know?"

"Oh, I see." The taller teen stood up to his full height, gesturing for Jamie to move to the side. The younger boy did so, watching as the other boy swung himself through the opening, landing on his feet before snatching back his staff from the outside.

"Seems to me, then, that it's not just the ailing relative that's troubling you, kiddo," he observed as he plopped down on the youth's bed. "C'mon, Jamie, hit me with it. Tell Uncle Jackie what's botherin' ya."

Jamie gave him a skeptical smirk. "You're not my uncle. You're Jack Frost."

The older teen - the Spirit of Winter and Guardian of Fun, Jackson Overland Frost, or simply Jack Frost as he was more commonly known by - merely shrugged. "Po-ta-to, po-tah-to. I'm still your friend, aren't I? And friends hear each other out. Listen to their woes, and all that good sentimental jazz."

Keeping his eyebrow raised, Jamie prodded further. "Sure about that? Don't have anywhere else to be that needs a good snow day-"

He was cut off as a snowflake nipped his nose mid-question. Jack was giving him his own sassy expression, countering, "How many times I gotta tell ya, kid? I got nothing but time."

The oldest Bennett sibling kept his wary expression for a few seconds more before it fell into a smile. Then he hopped onto the bed, laying on his back as Jack joined him a second later, arms crossed behind his head.

"Alright, then. Well..."

*~*~*

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"Is that what it felt like for you all those years?"

Jack kept his eyes on the ceiling, but still found himself confused by Jamie's question, asking further, "What do you mean?"

"Like... Like you were just a space just standing there. And it felt like you were just separate and absent from everyone?"

"...Sometimes I did, yeah."

"See? That's what it feels like now. Like there's this space where she's meant to be, but now... it's empty. That's what it feels like."

"I see..."

Jack and Jamie were both laying side to side on Jamie's bed, just like they had back during Jamie's first day of school. It was about to be summer soon, and normally kids Jamie's age would be out getting ready to enjoy summer break.

But it was kind of hard for him to do so now, seeing as only two days before, his grandmother had passed away.

"How's your mom holding up? Sophie?"

"About as good as you'd expect for a kid her age. I was there when Mom broke the news." Jamie sniffled, wiping his nose roughly with his sleeve. "It took her a whole two seconds to process it before she ran off to her room. Mom went after her." He shrugged. "She was okay after Mom spoke to her. As good as she could be."

"Mom... She's really hurting, but... She's very strong. I didn't fully realize that until now," he admitted, and Jack reached out to rub the boy's shoulder reassuringly, noticing tears beginning to well up in the boys eyes. "It didn't hit me until the first night. When they told Sophie, I was trying to hold it in, keep a straight face. But when it was just me alone, with my thoughts... I understood. She's gone. And now I have no more grandmas. And it really, really, really sucks. So I went to my mom to try and make sense of it... and..."

Jamie closed his eyes, his face scrunching as tears began to roll down the sides of his face. Frost quickly took this as a cue to sit up, ushering Jamie along with him, where he gave him a reassuring one m-armed hug, his face dipping in sorrow for his friend.

"Mom... Mom told me that it was sad that Grandma was gone. That it's okay for us to be sad..." he whispered. "She told me to feel what I feel today, but the next, she wanted me to be strong. To be strong for Sophie, for Pop-Pop... And for her. Because she said that when I'm strong, that makes her strong."

Jack nodded. "Makes sense."

Both of them remained silent, staring out the window. It was actually quite a beautiful day out, despite the rightfully dour atmosphere of the Rockefeller household. Even so, it was still and quiet. And sometimes it was what was needed in a time of mourning.

Jamieson sniffled again, rubbing his eyes with his sleeves before speaking up once more. "It was a nice funeral, though. Grandma's friends came. Some of Mom's workers, even Sophie's friends."

"Any of your friends show up?"

It was here where the young brunette scoffed, bitterly remarking. "What friends?"

Jack Frost's face fell into confusion, underlined with concern as he alarmedly asked, "Wait, you still haven't made any new friends?"

"Nope. Don't really feel like it right now, either."

"Okay, wait up," the winter spirit cut off. "What about that one girl you're seeing? What was her name-"

"She broke it off with me, actually..." Jamie let out a sardonic chuckle, shaking his head.

"Hold up, you guys broke up?! Since when?!"

The teen gave him a look, before glancing back over his head.

In the direction of his grandmother's old room.

"...Oh, you've gotta be kidding me! She broke up with you on the day she...?!"

Jamie nodded. "Wouldn't you know it..."

"That's...!" Jack sputtered, shaking his head, trying to make since of this, and failing. "That's messed up!"

"To be fair, she didn't know when she broke it off. She found out a minute after."

"Still, that's...!"

"Yeah..."

Frost was now fuming, jaw setting as he angrily paced by the window, furious at just how badly his friend had been treated, having his feelings bashed. Like kicking a dog while he was down. Letting out a harsh exhale of hot air - as hot as it could be for a being that emitted subzero temperatures - through his nostrils, Jack shook his head, regaining his footing, and recalling why he was there, and what he was supposed to be doing.

"Okay, look, forget about her. Forget about all that nonsense. Bottom line is you don't have any friends? Not even close acquaintance that you can bump up to friend level?"

"I didn't think we were staying here forever!" Jamie blurted out, running a hand down his roughly.

"Dude, you guys sold your old house!"

"We could've rented an apartment!"

"Oh, c'mon...!"

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

Both boys froze up as they turned their attention to the door to the room.

"Jamie, is everything okay? I can hear you screaming from the living room downstairs!" Mrs. Bennett questioned from outside the door.

Jack and Jamie shared a glance, before the younger teen answered his mother. "Uh, sorry! Just on a phone call with my friend Jack! Kinda getting heated, talking about politics. But nothing too bad! S'all good!"

There was a pause where nothing was heard, but then Mrs. Bennett spoke up again. "Alright, just making sure you're okay. Let me know if you need anything." They waited patiently for the resounding footsteps going down the stair way to go away before both letting out a sigh of relief.

"Alright... The last few days have been crazy, so I'll get off your back about that," Jack started.

Jamie let out a grateful nod. "Thank you."

"...But I will say one last thing."

Which turned into an eyeroll. "Of course."

"Oh, just listen will ya?" Jack cut off, placing his staff on the windowsill, before leaning against it. He crossed his arms, closing his eyes in thought, frowning pensively over how best to put what he wanted to say.

"Okay..." the Guardian began, "So, you know how I was alone for 300 years, right?"

"Right..."

"Yeah, well... That sucked. Like... a lot."

"I can imagine."

"Now the thing about that was, I didn't really have a choice. Or rather, I didn't really know what options I had at my disposal. Now, I'll admit that that's partially my fault, 'cuz I was too busy being bitter about it that I hadn't bother to ask what else I could do," he admitted.

"But, at the same time, I really would've liked for someone to have told me something, too, y'know? To tell me I wasn't alone, and that I had someone to rely on. A friend," he revealed, a pang of sorrow overcoming his gut as his brows dipped sadly. "And now that you're here, I don't want you to feel like I did, alright? You've got people that have your back, and can rely on."

"But I know that," Jamie groaned. "I got Mom, Sophie, Gramps. And as for friends, I've got you, don't I?"

"Of course you do. And trust me, you'll never have another friend like me," Jack chuckled, grinning as he pointed at himself with his thumb. "...But that being said... I'm not gonna always be around. Whether it's 'cuz I'm out being a Guardian, or... or just life in general for you, you shouldn't have to just depend on me. You should have more friends to be around you. And we know you can. You were friends with all the other kids back in Burgess."

"Look, all I'm trying to say is..." Jack closed his mouth, pursing his lips as he considered how to finish his lecture. "...No one deserves to be alone, nor should they be. So don't be alone."

Jamieson said nothing, merely watching his supernatural friend as he spoke. When he finished, the boy could only furrow his eyebrows, looking down on his feet from his seat at the side of his bed.

Seeing this, Jack let out a sigh before turning to approach the window. "Jeez, now I'm starting to sound like North, droning on and on and on... Anyway, I gonna head out. I'll be hanging around town for a few days. If you need me, call me. I'll be sure to say bye to Sophie 'fore I head out."

He raised the window pane to make an opening. But not before sharing one last glance to Jamie over his shoulder. "Just... Think about it, okay?"

The brunette made a noncommittal grunt, but gave him a small visible nod.

Jack smiled, before bidding farewell with a "See ya around!" He then hopped onto the roof, before Jamie heard the wind rattling against his window, signaling the winter sprite's departure.

For his part, Bennett fell back on his bed, twisting to his side as his mind spiraled in all directions.

*-*-*

It was the first Saturday after the funeral. He'd finished his homework the day before after school, giving him the rest of the weekend off. Truth be told, he caught on to the subjects quick. He'd always been a smart kid, and had often been praised for his ingenuity. Still, it felt a lot like preparation. And he heard from his councilors in middle school that the farther along in school he went, the more harder the work was going to become.

Regardless, that was a long ways away. For today, though, he opted to wear his white shirt and some gray sweatpants, and start the day off with a nice bowl of cornflakes.

It was the weekend, so they weren't expecting anybody. The mailman still worked that day, and could probably stop by to drop off a package for someone to sign. Probably a new chess board Grandpa Phil ordered. Or it could be something else entirely.

Just as he was finishing up washing and drying his bowl and spoon, having savored that last spoonful, Jamie's mom called out, "Jamie! When you get a chance, can you throw out the trash?! Thank you!"

"Sure thing, Mom!" he answered, heading for the trash bin under the sink after putting away his dishes. Hefting the garbage bag over his shoulder, he walked out of the kitchen, and into the central hallway, walking past the living room, where Sophie was currently watching her Saturday morning cartoons, Mom and Grandpa sitting on the sofa as they waited for the program to finish.

Opening the front door, Jamie closed it behind him, and was walking over to the trash bins-

The teen stopped when a frustrating sight graced his vision.

"Ugh! Raccoons!"

Once again, the racoons had gotten into the trash bins, and left all the trash scattered into a messy heap. This had been happening at least once a month ever since they'd arrived in Arcadia. It could also be argued this was probably the most exciting thing that ever happened here in Arcadia Oaks, seeing as nothing else happened around here.

"They get your trash too, huh?"

Blinking as he crouched down, Jamie's head shot up to see that one kid who's locker was next to his, along with his chubby friend, pulling up with their bikes, giving him a knowing smile.

"Well, that answer's that question. Still weird that your place is the only one I've heard of getting ransacked by those critters," the other kid remarked, taking a moment to catch his breath before adding "'Til today, that is."

Jamie merely shrugged, tossing the scraps of trash back into the bins as he snatched them. "Yeah, you heard it right. Raccoons are out to get me too. And boy, do they like to let us know it was them."

Kicking up the bicycle's kickstand, the boy in the blue sweater stepped off his bike, approaching the other boy, crouching down next to him. "You're Jamieson, right? Here, lemme help you out."

Jamie, shook his head, waving him off his hand. "No, no, it's fine. I got all this. Besides, I'm almost done, so you don't have to-"

"Wait, wait, wait, don't throw that away!" the other boy cried suddenly, startling Jamie mid-dismissal as he was reaching for a bag on the floor, unware that the newcomer had placed it there after taking it out of his backpack. "That bag's not... It's not trash. That's actually for you..."

Brow furrowing, Jamie took another moment to inspect the bag, stepping away from the trash bins as he opened it. "What is it?"

"Meatloaf!" the chubby kid revealed from behind him. "Trust me, you have not lived until you've tried Jimbo's cooking! He's pretty darned good, if I do say so myself."

Sure enough, inside the bag was a slice of meatloaf packed in a plastic container. Even sealed as to was, Jamie could smell the spice and feel the heat of it.

"You made... a slice of meatloaf for me?" he asked, bewildered at his gift. "But it's not even lunchtime."

"Yeah, well, I made some last night. There was leftovers. Figured I'd give some away before it goes to waste," the slim boy replied shrugged. "To be honest, though... Tobes is the one who suggested I give you some."

Jamie's eyes fell on the chubby kid as his friend pointed at him with his thumb, nodding along as he did, as if his friend already having told him it was his idea wasn't enough to get that point across.

"...And why did you guys suddenly feel the need to give me some meatloaf?" he inquired, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Upon his question, the other two teens froze, glancing to each other, both trying to speak up to answer his question.

"Well..."

"Y'know..."

"Uh..."

"See..."

Jamie raised a skeptical eyebrow at the display, though some part of him was amused.

"Wait, first of all, you know who we are, right?" the ginger-haired one asked, pointing to himself and his friend. "Both of us? We go to school together? Have the same classes? Even have our lockers next to each other?"

"I know who you guys are," he replied, pointing to his friend and back to the one speaking. "Jimbo and Tobes."

"Yes!" Tobes cheered when Jamie pointed to him, but then winced upon realizing it was his nickname he called him by. "Well, no, that'swhat we call ourselves by, sometimes." He placed his hand over his heart. "I'm Toby. Toby Domzalski. I live down at the end of the cul-de-sac with my Nana. Around the corner from here."

"And I'm Jim. Jim Lake Jr. I live next door to him," the other boy, Jim, continued.

"'Kay, great, good to know. Still doesn't answer my question," Jamie remarked, lifting up the bag again and shaking to remind them about his pending inquiry.

"Yeah, that..." Jim acknowledged, rubbing the back of his hand uneasily. "So... my mom's a doctor at Arcadia Oaks Hospital. She's the one your grandma was seeing before she... y'know."

This caught Jamie's attention. He had not been there when his mom and grandfather had taken Grandma Hope for her medical check-ups, having been left behind to take care of his sister when they did. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah. And the other day, she was telling us about how hard you guys were taking it. And seeing how you were at school was kinda hard too. So, yesterday when Toby was over, he suggested I give some to you. I agreed and, well... Here we are."

Upon hearing Lake out, any amusement he'd felt before was gone. "So this is, what, pity meatloaf? In that case, you can have it back. I don't want it," he snapped, holding it out to Jim, shoving it roughly in his direction.

To both of their surprise, Toby was the one who intercepted it, shoving it right back at him, keeping up his friendly demeanor. "First of all, don't give it back. It's actually really, really good. Biggest mistake of your life if you throw it away." He rubbed his tummy for emphasis, nodding at Jamie as he spoke. "And second, yeah, it is pity. Not gonna lie. But it's more like a... 'we've been there' kinda pity?"

Jamie rolled his eyes. "Really."

"Yeah," he went on. "One second, you're thinking, hey, I can't wait to show Grandpa what I did at school today! And then all of a sudden... you find out he's not there."

At the boy's mention of his grandparent, followed by the seriousness and dip in his tone, Jamie's aloof demeanor quickly fell, turning his full attention on the shorter teen.

"And then you find out that... he's not coming back at all. And it feels... wrong, y'know? Like..."

"Like there's a space they're supposed to be in?" Jamie answered. "But they're not."

Toby nodded, smiling in relief, for some reason. "Yep."

It was then that Jamie knew was telling the truth. He understood.

"So... what, you just moved on? You got over it?"

"Eventually. But sometimes it takes a while, y'know. It doesn't happen overnight. And it's different for everyone, depending on how it happened. But... it gets better."

"...Is that right?"

"Yeah! I mean, I'm still here. You're still here!" he chuckled, gesturing at Jamieson with both arms. "And it's not like we're alone, either. I got my Nana, I got Jimbo and his mom. I'm sure it's the same for you. You got your family, and got your friends. As we got each other, we'll make it."

Jamie actually considered Domzalski's words. How they seemed to reflect the advice Jack had touted the day prior. Still, words were just words. It was easier said than done, and would definitely take some time.

But it's not like he didn't think he would get over it. A part of him deep down knew he would move on eventually. It would still hurt, but having his mom, Sophie and Pop-Pop with him certainly made it easier to bear.

It only took a few times to hear it for it to finally maybe start to sink in. But maybe Jack and Toby were right. And with that admission, maybe then he could hope now for better things to come. After all, he was still here. And Grandma, Aunt Priscilla, maybe even his father would want him to go forward knowing that.

For the first time since her passing, Jamie let himself smile softly. "...Yeah. I guess you're right."

"See?! There ya go!" Toby cheered. "You'll be okay, dude. Just gotta keep your head up, and keep moving forward."

Jim also nodded, smiling back at Jamie as he pointed back at his bike. "Anyway, we gotta get going. Give your folks our regards, yeah?"

The brunette nodded. "Sure. Will do."

Both teens began walking towards the bikes when Jim suddenly twisted back towards. "Actually, hey can you let me know how that tastes? I know it's alright, but I was playing with the recipe, and I feel like something's missing from it. You mind letting me know what you think later?"

Jamie blinked down at the bag, a slight feeling of trepidation now settling in his gut over Jim's request. "Uh, sure. I'll let you know if I vomit or not."

This caused Jim and Toby to both let out their won small guffaws before Toby waved back. "Alright, later, Jamieson. See ya at school!"

The brunette frowned. "Hey, wait up, school? Guys, you know it's Saturday, right?"

"Yeah, we know," Jim responded, nodding along.

"So where're you guys going with your backpacks?"

"Oh, just goin' into town, hanging by the park. Scopin' out some ladies, if ya know what I mean." Toby wiggled his eyebrows to add to his response.

"O-okay..."

"Anyway, talk to you later!" With that, Toby reached for his helmet, strapping it on as he stepped over his bike to seat himself on it, Jim having already done so.

In the brief second the chubby teen was doing that, another thought had come across the oldest Bennett sibling's mind. One inspired by his chat with his other friend the night before.

"Hey, um...!"

Both Arcadian teens looked back to Jamie, whose mouth was open, jaw shifting in thought before he spoke up again.

"So... I don't really... I haven't really gotten the chance to explore this town since I moved in. Some parts, yeah, but not all of it..." he explained, fingers drumming the paper bag anxiously. "...Do you guys... mind showing me around?"

Jim and Toby's eyes widened, both turning to look at each other, the chubby teen's mouth opening into a wide 'O,' the edges of his mouth curling up into an excited smile. Lake was the first to speak, making double sure to clarify what the new-not-new kid wanted.

"You want us to give you the grand tour of Arcadia?"

Jamie shrugged in response. "Yeah... If it's not too much of a bother."

"AWESOME-SAAAUUUCE!" Toby suddenly cheered, slightly startling Bennett. However, his cheer died down when the other boy's excited expression fell into a serious one. "Actually, wait up. Do you got a bike to ride with? Otherwise, one of us is gonna have to share with you. Full disclosure, I'm not exactly fit enough to ride for two."

Jamie shook his head. "Oh, no, I've got one! Don't worry." He jerked his thumb towards his grandpa's house. "Just, uh... Lemme get changed. Gimme a couple minutes!"

With that, the brunette teenager twisted around to dash right back into the household. Closing the door shut, Jamie walked over to the opening to the living room, his brown eyes landing on his mother.

"Mom, I'm gonna be heading out with some guys from school into town!" he told. "I'll be back later!"

At this, Rachel Bennett twisted around in her spot on the sofa, turning back to look at her son in surprise. "Going out? You never told me you were going out yesterday."

"Um, well, they kinda just invited me right now. Like, just right now. And I decided to take them up on it."

Raising her brow curiously, she prodded further, "And these 'guys from school...' They're your friends?"

Jamie made to respond, but found himself faltering and thinking about it. He knew them from school, so they were certainly acquaintances. Still, here they were offering their hands in friendship, reaching out to him. Maybe more that Toby kid, but he could tell that Jim was also earnest in his approach.

So if they weren't friends now, could they be?

"...Yeah... I think so," Jamie finally decided, nodding back with a smile.

Mrs. Bennett continued to stare at him for a few seconds more before shrugging and smiling. "Alright, then. Don't forget your phone, and keep me posted every other hour!"

"Got it!" he called back before he darted up to his rooms for a change of clothes.

*~*~*

"Alright, I'm here!"

"Sweet! Ready to go?"

"Yeah. So we're we going?"

"Well, Tobes and I were gonna head downtown. There's the comics store, the Vespa dealer."

"There's a Vespa dealer here?"

"Yep! Jimbo's always drooling over them. Speaking of drooling, we gotta stop by Tacos El Guerito! Maybe grab ourselves some El Diablo Maximus Breakfast Burritos?"

"Wait, didn't you guys just give me meatloaf?"

"Yeah, you're probably right. The Diablo Maximus Breakfast Burrito ain't for the faint of heart, dude. You gotta ease into it. There's levels to their hot sauce, so you should probably start at the bottom."

"Toby, you really oughta lay off those things."

"Well, he did ask us to show him around town. Might as well stop there while we're at it!"

"Oh boy... What do you think, Jamieson? Anywhere in particular that caught your eye in the way here?"

"Nah, surprise me. And seriously. Call me Jamie."

Jack Frost watched from atop the sidewalk light pole as Jamie and those two other kids rode their bikes off into town, grinning all the while as the kid under his watch went off to start his day. For the first time in a while, he felt relieved.

Though he shouldn't have been surprised. Jamie was the Last Light, after all. So long as he Believed, no darkness could beat him.

"Have fun, kiddo," he whispered, before standing perfectly atop the pole.

Waving his hooked staff, the Twinetender, over his head, the Guardian of Fun ushered the wind, his oldest, closest companion, to him. "Alright, Wind! Time to head out!"

And with a single harsh gust, Jack Frost was propelled into the air, flying farther beyond the clouds, onto new horizons. There was where he was needed now, children who needed to be reminded that, whether the were going through their normal day unbothered, or were getting through challenging times, there was always time for fun.

The average town of Arcadia Oaks didn't need him now. After all, nothing ever happened here, as far as he knew.

He'd learn how wrong he was about that claim soon enough. For every end was also a new beginning.

*~*~*

*~*~*GUARDIANS: Tales of Arcadia*~*~*

*~*~*

*-PROLOGUE END-*

*~*~*

Next Chapter: Jamie and his friends find a curious object on the way to school, and debates whether to get Jack involved.

Chapter Text

"Dialogue."

'Thought.'

"Communication."

*Sounds.*

*~*~*

*-PART 1: BECOMING-*

*~*~*

*~*~*~ Chapter One: Destiny is a Gift ~*~*~*

*~*~*

"...Jamie?"

*KNOCK-KNOCK!*

"Jamie, wake up."

"...Mmm?"

*KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!*

"Jamie, it's 6:30! Time to get up!"

Blearily opening his right eye, Jamie raised his head slightly from the pillow, his voice slightly raised so that his mother could hear him. "Mmmkay, I'm up..."

Footsteps echoing in the hallway on the other side of the door, Jamie waited for them out before letting his head fall back on the cushion with a groan. Resting there for a few moments, the boy then reached for his smartphone on the nightstand to his right, missing the first few times before getting a firm grip on it.

Unlocking the screen with his thumb, he confirmed that it was indeed around 6:55am, as his mom had said.

"...Yeah. Time to get up."

*-*-*

By 7:15am, he had showered and gotten changed.

By 7:30am, he had eaten his breakfast - a fair serving of eggs, bacon, and orange juice - and had brushed his teeth.

Now, 5 minutes to 7:40am, he was bidding his mom farewell, black bike on his side, red helmet with twin yellow stripes on the middle on his head, and black backpack on his back. "I'm heading out, Mom!"

His mother, who had been adjusting her blazer by a mirror near the front door, turned towards him with a stern eyebrow raised. "Cutting it a little close, aren't we?"

He shrugged. "Nah, it's plenty of time. We'll make it."

"Is that right? Then I'd better not get a call from school about my son being tardy." With that, her smile became warm. She embraced him with a hug, planting a kiss on his cheek. She had to tip toe only slightly, her only son starting to catch up to her in height. "I'll see you after school. Be safe out there, okay?"

"Will do," he assured, but not before stopping to ruffle his little sister's hair, who had been sitting on the stairs waiting for her mom to drive her to school. "Later, Soph!"

Shaking her head, she blew him a light-hearted raspberry, Jamie just barely hearing his mother give his younger sibling a light reproach. More than that, though he glanced over to the side of the driveway, dreading what he was going to see...

Only to sigh in relief as he spotted the trash bins right as they were, unsullied, as far as certain nightly critters toppling it over went.

Of course, that usually meant that...

"Ugh! Raccoons!"

Jim's trash cans weren't so lucky.

Pulling up on his black bike, with his red helmet firmly on his head, Jamie shook his head as he watched Jim Lake Jr., black helmet with a wide white stripe in the middle on his head, scramble to put his trash back into its respective trash bin, blue bike to his side. Toby Domzalski stood nearby, in the middle of securing his own white helmet with twin orange stripes over his head, his green bike leaning beside him.

"I keep tellin' you, Lake, you guys oughta invest in some trash bins. They only cost an extra bit more," Jamie chided.

"We have. They keep putting us on hold!" the other boy responded. "I mean, seriously, it's not like everyone needs to update their trash bins, do they?!" His blue eyes then scanned the trash bin over. "Then again, considering how often it happens..."

"C'mon, guys, we're gonna be late for school," their third friend reminded them as he finished securing the helmet.

"Yeah, sorry about that, Tobes," Jim apologized. "Was busy with the lunches. One for me, one for Mom, aaannnd..." Reaching into his side pack, he pulled out brown lunch bag before tossing it over to Toby.

A grin of elated glee on his face, displaying the array of braces on his teeth, the redhead then sniffed the bag savoringly, sighing out an "Ah..." before reciting out like it was on the top of his head. "Balsamic mushrooms, meat loaf - chunky - sun-dried tomatoes..." He tried to peer into the bag to discern the other flavor...

But Lake beat him to it. "And cardamom."

Letting out a low whistle, Jamie noted, "You're just taking risks left and right today, aren'tcha, Chef Jimbob?"

Tugging his bike along, the other youth shrugged. "What's life without a little adventure, Bennett?"

Toby savored the smell of the lunch moment more before, almost to the other two's shock, he shoved back to Jim. "I can't eat this."

"Tobes..."

"What? I'm on a diet!" he whined.

"You've been on a diet for 14 years!" Jim snapped, pushing the bag back to his best friend.

"I know."

"You're 15!"

"Long term goals, Jimbo. My body's still changing; I'm a growing boy."

Jamie shrugged, reaching out for the bag. "Hey, if you don't want it, I'll have it."

Lake laughed at his response. "What, your mom didn't make you lunch today?"

Jamie shook his head. "No, she did, but it's just a regular ham and cheese sandwich with some yogurt - the ones with a pack of candy sprinkles - and a juice pouch. Now, don't me wrong, I'll eat that any day of the week. Still..." He raised his arms, one hovering over his chest, the other over his head. "My mom's lunches are mid-tier, but yours, Jim? They're god-tier!"

The blue-eyed boy let out another laugh at the admission. "I will happily take that compliment."

"And speaking of god-tier..." Jamieson then fished out his phone from his pocket, grimacing at the screen. "If we don't start heading out now, we're gonna risk getting god-tier detention!"

"Yeah, we need to get going," Jim agreed, hopping onto his bike. "C'mon!"

He sped off on his bike, Jamie following suit shortly after. Toby followed after them, but not before struggling to hop onto his after three times.

"Don't worry, guys! I'm right... I'm right...! I'm right behind you!" he huffed as he pedaled his bike along.

The three teens rode across the neighborhood, Jim and Jamie almost racing each other as Toby trailed behind them. They traveled with a familiarity of those who had lived in Arcadia Oaks their whole lives, which was a feat when it came to Jamie Bennett. He had only moved there not too long ago, and had not bothered to learn the town until after befriending Jim and Toby. Because of them, he had finally been able to see Arcadia Oaks as his home. Not the one he had grown up in, but his new one.

Quickly snatching his phone from his pocket, Jamie frowned upon taking quick look at the time. "Shoot! 8 o'clock!"

"We're not gonna make it!" Toby cried behind them. "We're gonna get suspended! On account of meatloaf!"

"Oh, no we're not! We can take a shortcut! It'll save us five minutes!" Jim countered.

At this, Jamie glanced at him with an excited smile. "Canal?"

"Canal!"

"Canal?!" their rotund friend screeched.

Coming across an opening on the fence to their right, the trio sped into a forest path. Bennett and Lake were side-by-side as they pedaled along, Toby still struggling behind them.

"N-n-n-not the can-n-n-nal!" Domzalski stammered as he road through a rocky path.

"Aw, live a little!" Jamie urged as he and Jim approached a rising slope, both boys whooping in elation as they soared off it, landing perfectly back on the ground shortly after.

"I-i-it's living th-that I'm w-worried about!"

"C'mon, Tobes! Don'tcha ever want a little more excitement?" Jim asked, glancing behind him to look back at his pal.

"Ha! No!"

"Bet I can get more hang time!" Bennett wagered as they approached the forest's edge.

With a growing smirk, Lake answered, "You're on!"

Both boys kicked into gear as they reached the edge of the canal, both timing their leaps just right as hopped off the ground. Arms wide out, Jamie let out a holler as his stomach churned, the feeling of weightlessness lasting as if it were an eternity.

When he rode on his bike, he felt he could go anywhere. No, in this moment, where he was practically flying, Jamie Bennett couldn't help but feel truly free.

Gravity kicked in as the duo landed on the concrete, riding down the slope onto the bottom of the canal. Jamie saw Jim skid to a stop behind him, but he kept going, adrenaline fueling his every action. Reaching the other end, he pedaled all the way to the top of the slope, hopping off the ground for a second before skidding to a stop, cackling with joy all the while.

"Now that was fun!" he cheered, letting out another giggle as he glanced back the way he came. "C'mon, guys, we're almost there!"

Spotting Toby zooming up towards him - the boy had unwittingly let gravity and momentum pull him along - he reached out to steady him, only to wince when his hand was just out of reach, the large boy rolling back to the bottom... only to stop, but not before falling onto the ground with his bike.

Riding back down to him, Jamie hopped off his bike. "Hey, Toby, you alright?"

The boy in question merely giggled from his spot on the floor. "Ha, how awesome are we?" he said as he pushed himself off the floor. "Awesooome!"

The brown-haired new kid could only shake his head with a smile. Yep. Toby was alright.

His smile then fell to a frown when he spotted Jim, who had been uncharacteristically quiet. He then noticed a pile of rocks on the other end of the bridge that was above them, and noticed how the Arcadian native was approaching it.

"Everything okay, Jim?" he asked, eyebrow arching curiously.

"...Did you guys hear that?" Jim responded, taking off his helmet as he cautiously wakes over to the pile.

Now walking up behind him, Jamie and Toby looked at each other in confusion before the latter asked, "Hear what?"

Suddenly, as if in response to the ginger-haired boy's question, a deep voice boomed out, startling all three of them onto their tears.

It had called out a name, loud and clear.

"JAMES... LAKE..."

Scrambling onto his knees, Jim pointed excitedly at the pile of rubble. "That! That-that pile of rocks called out my name!"

Incredibly, Toby chided, "Uh, it's a pile of K-spar. Minerals don't talk, dude."

Glancing up, Jamie pondered, "Huh... Where'd this mess come from anyway? Did it come off the bridge?!" He frowned when he saw no such damage on the structure.

Crawling over to rubble, Toby scanned it for anything suspicious. "C'mon, there's gotta be a walkie-talkie in here, or something."

Digging through the pile, the boys sought the source of the mysterious voice. After a minute, Jim noticed an eerie blue light coming from underneath a stone. Warily removing it, almost as if compelled, somehow, he found a curious oddity that stood out amongst the rubble.

It was a round metal object, with a glowing blue center. It had gears and hands on its surface, similar to that of a stopwatch. On its outline were strange inscriptions in a text he couldn't read nor understand, so foreign to him it was. Two etchings were that of some monstrous creatures, oddly enough, sharp teeth and horns sticking out. Truly, everything about this gadget was odd... yet all the more fascinating.

"It looks like... some kind of amulet," Jim observed, bringing it up to his face to scan it closely.

Toby, for his part, looked about warily. Unfortunately for him, he had been the victim of several mean pranks growing up. And this whole thing? It was setting off his sixth sense that this was some kind of setup. Blaring the alarms, actually.

"Alright, who's out there?! Come out now!" he demanded, looking about to see who were the ones suckering them in.

As Toby received no response, Jamie peered over Jim's shoulder, eyeing the object warily. "Try talking to it. See if it responds."

Eyes furrowing, the 15-year old whispered, "Hello?... I'm listening..."

The three boys huddled together watching with rapt attention at the amulet. Waiting for something - anything - to happen. A flash, movement. A sound...

*RRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!*

All three yelped in fright at the sudden sound. They paled even further when they all realized they recognized.

"Agh, final bell!" Jim cried, scrambling to his feet along with the others towards their bikes.

"We're late! We're so late, our kids are gonna have detention!" Toby wailed as he struggled to both put his helmet on and mount his bike.

"Forget our kids! My mom's gonna rip me a new one once she finds out I was late!" Jamie griped, shuddering to himself at the mere thought of her wrath.

Lake, for his part, shook his head. "Come on, come on, guys! We can still make it if we hurry!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!"

"Yeah! Right... Right behind ya!"

As three teens sped of to school, leaving behind the randomly placed pile of rubble in the canal, in a nearby sewage drain tunnel two figures lurked in the darkness. One larger, and farther back in, while another leaned against the grate near the tunnel's mouth. A pair of yellow eyes with ride irises shone in the dark... followed by another, and another, six eyes on one face overall.

Watching them as they left, the figure whispered in stunned awe, "It chose... a human?"

*-*-*

"...The Peloponnesian War was actually three wars fought between Athens and Sparta. The first war was known as the Archimidian War. Type that into your search engines..."

As the AP World History teacher went about his lesson, Jamie followed suit in following his instructions... and found that there various spellings for the war, oddly enough, though he was not going to be the one to correct their instructor. A corner of his mind was actually still fascinated, even a year later, that classes were starting to allow the use of laptops in the school lesson. Perhaps it was something exclusively to high school, middle school and below having to opt for the tried and true method of the paper and the pen only.

Still, that was in the corner of his mind. The rest was running wild with curiosity and excitement over the bauble Jim had found. It had talked, which was a big red flag in and of itself. The way it glowed, its very presence. It just screamed otherworldly, and something beyond the current comprehension of man.

Indeed, the last time Jamie had been this excited about something like this was back when he was a kid, scrambling through magazines, newspapers, and library books on the obscure mysteries of the world, such as yetis, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and so on. Back before and when he met the Guardians of Childhood.

His typing flinched to a halt at that, his brown eyes falling down to his right pants pocket, where he had stashed his smartphone. Specifically, he was thinking about a certain number on his contacts list. One belonging to a certain someone. Someone who could potentially help with this mystery, if not solve it...

Jamie shook his head, opting instead to cross that bridge at a later time, and only if he really needed to.

Looking back up, Jamie's eyes turned to look at Jim's desk over to his front-left, wondering if he too was dying to know what exactly the origins of the mysterious trinket were... only to shake his head with smirk upon realizing that it was the furthest thing from Lake's mind. Not with that dopey smile, and the way he was looking off in a daze, but not at some empty space, no. Peering to the right from his spot behind Toby's desk, Jamieson's eyes found exactly who was the focus of Jim's current attention.

Her back was currently to him, but from his previous sightings, he knew that she was a Latina girl with clear white skin, light freckles dotting across the tops of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She had dark brown eyes and dark brunette hair, with a blue streak on the front of her bangs, her locks falling to the back of her neck, the rest of her hairstyle held up by colorful barrettes. She wore a light-purple turtleneck shirt, an image a darker pink skull and the word 'HAMLET' on the torso area, underneath a short dark purple jacket, with a short blue skirt, gray leggings, and leather black shoes.

Moreover, and probably why Jim was so attentive to her, was that fact that she was very pretty. Pretty, with a capital 'P.' Jamie himself would admit that she was very attractive, though he was not interested in pursuing her, or be involved romantically in any sense. He'd rather let Jim do all that. She seemed nice, though, so if ever they interacted beyond school, he could easily see themselves becoming friends. Not to mention that she was smart, and seemed to excel academically, no matter what it was.

Ultimately, it was not difficult to see why Jim was crushing on Claire Nuñez so hard. Still, it didn't mean he couldn't have a little fun with it.

Reaching out to poke Toby's shoulder, the larger boy looked back with an alarmed expression, seeing Jamie nodding towards their friend with a knowing smirk. Toby followed his gaze, but then grinned himself upon seeing Jim's love-struck face.

Waving his hand over his, eliciting no reaction, Toby finally whispered, "Close your mouth. You're drooling."

"No. No, I'm not," he muttered back.

Leaning from his desk, Jamie countered, "Yeah, you totally are. You're in a daze, dude."

Both teens chuckled to themselves, as Jim hurriedly reached for his lips with a thumb, only to frown upon realizing their deception. "Haha, real funny, guys." He then frowned as he saw Toby hurriedly go back to typing on his computer. "What're you doing?"

"Research," Toby answered, eyes glued to the screen, Jamie looking over his shoulder to the redhead's screen.

"Hey, look up 'talking amulet,'" Jim suggested.

"Already did that. All I got was toys. One of them was a plushie," he responded, pointing at his screen. Sure enough, there was an image of a heart shaped toy straight of a girl's cartoon.

"Same here," Jamie added, shrugging himself. "All I get is links to videos to magical girl anime openings. Reminds me of the afternoon anime block I watched when I was little. Good times, though. Good times."

Not that Jim seemed to notice, his eyes looking squarely back at Claire from where she sat. Before they could go any further, however, a voice spoke up behind them, making them all flinch with a grimace.

"Jim, would you agree?"

"U-uh, sir?"

Turning to their right, standing beside Lake was a tall man with black hair swept back, the front of his hair curled upwards, graying at the sides, scrutinizing him with green eyes. He wore a blue turtleneck shirt under a light brown blazer, with darker brown khakis, and dark brown loafers.

Playing with a black inkwell pen in his hands, their teacher, Mr. Walter Strickler, continued. "With Herodotus' opinion on his tactics of war, as I've described?"

"Oh! Uh..."

Turning to his friends, Toby looking away whilst whistling and Jamie cringing in on himself with pursing lips, Jim blurted out, "Absolutely!"

"Excellent. Which tactics, specifically?" he prodded further.

"The, uh... winning ones?" he answered weakly, causing the rest of the class to burst out in laughter as he sunk his head onto his desk.

Before anything else could be done, however, the bell rang. *RRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!*

Not hesitating for anything, the students all got up from their seats, grabbing hold of their bags as they headed for their next class.

"Alright, alright! Don't forget, Michaelson, chapters four and five!" Mr. Strickler reminded as they left, making sure everyone knew what their assignments for the night were.

As Jamie stood up from his desk, he winced as he heard their teacher stop his friend. "Jim, may I have a word?"

Inching over, he patted Lake's shoulder before shaking his head towards the doorway. "We'll meet you outside," he assured before hurrying out of the classroom.

There, Toby and him waited in the hallway, Tobes once more trying to flirt with girls, and failing per usual. Jim was still often getting caught up with his stuff at home, and every now and then it affected his performance in class. And meanwhile, Jamie was in the middle of it, doing his best, and somehow managing to get through.

Yes, that was how it was for him now. The only thing that had changed during his second year at Arcadia Oaks High: he wasn't by himself, and he wasn't alone anymore. Apart from that and the new teachers, even his classmates were the same.

...Well, there was one other thing that was different. A new girl who came at the beginning of the year, her assigned seat in AP World History the one to his left. A girl he vaguely recalled wearing a green hoodie.

Other than that, though, things were the same, nothing new to report. After all, nothing ever happened in Arcadia Oaks.

*-*-*

"...You talked to her?"

"Yep."

"...Like, actually spoke to her? Not just, you know, in your head?"

Jim nodded, sitting on the bench inside the boy's locker room after Gym class, having mostly changed back into his regular clothes. Reaching into his book bag to pull out the amulet he found, the boy answered his best friend's inquiry, "I unleashed my Español on her."

Jamie let out a sharp cackle at that. "Español?! You realize you introduced yourself with 'good night,' and then said good-bye by saying 'until egg?'"

"OK, look, I know my Spanish needs work, Bennett! You don't have to remind me!"

Chuckling, Jamie shook his head, hands sup in surrender. "Hey, I'm just saying." He adjusted his jacket over his shoulders, tugging it to straighten it out before pointing at his bag. "So, you gonna do it?"

Glancing down, Jim pulled out a poster that Claire had given him during class. It depicted a woman in a balcony and a man below it, both of them reaching out to each other, the words 'Romeo and Juliet' plastered in bright yellow letters.

"What, the play? No, I'm not an actor," he waved off, shoving the flyer into his pack before hoisting it over his shoulder.

"Of course, not right now," Jamie relented with a shrug. "But then you practice and get better. Maybe good enough to land a good role, if not THE role for a guy in the play. C'mon, Claire's practically inviting you!"

"Yeah, because they're having trouble getting boys to audition. She told me that herself!"

"She still went out of her way to invite you personally, Jimbo. If she needed more guys, just find a group of them, and say 'Hey! We need guys for our play! Anyone interested?' Seriously, this could be your chance, man!"

Jim give him a skeptical look. "And since when did you become a love expert all of a sudden?"

Frowning, Bennett faltered at his statement, shrugging as he scratched at the back of his head. "No, I just... Duh, y'know, just... Using common sense, is all..."

Toby, who had all the while been struggling to put his right sock onto his foot - falling over several times attempting to do so - spoke up from his place on the floor as he sat up. "C'mon, dude, Jamie's right. You should totally do it! Besides, weren't you the one saying earlier that you wanted more excitement in your life?"

"I don't think Romeo and Juliet is exactly the answer, Tobes," Jim said, leaning back against the locker. "I don't mean just, you know, 'exciting.' I mean... more," he clarified, taking the bauble out and holding it in his hand. "I just need to know that there's something more to life than high school."

Closing his locker, putting the combination lock on its hook, Jamie turned to Jim as he quipped, "Yeah, remind me not to tell you about college, then."

Right as he said that, however, Jamie glimpsed a sudden, dark movement out of the corner of his eyes. He inched his head forward as carefully eyed down to the end of the row of benches. But he saw nothing there.

"Something... more?..." Toby strained, still putting up a fight against that sock.

But then Jamie heard some rattling on the other side of the lockers. Glancing to his left, Bennett saw that Jim had heard it, too, stuffing the amulet into his bag. They both left Toby to deal with his sock problem, and followed the rattling around the corner. Thick steam billowed from the shower room just beyond him.

"...I thought the showers weren't supposed to be used during school hours?" Jamie asked, an uneasy feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.

"They're not," Jim confirmed, looking equally nervous. "Hello? Anybody in there?"

Both teens tiptoed their way to the shower room, warm steam billowing out of it. That set alarms off in Jamie's head even more, as even from where they traipsed the steam was opaque.

"Hello?" Jim called again, a bit unease in his voice.

The boys made it into the doorway, the blue-tiled room dripping with steam, the plastic beige drapes wet sheen reflecting some of the lights on the ceiling. Still, neither youth could make heads or tails what was across the other side of the showers. Then Jamie flinched, spotting something that looked like a blur dash from the other side... or did he? It was hard to tell with all the stem. Jim squinted his eyes, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary, pulse racing as the tension grew per second...

"Got one! Woohoo!"

Both boys jumped as their friend hollered in victory, turning towards the way they came before looking back to the showers. Rolling his eyes in embarrassment, Jim shook his head as he walked away from the doorway.

"C'mon, man, it was nothing," he waved off, though it almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "Nothin' to worry about."

"Success, success!" Toby cheered from his spot at their bench.

Jamie looked at Jim's back as he walked away, before turning back towards the showers, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious for another moment before relenting.

"Yeah... Nothing."

As he walked away from the showers, he didn't see a figure walk out of the shower stalls, eyes staring in the direction the two teens had went...

*-*-*

"So good news, dudes! My orthodontist says I'm almost done with my braces. Only four more years!"

As Toby rambled to them about his dental progress after they had gotten their bikes from the bike racks to head home, Jamie's thoughts were running amok in his head.

Try as he might, he couldn't shake off the weird feeling he'd had earlier. Ever since Jim found that old watch thing, Jamie was on edge. First of all, the thing had talked; they'd all heard it. Then it was that weird sensation of being watched back at the locker room. Maybe it was all a coincidence, but he knew better. There were things that he knew were true. Things that people brushed off as make-believe. But such things were as real as people before him, and he could only imagine what else was real out there.

So what was this amulet of Jim's going to bring down upon him? Upon all of them?

"Okay, nothing to see here..."

Blinking, Jamie glanced over at Toby, and spotted Jim from the edge of his vision. The brunette was glaring across the campus, by their lockers, where a group of guys were terrorizing one poor kid.

The biggest of them, and their leader, was a buff athletic kid with dark blonde hair and brown eyes. He wore a teal polo shirt with the yellow logo of the Arcadia Oaks High Football Team over his heart, a pair of tan brown pants, and a pair of white tennis shoes.

Yes, it seemed like Arcadia Oaks High's star quarterback - and resident bully - Steve Palchuk was on the prowl again. And judging by the banging coming from the locker his stooges were standing in front of, it seemed he'd caught up to today's victim.

"Great," Jamie cursed under his breath, his eyes furrowing in disapproval.

"We can't just let him do that," Jim replied, his voice eve, displaying his rising anger over what he was seeing.

"Oh, yes, we can. If Psycho Steve's terrorizing him, he's not terrorizing us," Toby said, rubbing his rear unconsciously. Jamie recalled how Palchuk had given Toby an atomic wedgie the week before. The pudgy Arcadian was busy rambling off about how he was impressed his underwear could stretch that far. Likely to distract himself from the pain.

But in spite of his words, their friend started dragging his bike over to the breezeway, his eyes firmly and the bullying happening right in front of him.

"Watch yourself, Lake," Jamie cautioned as he followed behind him from a distance. Whether or not Jim heard him, he was going to confront Steve either way.

"Tell me again, dweeb-face," Steve jeered with a smirk. "Tell me about the creatures, and maybe I'll let you out!"

Jamie's head perked up at that.

"Or you can let him out right now," Jim blurted out. "I mean, you know, it would be nice."

Steve wheeled around, shotting a nasty look at him as he said, "'Nice' would be you minding your own business!"

Regardless of the threat, Jim stood his ground. Jamie glanced over his shoulder, and saw that some of the other students started to stare in their direction.

"Oh, hi, Jim!" called the muffled voice from inside the locker, belonging to that of their classmate, Eli Pepperjack.

Steve smacked the locker again, before picking up right from where he left off in a mock-casual voice, "So, where were we? Um... Oh yeah, okay! You were telling me about the 'monsters' you saw this morning! With fangs, and- what was it again?"

"Stone for skin!" Eli squealed from his prison, his voice echoing out where Jamie could hear it from where he stood. "In the canal!"

The canal... Where they'd found that pile of rocks with the amulet! Bennett glanced over at Eli's locker. Did he know something about what they found earlier? Had he seen how it got there?

"'Stone for skin?'" Steve chuckled. "Man, Eli, you've got some imagination!"

"He's not gonna let him out," Jamie muttered anxiously, hands flexing over his handlebars uneasily.

"Look, Steve, seriously," Jim pleaded evenly as he parked his bike by the metal pillar. "Just let him out."

Barely anyone had a chance to blink before the bully was already on him, grabbing Jim by his book bag strap, and pulling him close.

With his free hand, Steve cocked a meaty fist as he hissed threateningly, "Or you'll do what?"

Taking that as his cue, Jamie held his bike towards Toby, only managing to hiss out "Keep him distracted! I'll get help!" before dashing off back into the school.

Skipping past classmates and turning corners, Jamie drudged up what he knew about the schedules at the school. If his hunch was correct, the person he needed was currently stalking along the hallway, towards the intersection he was running towards. There, right before the entrance to the teacher's lounge, Bennett saw the man he was looking for, right after he was walking out of it.

"Coach Lawrence! Just the man I was looking for!"

Turning towards the sound of his cry was an older man thick chin, and a buff physique. He wore a pair of dark blue sweatpants, a white T-shirt with a whistle necklace over the collar, and a red hat over his bald head. He also had bushy eyebrows that were brown above scrutinizing blue eyes, along with a bushy brown mustache under his nose.

"Bennett! No running in the hallways!" chided Coach Lawrence, Arcadia Oaks High's resident health and gym teacher, as well as the coach of the football team.

Jamie sent him a salute. "Sorry 'bout that, Coach! Was just trying to find you! Someone told me you were looking for Steve Palchuk? How he's not at football practice right now, like he's supposed to be?"

The coach looked as if he was about to shoot him down, but then his mustache twitched in thought, mulling something over in his head. Something private, possibly, that Jamie couldn't quite discern.

"...Well, if he's skipping practice, then I ought to go fetch him. Some other things I need to run by him, anyway."

"Well, then, we'd better hurry! Wouldn't want him to miss practice, would we? Season might depend on it!"

Without further delay, Jamie darted behind him, pushing him along as he led the coach to the courtyard. As they approached, the boy could a crowd chanting, sounding awfully like "LET HIM OUT."

Jamie grinned as Coach Lawrence immediately spotted Steve, though cursed internally when he saw that from where he could stand, Coach couldn't see him doing anything bad, for instance holding a fist up to punch his friend.

"PALCHUK!" Coach Lawrence immediately barked. "What's going on here?!"

"Uh, nothing, sir!" the bully replied, quickly letting go of Jim, and straightening up.

"Why aren't you heading for practice?!"

"Had to save Eli!" Steve chaired as he yanked the locker open, revealing a smaller bespectacled kid with brown hair. "He was stuck in his locker."

"On the double! NOW!" Coach hollered before storming away, passing a smug-looking Jamie, smile stretching from ear to ear.

A smile that fell when he slammed the locker shut again, and whispered something to Lake. Judging by his fellow brunette's expression, it was nothing good. Palchuk retreated away from Jim, waving a finger left and right, as if miming a clock counting down, before making to head for the football field. As he passed and met Jamie's eyes, though, he flinched at the hot glare Bennett shot him. One he kept on the jock until he finally left his sight.

Shaking his head in disappointment, the boy then blinked when he heard a cry back in Jim's direction, groaning when he saw Eli, decked in his green v-neck t-shirt, beige shorts, and black converses, sprawled on the floor after escaping his locker.

*-*-*

"Hehehe... 'Grow up old and fat?' Man, I wish I was there to see Steve's face when you said that!"

"Yeah! And then I was like 'Let him out! Let him out!' And then we got Eli free! We looked so cool today, haha."

"Guess so. At least until Friday, where instead of looking cool, I'm gonna look dead after Steve kills me!"

"Well, fortunately for you, Lake, your mom's a doctor."

The trio were riding their bikes around the corner to their cul-de-sac, the afternoon soon descending over them. The group was still talking about their confrontation with the school bully, to mixed reactions.

"And besides, it's not like you actually have to fight him," Jamie waved off. "You don't have to go. Just blow him off."

"But if I do that, I'll be the laughingstock at school! They'll call me a coward, or worse! And Steve'll only just come after me more!"

"All I'm saying is you have a choice. Might not be one that nets you a favorable outcome, but you'll be alive, at least. And, you'll have the moral high ground," Jamie further clarified. "...Which brings me to when Steve gives you no choice but to fight him. When that happens, all you gotta do is hit him straight in his face. But hard."

"I don't want to have to take Steve down! And besides, you don't know that's gonna work, Bennett!"

He shook his head. "Oh, trust me. It'll work. Just remember to hit hard."

A honk ahead of them caught their attention, as a blue 4-door sedan pulled up to them. In the driver's seat was a woman with red hair wearing a white doctor's coat with blue scrubs underneath. Spotting the group with blue eyes behind square- rimmed glasses, the woman greeted them with a smile. "Hey, boys!"

"Hi, Mom!" Jim replied to his mother.

"Dr. Lake," Jamie saluted with a wink.

"Lookin' sharp, Doc!" Toby complimented as he rode by, accidentally going too fast, which forced him to push himself back to his friends.

"Thank you, Toby. So do you."

"Oh, does it show?"

Jamie struggled not to chuckle as their friend checked himself out. Though he didn't hide his smile as Jim proceeded to go Mom Mode, as the good doctor was going to be working late, as was her usual routine. And like a good boy - one who had to grow up sooner than he had to, James Lake Jr. was already well on top of everything, up to his mother's dinner, as well as how to cook it.

It was one of the things Jamie had come to admire about his friend, both boys finding themselves in similar - though not the same - circumstances. He could only hope to step up for his family like that for whenever it was his time to do so.

Bennett slightly frowned, though, when he saw Lake take out what looked like to be a post-it note - or 'sticky note,' as they called them in California - from his pocket, only to put it away when his mom looked back it him. He wondered what that was about.

"Honestly, Jim, there must be a million other things you'd rather be doing than looking after me."

"Can't think of one," he cheekily replied.

"...Love you, honey," she said sincerely, rolling up her window before slowly driving off.

"Bye, Mom!" he waved, watching her drive off until her car was out of sight.

"...You mother your mother a lot," the large boy observed casually, earning a laugh from both boys.

"JAMIE!"

Almost shooting up from his seat on his bike, the youth in question looked over his shoulder at his house, spotting his sister, Sophie, at their doorstep.

"DINNER'S READY! WE'RE JUST WAITING ON YOU, SO HURRY UP! IT'S SPAGHETTI NIGHT!"

"Sure thing! I'll be right there!" he called back with a wave, watching his sister walk back into their home. "Welp, you heard her, guys. That was the dinner bell."

"Ooh, spaghetti! Lucky you!" Toby appraised. "Hey, any chance I can drop in to get a plate?"

"And risk ruining your diet? Toby, for shame!"

"Oh, good point," he agreed, before shrugging and waving at them. "Well, see you guys tomorrow!"

"Later, guys!"

"See you tomorrow!" Jim waved as he bid them goodbye.

"Hey, and by the way, Jimbo, don't put much mayo on the sandwich, dude. It's the wrong note."

Jamie grinned as he departed for his place. His friends, everyone.

*-*-*

"Oof, that hit the spot!"

Jamieson landed flat on his bed, stuffed after about three servings of his mom's spaghetti. That recipe was to die for, he swore.

Immediately upon landing on his bed, the brunette felt the weight of the days events hit him like a truck, making him realize just how eventful it had been. A part of him dreaded the problem Steve was going to present to his friends, however, bringing unpleasant memories from the past year.

But as bad for his mood those thoughts were to him, they were overshadowed by the discovery they had made that morning. The weird watch - at least it looked like a watch - that Jim had found. The one that had talked.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Jamie pulled out his smartphone, and speed dialed his neighbor, putting the device to his ear.

Several rings followed before a voice answered. "Hello?"

"Lake, it's Bennett! Any updates on that weird watch thing from this morning?" he asked.

Jim sighed in response. "You and Toby are on the same wavelength, I swear... Hang on, lemme put you on the line." A pause, and then he spoke again. "Tobes, Jamie's on the line."

"Oh! Hey, Jamie!" Toby greeted.

"'Sup, Toby," Jamie replied before getting back to the matter at hand. "You never answered my question, Jim."

"I just told Toby. It hasn't talked again, nor has it done anything interesting. I keep looking at it, taking to it, and it does nada."

"Well that's lame..." Jamie muttered. "Better use of your Spanish, though."

Bennett could imagine Jim rolling his eyes at that. "Thanks."

Suddenly, an older lady's voice sounded on the line. "Toby-Pie! Dinner's ready!"

"In a minute, Nana!" 'Toby-Pie' responded before addressing them one last time. "Gotta go guys. Text me if it does something cool!"

*Click!*

Jamie blinked once before asking again. "Still nothing?"

"Nope," Jim confirmed flatly. "Still a big pile of nothi... Huh?"

Jamieson frowned at his tone. "Hmm?"

"Uh... D-dude, hey! It's glowing!" Jim announced from the other line.

Jamie sat up at this. "It is?! Is it talking again, like in the morning?"

"No, but... I-i-it's glowing. Like nonstop."

"Well, talk to it! Maybe it'll respond." He stood up from his bed.

"Uh, okay..." Jim said. Then he began talking to the thing, Jamie assumed. "...Hi. How ya doin'? I'm Jim... But then, you already knew that, since you spoke my name, which is... weird."

Any other time, Jamie would snicker at the way he was speaking to it. But right now, he was too overcome by his sense of wonder. Walking over to his window, he split open the blinds to peer at Jim's house from his window.

"...Hello? Anybody in there?" Jamie heard Lake prod, before an annoyed groan passed on the line. "...Annnd, now I'm talking to an inanimate object."

"What's it doing now?" he asked.

"Nothing! It's still glowing," Jim whispered from his end. "C'mon! Talk again, or you are going up on eBay!... Huh?!"

"What? What happened?!" Jamie inquired, pressing his face against the glass of his window.

"I just heard something!" Jim hissed. "Something just fell. And it broke!"

Jamie rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to groan out loud. "You sure that's not from your trash bins outside? Maybe the raccoons are back."

"No way, it..." He could hear his friend hitch his breath. "...It sounded like it came from my basement."

Bennett shrugged. "I mean, it could still be raccoons. You told me once they've gotten in before, right?"

"Ugh, I hope not," Jim groaned, sounding a little less nervous than he was a second ago. "Look, Jamie, I gotta check this out real quick. I'll call you back later if anything else happens with the amulet."

"Okay, cool." Jamie squinted his eyes, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary outside Jim's residence. "Seriously, though, call me as soon as anything changes with that."

"Yeah, I'll let you know. Later."

*Click!*

Watching out the window with a pensive frown, Jamie then relented with sigh, shoving his cell into his pocket, closing the blinds on his windows, before finally sitting back on his bed.

If he hadn't been too interested in that trinket before, Jamie definitely was now. Something strange was afoot with that thing. It had spoken to them before back at the canal; they hadn't imagined that. And now it was glowing all of a sudden? He had to wonder why. Was it because it was alone with Jim? It had called his name back then, which was really odd.

Whatever the case, the answers to the mystery of the strange amulet eluded them so far... That is to say, him and his friends.

...But then he recalled what Eli had said earlier. About what he had seen in the canal...

...Unbidden, he went over to his bag, and took out his laptop. Putting it on top of his desk, Jamie plopped onto his swivel chair, and booted it up. Quickly opening his web browser, he looked up 'monsters with stone for skin' on the search engine.

For the next hour, he surfed through pages and forums that popped up on the browser. More often than not, it took him to mythology pages, and the Pennsylvanian found references to creatures and deities that matched the description he had inputted.

Gorgons. Medusa. Quetzalcoatl. Golems. Gargoyles. Trolls.

And yet, amongst all those articles and discussions, nothing ever came up about a glowing, talking amulet.

Groaning, he kicked off away from the desk, spinning to face his bed, and then leaning back to glance on his ceiling, wracking his brain for what it all meant.

He had no idea... but then thought about someone who might.

Taking out his smartphone, Jamieson thumbed through his contacts. He landed on the 'J' category, and spotted a certain name there. His finger hovered over it, debating whether he should press it or not.

"..."

Exhaling through his nostrils, he shook his head, returning back to his main screen, and tossing the phone over to his pillow.

Jim said that he'd call if anything happened, so he had to trust he'd say something if anything happened. Jamie would just have to wait and see. More importantly, had homework to do, so it was something he could do to pass the time.

Right now, there wasn't much to go on. Simple as that. They didn't need him now.

He didn't need him.

*-*-*

*~*~* The Next Day *~*~*

*-*-*

Jim and Toby didn't ride with him to school that morning.

He recalled that Toby had to attend an orthodontist appointment, so he was probably going to miss the first half of the day. So Jamie figured as much.

It was Jim who had thrown him for a loop. Especially when he saw that he had a missed call from him.

He figured he'd meet him outside like usual, but he did not see him. He even made the effort of knocking at his door. Dr. Lake was probably still out doing her double shift, but it was still odd that her son hadn't appeared. He even tried calling him back, but Jamie got no response.

But imagine his surprise when he found him in first period, already in his seat.

"Dude, sorry I missed your call," he apologized. "What happened?"

To his surprise, Jim just grinned at him. "Oh, hey, man. What's up?"

Jamie frowned. "What's up? You called me at 7:30, right before we were supposed to meet up. That's what's up."

"Oh, that!" He waved it off with a "Pfft." "Sorry about that. Had a nightmare, and I freaked out."

At this, the boy's eyes narrowed. "A nightmare? Like what?"

"Oh, don't worry about. Like I said, I freaked out, but then I talked it over with Mr. Strickler. Now I just feel silly. Guess I just had too much on my plate."

"Really..."

Before he could pry any further, however, the teacher in question walked in, getting the class's attention, and beginning the lesson for the day. With that in mind, Jamie opted to take his friend at his word, and focus on his class work for now. Any questions regarding the amulet would have to wait until later.

So focused were the boys on their schoolwork, however, that they failed to notice Mr. Strickler was keeping a close eye on Jim. Now more than ever before.

*-*-*

*~*~* The Day After That *~*~*

*-*-*

"Soooo glad it's a Minimum Day..."

Today was Wednesday. And this particular Wednesday happened to be a Minimum Day, which meant that school let out earlier than usual. Ordinarily, Jamie would've been looking forward to spending the rest of the day hanging out with his friends, having fun with whatever activity they found themselves doing.

But today was definitely gonna be different, as Jim, in a total 180 from his super chill demeanor from the day before, practically jumped in class this morning, excited and frantic.

"Dude, as soon as school lets out, we gotta go meet up with Toby! There's something I gotta show you guys!"

As for why they needed to go look for their pudgy pal, well, that was because he had another orthodontist appointment today, meaning he had to leave school even earlier than them.

Speaking of earlier, as soon as the last bell rang, Jim practically flew out of his seat, and ran for out the door. By the time he reached his own locker, Jamie saw that the bike rack they used was missing Jim's bike, meaning he had already left to go meet up with Toby.

Seeing as how he knew where the appointment was going to be at - more like because he knew Arcadia Oaks had only one dentist/orthodontist office in town, period - Jamie opted to take his time leaving campus. After all, whatever it was that Lake wanted to share, it sounded like he wanted both of his friends present. No way would he leave Jamie in the dust, not if it was as big as he was boasting.

Bennett had to wonder what his big news was all about, though...

"...Well, well, well! Looks like Jim Flake Jr. decided to flake out early today! And here I was about to give him his daily reminder."

Not even bothering to disguise his annoyed groan, Jamie proceeded to continue putting his utensils in his locker before glancing at the towering Steve Palchuk, who was leaning next to him, a dangerously smug grin on his face.

"...Oh, you were talking to me?" the shorter boy asked in feigned surprise. "Sorry, I generally tune out people with IQs lower than 0. What were you saying?"

Growling, Steve slammed his fist against the locker, taking a second before his smirk returned. "If you'd paid attention the first time, doofus, you would've hear me say that your friend Lake bailed like the chickenwuss he is! So that means you're gonna have to relay my message to him for me. Don't worry. He'll know what it means."

He lifted his left pointer finger, and wagged it back in forth in a metronome pace. "Tick-tock. Tick-tock."

Jamie followed the finger with his eyes, mimicking Palchuk's finger wagging with his own hand, before suddenly blurting. "I'm sorry, man, can I get that in English? I don't speak Meathead."

Quicker than he could react, Jamie felt himself being yanked off his feet, before being slammed against the locker. He gritted his teeth, making sure to get a grip on his attacker's wrist as he bared his teeth at him.

"Listen here, buttsnack! I've already got a reservation for one this Friday, but I have no problem adding a plus one to that serving of Knuckle Sandwich!" Steve hissed threateningly.

A threat that Bennett gave no serious consideration, judging by his look of mock surprise towards the jock. "So you do know how to count! Maybe your IQ ain't below 0, after all."

As he was goading the school quarterback, Jamie had been taking a survey of his surroundings. There was nobody out on the courtyard, everyone having already gone out of the front gates to head home. Which meant nobody knew Steve was looking to pummel him into an unrecognizable pulp.

Good.

"By the way, Steve, I haven't been to one of the football games in a while!" he said out of the blue. "Remind me, which arm's your throwing arm, again?"

Rearing his head back to do a double take, as if thinking he had asked something everybody should have known, Palchuk grinned as he let go with his right hand, before clenching it into a fist, raising it to Jamie's face.

"It's my right one," he answered, adding, "Which also happens to be my punching arm."

"...Good to know."

Snapping quickly, he raised his left hand - now freed thanks to the bully removing his right hand form him - and brought it down, his hand chopping into Steve's left arm with enough force to instantly remove his grip on it. Jamie could hear the other boy's sharp cry of pain, but instead focused on snaking his left arm around Steve's right arm, constricting it into a standing armbar as soon as he wrapped his limb around his.

More yelps of alarm came from the bully, before he went quiet, whimpering as a look of recognition came across his features.

Having secured his hold on the jock, Jamie, back still on the locker, asked him, "You've seen this before, haven't you?"

Steve, now the prey instead of the predator, only whimpered as he nodded yes.

"Yeah... You remember. You were there. You saw what I did to your buddy. What I was about to do."

Jamieson couldn't help the snarl of contempt on his lips, memories coming to the forefront that he didn't particularly want to recall. Moments he didn't relish. Just like now.

"That means you know I didn't do it that day... So I'm wondering if today's the day. The day that one idiot decides to make me do it. Is that what's gonna happen today, Steven?"

He shook his head frantically, and kept doing it until the brown-haired youth spoke up again.

"Didn't think so. Now you better listen up, Palsuck, 'cause I'm only gonna say this once," he advised, tightening his grip on his arm so that he knew he had the jock's attention. "I can't stop you from trying to pick a fight with Jim, nor am I gonna try to fight his battles for him. You do whatever you wanna do, but know this..."

His brown eyes narrowed dangerously for one so young. "Whatever happens that day, you'd better be ready for the consequences. And just remember: you mess with Jim - or Toby, for that matter - and you mess with me. So you'd better think veeery carefully about whether you wanna do this or not."

With that, the kid from Pennsylvania loosened his lock on his arm, to which Steve immediately yanked it away. Hissing in pain, he cradled his arm tender, before giving Jamie a nasty glare. One he returned with one of his own.

He would not back down from him. He was not of afraid of him.

Shaking his fist, Palchuk then pointed his finger at him. "Just tell Buttmunch to be there on Friday!"

With that, he stormed off, though Jamie noticed it was a little too quick of a pace, like a dog with their tail between its legs.

Relaxing, Jamie took some deep breaths, trying to bring down the rush of adrenaline he was feeling. An unpleasant one, though. One he hated having to resort to.

Ever since he heard the Easter Bunny was a Tai Chi master, Jamie had opted to learn some martial arts himself. He had managed to get a brown belt in Karate before moving to Arcadia Oaks, though that armbar was something he had seen online.

Exhaling through his mouth, Jamie decided to perform a short kata, or choreographed movement, punching straight from the right and left, before swiping his right hand horizontally with a chop.

*SMACK!*

"UNGH!"

Jamie froze.

His hand had made contact with something.

Someone.

And judging by that cry, that someone was a girl!

Twisting towards the sound, he saw his victim had fallen to the ground, and was sitting on the floor clutching her face.

"Oh my goodness, I am so, so sorry!" Jamie cried, hurriedly approaching her. "I-I-I wasn't looking! I didn't mean to hit you, I just-"

"Okay, stop."

The girl held out her left hand, letting Jamie get a better look at her. Upon spotting her green hoodie, he recognized her as Arcadia's most recent transfer, who had just so happened to be in almost all of his classes. Her hood was up like always, and he saw that she wore short-length shorts, as well as a pair of black converses.

She was rubbing the bridge of her nose tentatively, but from what the young man saw, there was no bruising on her face, which he saw was round, with light freckles over her nose and cheeks. Removing her hand from her nose, she held it before her face, examining it closely - likely for blood; it seemed there was no bruising - before clenching her fist to glare right at him, Jamie wincing under the gaze of her lone hazel eye, the left one obscured by a bang of blonde hair.

Before he could even blink, she shot up from the floor, getting to her feet, holding her fist right in front of his face, making him jump back a step. The girl kept her closed fist in his direction, looking like she was about to unload on him verbally and physically, but then closed her eyes, exhaling slowly from her nostrils. Then she raised her she raised her pointer finger, pointing at the young man as she took calming breaths. Slowly her hand relaxed as it fell to her side, where she shoved it into her front hoodie pouch, along with its twin, before opening her eyes again, this time to a more neutral, resting one.

Jamie still stood there, slowly leaning forward to stand straight, the girl keeping her gaze on him. She blinked once, and he squinted his eyes at her. Why was she staring at him like that, he wondered.

Her expression shifted to one of mild annoyance as she snapped, "Well?"

Jamie looked taken aback by her remark. "'Well...?' Well, what?"

"Are you gonna move out of the way so I can go home now, or what?"

"O-oh..." he replied, rubbing his left shoulder awkwardly. "I mean, you could just go around, if you want..."

"I could just pay you back for that chop to the face right now, if you want," she quickly retorted, not so much saying it angrily, but suggesting it easily. Which probably unnerved the Pennsylvania teen even more.

"Ah... Good point," he relented, complying with her demand, and stepping out of her way while mumbling, "Still, going around probably would've been easier."

He grimaced when the girl responded. "About as easy as you moving out of the way. Besides, I didn't feel like it."

Turning around to see her striding to archway to the front of the school, Jamie called after her. "H-hey, wait!"

Stopping mid-step, his classmate pulled her foot back and then tilted her head to glance over at him from over her shoulder, seeing reach out in her direction awkwardly.

When her eye narrowed in annoyance, Bennett took that as his cue to speak, grinning nervously. "Um, about that chop... Is it okay if we keep that to ourselves?" Taking a quick scan of the courtyard - mentally sighing in relief that no one bore witness to that embarrassing moment - he then pleaded, "Please? I swear, it was an accident. I didn't mean to do it. And did I say I'm sorry? Because I'm really sorry! And if I did say it, then I'll say it again, because I'm really, really, REALLY sorry!"

The hooded girl said nothing, merely keeping her eye on him for a moment before looking away. Though her head didn't turn away from him, and her gaze looked as if it was pointed off into space. As Jamie's waited with bated breath, he could see her eye narrow slightly, as if in thought.

Finally she closed her eyes and shrugged, turning her head forward as she made to walk away. "Sure, whatever."

Hearing his fellow classmate let him off the hook, Jamie felt himself relax, swiping away a bead sweat on his forehead. "Phew!"

"...But just so you know, I'm gonna get you back."

Standing straight again, he balked at the threat. "W-wait, what?! What do you mean by that?!"

The girl, however, ignored him, walking off without so much as batting an eye his way.

Waiting until she was both out of sight and earshot, Jamie palmed his face, dragging it down.

"You've gotta be kidding me..." he grumbled.

Something buzzed in his right pocket. Reaching for it, he pulled out his smartphone, and saw a text from Jim.

'Halfway to Tobes's dentist. WYA?'

He replied with back with a 'On my way,' and put the phone back in his pouch. Making for his bike, he glanced in the direction the green-hooded girl had gone, having long disappeared from Jamie's immediate surroundings.

"...What a strange girl."

*-*-*

"Eight hours?! What kind of dentist appointment lasts for eight hours?!" Jim cried as he paced around in his kitchen, the trio having retreated to Lake's house after Toby's appointment.

Jamie, himself, looked like he was in a daze, remembering the sharp tools - more like instruments of torture - the orthodontist, Arcadia's Dr. Mario Muelas, put in the chubby boy's mouth, before shuddering himself out of it. "...Dude, how do you even survive all that?"

Toby merely shrugged, opening and closing his mouth while rubbing his jaw. "What? That's what it takes to fix two molars, and do an insertion! Ooh, and let's not forget cleanup."

Pinching the bridge of his nose with his right pointer finger and thumb, Jamie squeezed his eyes shut to remove the images from his mind, before turning to Jim. "Alright, enough with the suspense, Lake. We're both here, so what's the big surprise you just had to tell us about in person?"

Looking relieved to finally get on topic, Jim reach the amulet that was in his bag. "Okay, guys. Prepare yourselves, because you are not gonna believe your eyes!"

"Ugh... You got any aspirin?" Toby asked as he pulled out a box of frozen pizza from Jim's freezer.

"Tobes, pay attention!" he snapped, before focusing on the amulet in his hand.

Jamie watched his friend prepare himself, ignoring whatever it was Domzalski was doing behind him.

Then Lake spoke once more. "...For the glory Merlin, Daylight is mine to com-"

*DING!*

Blinking at the same time, both Jim and Jamie glanced over at Toby, who had heated the pizza he had used to ice up his sore cheeks.

Seeing their annoyed faces, Toby gestured for him to continue. "Go on."

Bennett facepalmed. "Toby, what did we tell you about taking food when you're at another person's house?"

"Ask permission first?"

"Exactly! And besides, you just went to the dentist today!" he chided... before holding out a hand. "Now pass me a slice."

Lake protested this. "H-hey, that's my food!"

"Yeah, and we skipped lunch waiting for Toby at the dentist. At your request, by the way," he explained, before taking the slice Toby offered, and taking a bite. "You owe us, Lake."

"Will you two knock it off?!" Jim growled. "I'm trying to show you guys something cool!"

"Trying, but not exactly doing," Toby pointed out while chewing on his own pizza slice. "You're not tryin' to punk us, are you, dude?"

"No! It..." Turning the amulet, the dark-haired Arcadian frowned. "I dunno what's going on. I got it to work yesterday..."

Jamie shrugged. "I dunno, man..."

Jim then held a hand up. "Okay, wait, wait, wait! I've got it!"

Straightening up, he took some calming breaths to himself, before speaking once more.

"...For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command."

Jamie arched an eyebrow when heard the words, frowning when he saw the amulet shake in Jim's hand. But both eyes widened when he saw it start to float.

Stepping away from the counter he was leaning against, the young Pennsylvanian watched in stunned awe wisps of blue energy flowed into his friend's chest from the amulet, levitating him off the ground. The amulet then faded into energy and floated into his chest.

Then Jamie noticed that his slice of pizza floated away from his hand... along with other utensils and objects in the kitchen.

"Holy champignon!" he heard Toby cry behind him, sounding just as flabbergasted as him.

Them a flash of light enveloped the room, and suddenly floating pieces of metal surrounded Jim, before latching onto him, fitting perfectly, before whatever force - magic - doing this spun him around before making him land on his feet before them.

Jim Lake Jr. was now bedecked in a pristine silver suit of knight's armor, one that was slightly tinted a light blue in the proper light, and various trimmings and lines all over it. It was complete with a breastplate, a pair of pauldrons where the left was larger than the right, vambraces, gauntlets, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons. The amulet that had brought forth all of this equipment was affixed onto the left side of the breastplate, over Jim's heart, blue trimmings surrounding it. Underneath the armor, there was a black inner protective layer that appeared during the expulsion of energy from the transformation.

And affixed to his back - without a sheathe, of course, because magic - was a steel-grey broad-bladed sword with a tint of blue on it. The two edges did not meet at a tip, instead, slanting at the top, with only the opposite edge forming the tip. The flat ends of the blade were engraved, while a large groove was on the opposite edge. The hilt was very thin, with V-shaped texturing on it. The pommel and the guard had a black color to them, both had blue gem embedded in them.

All in all, Jim looked like something straight out of a comic book.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! How cool is this?!" Jim cheered as he spread his arms out, showing off his armor to his friends.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?..." Toby gasped breathlessly, jaw practically dropping to the floor.

"...DuuuuuuuuuUUUUDE!" Jamie cried, practically jumping off his feet as he gestured at Lake. "Holy cow!"

"Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh!" Toby repeated as he scanned Jim's armor himself, lifting his arms. "So cool, so cool, so cool!"

"Lake, how'd you even find out it could do this?!" Jamie asked, the excited grin on his face permanent at this point.

"I dunno! It just happened!" Jim answered with matching enthusiasm. "I was making sandwiches yesterday, and then it started glowing again! Then the amulet started ticking, and the words 'For the glory of Merlin' popped up where the inscriptions were! And then when I said them, this huge armor and sword came out, before shrinking to my size!"

Their pudgy friend paused from his jumping, holding his hand up. "Dude, do know what this means?! You have a sacred responsibility here!"

"That's what they said!" Lake laughed.

At the mention of "they," Jamie's wide grin faltered. "Eh, what?"

Toby cut him off, though, as he kept repeating "Ohmigosh" again, but paused to take a bite of Jim's pizza. "You have to use these new powers for the benefit of all mankind!" Another bite, before giving his friends a serious expression. "You have to use these powers... to kick Steve's butt!"

And with that, all of the excitement left Lake and Bennett, both boys giving the redhead incredulous looks.

"...Dude." That was all Jamie said, almost as if in disappointment.

Jim's response was less subdued, the trek gesturing all over himself. "Really?! I show you a glowing sword and a suit of armor that can only be magic, and that's how you respond?!"

Toby, however, was undeterred. "Seriously! With this new armor, Steve stands no chance against you! It's butt kickin' time! HIYA!" He then proceeded to perform makeshift karate moves - ones Jamie had demonstrated to them once when he revealed to them that he had taken karate - and imagined it was Steve on the receiving end of them.

Bennett ran a hand down his face. "Guys, for the last time, beating Palsuck's easy! Just hit him fast and hard in the face, and he'll fold over like a piece of paper!" Then a thoughtful look crossed his features. "Though I suppose the armor would make it easier..."

"Oh, not you, too!" Jim griped.

Then Jamie shook his head. "Look, enough about Psycho Steve!" He turned to his armored friend. "Jim, you mentioned that 'they' said you had a sacred obligation to fulfill. Who's 'they?'"

"I've been trying to tell you guys! That's the part I've been freaking out over!"

*KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!*

The three teens froze on the spot, Toby even ceasing his display of faux karate to glance at the door to Jim's back yard.

"...Jim, why's somebody knocking on your back door at this time of the night?" Jamie asked uneasily.

Then he practically jumped back when a head popped up from the other side of the window, visible due to the light from the kitchen. A head with...

"Jim, why is somebody with six eyes knocking on your back door at this time of the night?!" he rephrased frantically.

To his shocking bewilderment, the figure waved back at them with a smile.

"W-w-w-what the heck is that?!" Toby crowd with fright. His face went pale when he heard the doorknob turning. "H-h-hey, wait! Don't let them open that door-"

*SLAM!*

Standing in the doorway was a greenish-blue creature with what looked like stone for skin. It had four arms, with blue hair looking as if combed straight down, and a set of short horns on the back of its head. It also had three brown eyes, with a long orange nose in between them, as well as patterns on his chin, arms, and chest. Of all things, it wore a pair of brown shorts, with suspenders over the shoulders of his top pair of arms.

"HAHA, MASTER JIM!" it greeted as it walked in with a friendly laugh, almost sounding proud.

It talked. The creature that walked in talked.

"...AAAAAHHH!" Jamie and Toby shouted, startled and frightened by their visitor.

"Jim, what the heck is that?!" the brunette demanded.

"I'm calling 9-1-1!" Toby whimpered, hiding behind Jim.

Suddenly, the house shook, as an even larger creature followed after the first, though found itself stuck in the doorway. This one also had rock-like skin, though this one's was colored gray. It had green eyes, with a dark green beard and hair on its exposed shoulder, and likely also on its back and chest. It had four short horns and a large black nose, and engravings on its arm. It probably had one on its other arm, and probably the rest of its body, if its companion was any indication.

Upon spotting it, Toby shrieked. "AAAHHH! Scratch that, I'm calling Animal Control!"

Upon spotting the big creature, Jamie immediately adopted a karate stance, raising his arms as the creature with the friendly smile approached.

"Ah-ah-ah! One more step, and it'll be the last thing you ever do!"

The creature had already taken a step when the boy said that, prompting him lashing out with a straight punch to its tummy.

"...AAGH!" Jamie cried as he pulled his hand back, shaking it up and down in pain, having practically hit stone.

Looking at him with a confused expression, it shrugged before addressing the armored boy. "Greetings, Master Jim! I knew it was but a matter of time before the amulet called to us!"

Jim carefully repeated "'Called' to you?"

"Actually, no," it admitted, holding one of its hands over its mouth as if whispering a secret. "We've been spying on you."

"Spy on you!" the bigger creature echoed with a chuckle, bringing two free fingers over its eyes before pointing it back to them. Then it went back to trying to free itself from the doorway.

"Well, keep a close watch."

*BAM!*

The big creature fell chest-first to the floor, shaking the house even more. "Door small..." it grumbled.

Shaking his right hand limply, left hand gripping his right wrist, Jamie could only watch in stunned silence at their new arrivals, eyes darting left and right between the two creatures. He did not take his eyes off of them, even as Toby frantically called Animal Control - even asking them, of all people to call the National Guard - before they hung up on him.

"Oh... You told your stout and slender friends about us?" the creature with all the eyes questioned, sounding concerned.

Jamieson took the moment to speak up, pointing out the obvious. "Oh, no, he didn't exactly need to! He just needed to wait for the tall, English-speaking stone creatures to show themselves to us!... And who you calling slender?!"

He had personally considered himself to be athletically fit, to be perfectly honest. Though he certainly wasn't stout!

"Um... I was kinda getting to that," Jim admitted. "Is that a problem?"

"Master Jim, we Trolls have gone through great lengths to conceal our existence to mankind, lest we cause them to panic!" the creature - the Troll - explained. Just as he said that, the bigger Troll picked Toby up from his hiding spot, causing him to scream in fright. "...Like that."

Bennett hopped over to them, mentally forcing himself to approach the gargantuan creature. "Hey, can you please put him down? You're freaking him out!"

The Troll glanced at him, then to the redhead, before placing him gently over Jim's counter. The chubby boy stumbled over utensils as he secured himself solid footing, before snatching a ladle and holding it up defensively.

"Okay, you don't need to worry about them," Jim assured the Trolls as he approached the other two youths in the room. "This is Toby D., and Jamie B. They're my best friends."

"Mmm... Toby D... Jamie B..." the bigger Troll echoed.

"Uh... Yeah," Jamie confirmed, before gesturing back to them. "And you guys would be...?"

"Ah! But where are our manners?! Forgive our brief lack of decorum!"

"'Decoration?'" the bigger Troll tried.

"Decorum. It is the dignified propriety of behavior. These humans have introduced themselves to us, so we must do the same," the blue Troll chided, before placing his right pairs of hands over his chest while the left pair gestured at the gray Troll. "I am known as Blinky. And this here is my most stocky companion. He is known as AAARRRGGHH!"

"...Wait, your name's Blinky?"

"Short for Blinkous. Blinkous Galadrigal, at your service." He bowed his head to the boy.

"...Uh-huh. And he's Argh?"

AAARRRGGHH! shook his head. "No, AAARRRGGHH!" he corrected, holding up three fingers. "Three Rs."

"Ah. Of course. How silly of me..." Jamie deadpanned.

"They're gonna eat us... He has 800 eyes!... Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh, we're gonna die!" Toby whimpered to himself, almost hyperventilating as he pointed the ladle in his hands between the Troll duo.

"Hardly. Your friend is the Trollhunter! His noble obligation is protective," Blinky assured, holding his upper hands up to gesture the youth to put the utensil down.

"'Protective?...'" Toby breathed, the word registering in his mind. Then, as if the anxiety was never there, Toby's excitement was now fueled by genuine wonder. "Like a superhero? Oh, if he's a superhero, can I be his sidekick?! And can I, like, have a cool super hero name? Like Deathblade, or Snipersnake?"

Rolling his eyes in amusement, Jamie then glanced at his armored friend. "So you're a... Trollhunter, now?"

Jim shrugged unsurely. "I guess so?..."

Blinky interjected upon hearing that. "Oh, it's not a matter of guessing, Master Jim. You are the Trollhunter! The Amulet of Daylight has chosen you to be the champion destined to protect all of us!"

Lake frowned in confusion. "And, um, who would I be protecting?"

"Us," AAARRRGGHH! answered as he stood behind the blue Troll.

"And mankind!" Blinky added. "Specifically from bad Trolls. As well as Goblins, Gruesomes, and the occasional rogue Gnome-"

*DINK-DINK!* *DINK-DINK!*

The ladle in Domzalski's hand kept prodding the blue Troll's skin. It was only after tapping it against his face did the Troll finally get fed up with it.

"Do you mind?!" he snapped, glaring directly at the source of this fiasco with all pairs of eyes on his face. The culprit merely stood there frozen, before holding the utensil to the side, and letting it clatter to the floor.

Turning back to Jim, Blinky elaborated further with a serious expression. "The mantle of Trollhunter is a sacred responsibility. One that has never passed onto a human before... This is a momentous occasion." He kept staring at the youth for a moment, before smiling at him, as if just remembering he had to.

Jim, for his part, merely looked back uncomfortably at the Troll, the full weight of his words beginning to sink in.

Jamie merely glanced between the two trolls and his friend, trying to take in everything he had just heard. It was overwhelming, to be sure, and that was just him. Having already some idea of what was really out there, he could only imagine what Jim and Toby were thinking. Still, there were questions that he wanted to ask.

But his thoughts were interrupted before he could voice them, by the sounds of honking outside Lake's house.

*HONK-HONK!*

This broke Jim out his stunned stupor. "Oh, no! It's my mother!"

"Wait, isn't she supposed to be working tonight?!" Toby asked.

"She is! She's not supposed to be back til midnight!" Jim cried, turning to the Trolls that would definitely give his mom a heart attack the second she spotted them. "Quick! Upstairs, now!"

Upon his order, the group immediately went full throttle, following the Human Trollhunter as he raced up the stairs. Jamie was the last man behind, following after AAARRRGGHH!, who broke the post at the bottom of the stairs.

Wincing with anxiety as he stopped to fix it, Jamie pushed against him as he shooed him along. "C'mon, c'mon!"

As they got to the top, Bennett and the Troll made it to the door to the bathroom, where the others had gone. AAARRRGGHH! went in first, but struggled to go through on account of his side. Biting back a curse, Jamie pushed against the giant Troll with all his might, for whatever good it did them. It seemed to be enough, thankfully, as AAARRRGGHH! slipped through. It was a relief that the brunette could only enjoy for a moment's breath, as the Troll once against fell forward with a loud *THUD!* that shook the whole house. One that Dr. Lake definitely would have felt.

Closing the door behind him, Jamie and the others took collective sigh of relief, grateful to at least get the Trolls into some form of hiding.

Then a random thought occurred to him. "...Lake?"

"Yeah, Bennett?" he panted.

"...Why didn't we just hide them in your basement? There's a lot more room down there, isn't there? And it's dark."

Jim held up a finger, eyes glancing to the side in thought, before he slouched in defeat. "...Yyyeaah, that would've made way more sense."

Jamie facepalmed.

The group flinched as Jim's mom spoke from downstairs. "Jim, it's me! I just came to pick up my phone. I forgot to take it with me earlier!"

Jim couldn't help but sigh as he but a hand over his face. "Oh, mom..."

Then they heard the big Troll sniffing Toby, a delighted look on his face. "Mmm... You smell like cat."

Toby awkwardly replied, "Uh, yeah? My nana's got a Siamese..."

"Tasty..." AAARRRGGHH! breathed. A little too loudly for Jim's liking.

"Can you please keep it down?!" Jim hissed through gritted teeth. "Any louder, and next thing you know, my mom's gonna-"

*KNOCK-KNOCK.*

"...Do that!" he quietly groaned.

"Jim, are you okay in there?"

"Y-yeah! I'm fine!" he quickly lied, standing up straight, or as he straight he could in a crowded bathroom of three teens and two Trolls. "It's just, uh, my stomach's a little..." He glanced over at Jamie, who could only shrug apologetically.

*PFFT!* *BLAT!* *POOT!* *PBBT!*

Everyone turned to the toilet, where Toby was currently shoving the toilet scrubber up and down, causing the water to make very flatulent sounds. He glanced at the other boys with a grin, Jamie responded with one of his own and a thumbs up. When the Pennsylvanian glanced at Lake, however, his grin faltered at the mortified flush of embarrassment on his face, before the Trollhunter gestured at him to cut it out.

"Uh-uh, you know, I think I might have a food poisoning situation!"

"...Okay, honey. Let me get you some medicine."

They waited until they heard the footsteps sounding more distant to relax, Jim sighing in relief. But that was when the Amulet began flashing on and off.

"Uh, what's this about?"

"The Amulet reacts to your emotional state," Blinky explained as Toby turned off the lights, ogling at the glowing device. "You appear to be in some sort of distress."

Jim gave him a blank frown. "Yeah. Ya think?"

Jamie decided to use that moment to address his concerns. "Hey, you mind if I ask you another question about earlier?"

"Of course! Speak your mind, Jaden."

"Uh, Jamie, actually. Or Jamieson," the boy corrected, frowning as he shot a look to AAARRRGGHH!, who was turning the light off and on. "Do you mind?" AAARRRRGGHH! frowned in disappointment, but relented, leaving the light off. "Thank you. Now, earlier you said that Jim's supposed to be the first human Trollhunter. If that's the case, who or what was the Trollhunter before him?"

"Ah, a most excellent inquiry, Jonathan!"

"...Seriously?"

The blue Troll paused before acknowledging his error. "Jamieson. To answer your question, the glorious mantle of Trollhunter has only ever been passed down from Troll to Troll for hundreds of years."

"So then the previous Trollhunter just... what, retired?" Jim followed up.

At this, both of the Trolls' expressions turned grim, sadness and trepidation in their eyes.

"Was... felled," AAARRRGGHH! answered.

"...Felled?"

"Means... killed," he clarified.

"Turned into stone, smashed, and broken into little tiny pieces," Blinky added, pounding a closed fist into his palm for emphasis. "Kanjigar the Courageous was his name. Brutally slain by an evil, ruthless Troll named Bular."

It was still dark, but thanks to the light coming from the amulet in his breastplate, it was evident the color on Jim's face drained upon hearing that.

He nearly jumped out of his suit when Toby put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Relax, dude!" he reassured, turning on the light after doing so. "I'm sure this Bular guy just got lucky!"

Blinky winced at that. "The evidence does not seem to suggest that, Tom."

"Toby, actually. Or Tobias," he offered.

"Yes," he acknowledged before continuing. "Bular is a formidable opponent. One not to be underestimated."

"So maybe that's what happened, right? Bular probably just caught the other guy off his game!" Jim suggested.

"Highly doubtful. Kanjigar was known to be one of the most alert, wary, and able of all the Trollhunters."

"But not the best, I'm betting... Right?" Jim uneasily asked.

Blinky's answer didn't help. "Oh, the very best! Sagas and songs have been written over the centuries about his exploits!"

If Jim had been only nervous before, he was downright terrified now. Seeing this, Jamie gestured to Toby, glancing at Jim so that he could see their friend's anxious state. Nodding, he held a hand to urge Jim to calm himself before speaking up.

"So, I think what my friend's trying to ask - what's bothering him, really - is if this guy, uh..."

"Bular," AAARRRGGHH! inputted, shoving, of all things, the toilet scrubber into his nose, causing Jamie to wince in disgust.

"Yeah, thanks. If this guy, Bular, was able to defeat Kanjigar-"

"Smash into pieces," AAARRRGGHH! added as he put the scrubber into his mouth, slurping on it. Jamie had to resist the urge to gag at that.

"Yeah, that. If he was able to do that to him, then what's gonna happen to Jim?"

"A most appropriate, if troubling query, Todd."

Toby was the one to give him glare, but Jamie was the one with the remark. "Dude, our names are not that hard to remember."

Blinky paused again, but quickly corrected himself once more. "Tobias. As to your concern, we would never allow Master Jim to go out into battle without some form of proper training. Not at all."

At this, Toby perked right up. "See? Nothing to worry about!" He then addressed the Troll again. "Now, how long is this training supposed to take?"

Blinky took a moment to count to himself, raising all of his hands, counting them down. Even his eyes - all six of them - looked to the opposite directions in thought before he came up with the answers. "...Well, decades."

"And... how long do I have, exactly?" Jim already knew he was not going to like the answer.

"About... A day or two. At most," the blue Troll answered. Behind him, AAARRRGGHH! waved a hand halfway, indicating that Blinky's estimate was a hopeful, yet unlikely one.

At this, Jim slouched against the door, hands on his head as the anxiety of his new position bore down on him.

Sighing at Lake's reaction, Jamieson asked rhetorically, "Do Trolls not know about tact, or do you guys generally give it to each other straight?"

*KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!*

Everyone flinched Jim's mother spoke after pounding on the door. "Jim, I brought the medicine. I also got some ginger ale that'll help. Come on out."

Jim shot up to his feet. "Uh-um, no need! I think I'm good now! Really!" He glanced at the group, looking for suggestions as he fiddled with the Amulet on his chest, simultaneously holding the doorknob to make sure his mother didn't open it.

Jamie joined, looking around to see if there was anything to do, or any way out. He spotted the window, but shook his head. Only him and maybe Toby could fit through, but Blinky and AAARRRGGHH! wouldn't. And that was not mentioning the height of the fall from where they were.

"I'm a doctor. I'm gonna treat my own son!"

"No, it's all good! I just need a little privacy!"

Upon hearing the word "privacy," the answer hit Jamie like truck. Glancing at the bathtub, he realized that it was as long as the room they were in. And with the shower curtain to obscure them, the answer should've been obvious!

"Quick! In the shower!" he whispered firmly, pointing at it.

He made sure AAARRRGGHH!, the biggest of them, went in first, followed by Blinky, and then Toby, who had to be squished between them.

Jamie chanced a look over to Lake as he made to climb on top of the grey Troll, and saw that he was actually making headway in removing the Amulet from his chest.

"Now you're starting to worry me!" he heard Dr. Lake say from the other side. "Alright, I'm coming in."

Taking that as his cue, Bennett hurriedly scrambled on top of AAARRRGGHH!, who was laying on his side, right arm first. As he settled in, crouched like a cat, Jamie could peer atop the curtain, but had to cover his eyes as a blue flash illuminated the bathroom, before dissipating. His heart stopped when he heard the door open... But then took a double take as Jim spoke.

"See? All good," he told his mother, footsteps indicating he had stepped out.

Peering over once again, Jamie had to duck his head when he saw Dr. Lake lean in from the doorway, right hand pressed over her nose, as if to avoid inhaling some foul smell. After a few seconds of her scanning the lavatory, she merely shrugged before closing the door behind her.

Sighing in relief, Jamie rested his head on AAARRRGGHH!'s arm. Then he blinked when he heard him sniff loudly.

"Quit sniffing me, giant Troll dude!" Toby chided below him.

"Sorry... Smell like cat," the Troll sighed apologetically.

"...Y'know, for someone who's gone through great lengths to conceal your existence to mankind... you guys are doing a terrible job it right now," Jamie criticized.

*-*-*

As soon as Ms. Lake found her phone and hugged Jim goodbye, the new Trollhunter raced up the stairs to let them know the coast was clear. The teens watched carefully as the doctor's car drove off into the night, waiting for her to be out of sight before Jamie pulled the curtains closed over the windows. Slouching in the couch, Jamie realized just how exhausted he felt. He could only imagine how Jim was feeling, and he was the one who was supposedly the new protector of Trolls everywhere.

The clattering of metal and glass, along with AAARRRGGHH! yelping in pain caught his attention, the large grey Troll struggling to fit in the living room.

"Cave too small..." he complained, Toby and Jim making to clean up the mess he was making, Jamie joining a second after.

Blinky took the moment to finally speak up again. "So, Master Jim, are you ready to begin your training? We should begin immediately!"

"Um... I can't. It's a school night," Jim declined nervously, picking up some books that fell to the floor from AAARRRGGHH!'s stumbling.

"...I am sorry, but the relevance of that escapes me. Could you clarify?" Blinky requested.

"I'm 15 years old! I have to stay home, study for school, and... stuff! Do homework?" he replied hotly. "I can't go out, you know... Trollhunting!"

"...Because?"

Jamie looked up at them as this went on, but then arched an eyebrow as Toby was feeding VHS tapes, which had fallen on account of AAARRRGGHH!'s stumbling, to the big grey troll.

"Dude, he eats VHS's!" he exclaimed with a grin.

"Yeah, sure. VHS is an outdated form of video entertainment from our childhood that should be preserved, but go ahead. Feed them to the Troll," the brunette deadpanned.

"Well, the whole 'getting killed by an insane, evil Troll named Bular' is kind of a dealbreaker for me!" Jim continued, his voice rising as Blinky continued to demand an explanation for why he shouldn't begin preparing to undertake his new station.

"A 'dealbreaker,' Master Jim?"

At his continued insistence, the human Trollhunter had reached his limit. "I DON'T. WANT. TO DIE!" he shouted, getting everyone's attention.

The blue six-eyes Troll merely stared at him... before breaking out into laughter. "Hahaha, goodness gracious! Who does?!"

Groaning in defeat, Lake slouched as he reached for the Amulet in his pocket, looking at it regretfully, before holding out to Blinky. "Maybe you guys should take this back."

Upon seeing the device in his face, as well as realizing what his doing, the Troll almost recoiled in horror, before using his top limbs to push it back to him.

"Master Jim, you can't just 'give it back!'" he lectured with a gasp. "The Amulet called to you. It chose you! You cannot deny it. It is your-"

"Please, don't say 'destiny...'" he pleaded with a roll of his eyes.

"...Sacred obligation," Blinky supplied after a moment, as he was indeed initially going to say "destiny."

"Or that," Jim groaned as he facepalmed.

"You cannot refuse it. You cannot relinquish it. The Amulet is yours to keep - to safeguard - until the day you die!"

"Yeah, and I'd like to get a little past puberty before that happens!" Jim protested, shoving the Amulet back towards Blinky, but growled when he shove it back.

"Master Jim, you are now responsible for the protection of two worlds; human and Troll alike! It is up to you to help keep the balance, for if you do not, evil Trolls like Bular will come into this world and wreak havoc!"

Jamie, who had mostly remained silent during their exchange, now spoke up upon his distressing words. "Wait, havoc? What kind of havoc?"

Turning to him, Blinky explained, "Bular and his ilk have long been working towards the complete subjugation of both mankind and Trollkind. They have made it no secret that they are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal. By any means necessary."

"Wait... You mean this Bular could actually hurt people?" Jim asked, genuine alarm and concern back in his voice as he began to actually consider what the Troll was saying.

AAARRRGGHH!, however, froze him in his tracks by blurting out, "Like you!"

Blinky glared over at his partner, hissing out "Not! Helping!"

Sensing that there was something he was leaving out, Jamie's eyes narrowed as he pressed him verbally. "What's he talking about?"

Turning to face both him and Lake, the blue Troll explained, "With the Amulet in his possession, Bular will seek Master Jim out. One way or another, they will face each other. It is inevitable."

And just like that, Jim was back at square one: fearing for his life.

Just as Jamie was running a hand down his face in exhaustion, Toby placed a reassuring hand on their friend's shoulder. That was enough for the youth to relax a little. But just a little.

"You know, maybe you guys outghta give Jim a little bit of time to process all this?" Toby suggested, negotiating on Jim's behalf. "I mean, you really just laid out a whole lot of heavy stuff on him."

Blinky considered this, putting a hand on his chin. Eyes briefly displaying genuine sympathy for the boy, the six-eyed Troll relented with a sigh, before. "Fine, fine. We shall leave you at that, but we will return to tomorrow to begin your training in earnest," he declared with a smile.

"Awesomesauce," Toby agreed, before shaking his hand.

*-*-*

Opening the door to the back, Jamie didn't know why he felt the need to make sure the coast was clear. That was until he reminded himself that now there were evil Trolls out there eager to get at his friends. Yeah, that was probably it.

"Alright, no one out here," he confirmed as AAARRRGGHH! and Toby stood behind him. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the pudgy teen gave the Troll more VHS tapes to eat, AAARRRGGHH! gobbling the down in one bite. Stepping away from the doorway, he watched as the big Troll tried to get through the doorway, struggling just as he did with all of the doorways in Jim's house.

Speaking of which, Bennett caught Lake standing quietly at the other side of the kitchen, brooding miserably against the doorframe as he studied the Amulet in his hand. On the corner of his vision, Jamie saw Blinky follow his gaze, looking over at Jim with a concerned look in his eye.

Approaching him carefully, he called to the boy with a soft voice. "Master Jim... If I may?"

Glancing up at him, Jim let out an exhausted exhale through his nostrils before pushing away from the doorway, nodding at Blinky to go ahead.

"Destiny... is a gift," he began. "Some go their entire lives living existences of quiet desperation, never learning the truth. That what feels as though a burden pushing down upon our shoulders is actually a sense of purpose that lifts us to greater heights."

Jim pulled out the Amulet again and considered it carefully.

"Never forget that fear is but the precursor to valor," continued Blinky, voice rising with fervor and determination. "That to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero!"

Hero. The word made Jim smile for the first time since he first revealed the Amulet's powers to his friends, Jamie noticed. He wondered if it also brought forth the memory of when he first used it. What he had he felt back then? Incredible, no doubt.

"Don't think, Master Jim," Blinky urged with a tone of finality, before boldly declaring, "Become."

Jim seemed to actually consider the words, frowning in thought as the full weight of what was being asked of him once again made itself known.

"Would you at least consider it?" Blinky appealed, hands held out towards the boy.

Looking at them, a smirk flashed over his feathers as he decided to fist bump every single one, putting emphasis on the last one before putting his hands on his waist, nodding at him. A nod which the Troll responded with a smile of his own.

*THUD!*

"Woohoo! Success, success!"

At the doorway, Toby was patting himself on the back, having managed to get AAARRRGGHH! out onto Lake's back yard.

Patting his left top shoulder, Jamie pointed at the door with his finger. "I think that's your cue, Blink."

Turning to boy, he nodded. "Right you are, Jamieson."

He smiled. "Hey, you got my name right. Progress."

Smiling back, he bowed his head at the youth before heading for the doorway. Walking through, he ran over to the other end of the yard, where his grey companion was peering over the fence. Looking back at the trio, Blinky waved at them one last time as AAARRRGGHH! - with an agility that caught the boys off guard given his size - hefted himself over the fence. Then he pulled Blinky after him. By surprise, judging by his cry as he flew over the fence.

As they stood by the door, Toby mulled, "Wow. Those guys are actually pretty stealthy."

"Pfft. Where was that stealth back in the bathroom?" Jamie grumbled.

Shrugging, the redhead then pounded Jim's shoulder. "How'd you like that, Jim? I boughtcha a night!"

"Just a night?!" he balked.

"Dude, you're the one who was saying you wanted 'more excitement and something more,' didn't you? Well, there ya have it," he commented, before walking inside. "So Trolls are real, huh? Who knew?"

Shaking his head, Jim closed the back door, making a point to lock it tight. Walking off, he was somewhat grateful Jamie had opted to wait for him.

"Man, what a night."

"Ugh, tell me about it."

"Do you really want me to?" Bennett quipped.

"No, thanks," Lake declined, walking to his staircase, and sitting on it.

Leaning against then wall, Jamie frowned as he saw his friend studying the Amulet. "So... You're considering becoming their, uh... Trollhunter?"

Jim scoffed. "Well, considering there's a big nasty Troll named Bular out to get me now that I've got it, it seems like I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"No, that's not true. You don't have to. Like with Steve, you can just choose not do it. You have that option."

"Yeah, but if I do that I'll look like such a wimp, not to mention be a sitting duck for Bular! And unlike Steve, he could go after other people and actually do worse than hurt them, if what Blinky was saying was true!"

"I'm just saying you have options, is all," Jamie said. "Probably ones you don't like, but they're there. So it's not like you don't have a choice."

"But choosing one option means putting others in danger, and I dunno if I can live with that... If I live long enough to live with it," he scoffed.

"So you're more worried about what'll happen to others than what'll happen to you?" Toby asked as he walked up from the kitchen, finishing the slice of microwaveable pizza from earlier. "That's quite the hero complex ya got there, Jimbo."

Jim only giggled, a sad smile on his face as he considered the Amulet. "You guys wanna know something crazy? When Blinky first told me about the Amulet, I was worried about what would happen to me. But now that he mentioned Bular attack others... that's not really what I'm worried about anymore."

"No?" Jamie asked.

"No. I'm more worried about my mom," he confessed. "I can't let Bular just run loose out there if there's a chance he can go hurt people like her. But then, if I become Trollhunter, and something happens to me, no one will be there to take care of her."

"That's not true, Jim! Me and my Nana would more than happy to be there for her if something happened!" Toby reassured quickly.

"That goes for me and my family, too," Jamieson added. "Your mom was there for my Grandma in her last days. What kind of people would we be if we weren't willing to do same."

At that, James Lake Jr. smiled gratefully at his two friends. "...Thanks, guys."

Bennett returned the smile, before shrugging. "Besides, nothing's gonna happen to you, Jim. Bulgar's not gonna get you, 'cause you'll be the one getting him! He's just a Troll. But you're supposed to be the Trollhunter."

"Yeah, one of many! The last of which was killed by him!" he argued. "Not only that, I'm the first human one, and now I've gotta fight him on my own?!"

"Whoah, there, you won't be alone! I'll be there beside you!" Domzalski announced. "Wasn't kidding about the sidekick thing. Though I still gotta think up a cool code name..."

"Not only that, I'm pretty sure those Troll guys are gonna help out too. Especially that big one. You see his arms?" Jamie supplied.

"Yeah... But still, even they seemed to be afraid of this Bular. And I'm already worried about something bad happening to me, so anything happening to you guys out there will make me feel even worse." Slumping against the stairs, Jim let out a deep groan. "Maybe this is a fight I'll have to fight on my own..."

Upon hearing Lake vent out his concerns, the weight on Jamie's pocket grew even heavier. He glanced down, pulling his cell out, frowning as he considered all that had happened tonight.

Trolls were real. And like humans, there were those that were good, and those that were bad. But now one of his friends was drawn into a fight - a war, perhaps - that had been going on longer than he had been around. One that affected him, and the people he loved.

He merely thought this was an intriguing mystery. One that he and his friends could solve. And solve it they did. Only that now that mystery was something bigger. Bigger than them. And now it seemed that there was a lot more at stake.

Jim couldn't do this alone. And just the three of them dealing with this was not going to be enough.

There was no other way through it, and Jamie had no other choice. They needed to be involved.

"...And what if you didn't have to fight that fight alone?" Jamie suddenly asked, gaining both boys' attention.

Jim sighed as he gave him a solemn smile. "Look, man, I appreciate you offering, but I can't just let you guys go out there-"

"One: you don't get a say on that. We're helping you whether you like it or not," he snapped, thumbing through his screen for the camera app. "And second, I wasn't taking about us. Hold the amulet up."

Confused, Jim followed his instruction and raised it. Bennett shot several pictures of it with his camera.

"Turn it around."

Lake did as told, and the boy took more photos. Toby and Jim watched as he tapped his screen several times.

"Uh, what are you doing, dude?" Toby asked as Jim stood up.

Putting his phone to his ear, Jamie revealed, "I know some people. People... that might be able to help us out."

*~*~*

"WOOOOOOOO-HOO!"

Sliding on a slab of ice as a makeshift surfboard, Jack Frost hollered as he shredded up the waves, freezing them in his wake. Gliding to the top, he grinded over the crest, spinning his ice board, before dipping down onto the wave.

A crowd of onlookers watched in wild astonishment at the phenomenon happening before them, phones out and recording. How all day, waves froze as they were crashing down onto the beach, blocks of ice washing up to the Australian shore. And all the while, nobody knew what was happening or how.

Save for a few kids cheering the Guardian of Fun on.

Deciding to finish it off with a flashy, grandiose stunt, Jack, rose up to wave, fast as he could, before soaring into the air. From there, he spin in all directions wildly, doing 360 degree horizontal to 720 degree vertical flips, before landing perfectly on the wave, and riding it all the way back to the beach.

The kids cheered him as he hopped off his board, slinging his staff - which he had held with his free hand the entire he was shredding waves out there - over his shoulder.

"That was wicked, mate! You were incredible out there!" said a boy

Jack grinned at that. "Aw, shucks, wasn't anything I couldn't handle. But hey, at least now you guys believe me when I say that I'm who I say I am, right?"

"Oh, totally! Though we never pegged ya for a surfer! Least of all an ice guy like you," said a girl.

"Well, that'll teach you to judge a book by its cover," he replied, before addressing the whole group. "Now, when somebody asks you who the best surfer around is, you're not gonna say some pro surfer legend, right?"

"NO!"

"Right! So, when they ask you who you think is the best surfer in the world, make sure to tell them that it's your old buddy Jack Frost, 'kay?"

"YEAH!"

"That's the spirit!" the Guardian of Fun cheered, before holding up a finger. "Oh, by the way, hold your hands out."

Slightly confused, the kids held a hand out each. And with a wave of his crook, Twinetender, Jack conjured a wave of ice magic that formed snow cones, with cones made of edible ice, in each of their hands.

"Good luck naming a surfer who can do that."

Somewhere deep down inside, a part of him was kicking himself, recalling how he once chastised his fellow Guardians for bribing children before he officially joined. However, he quickly threw that thought out the window, as he was not bribing them to do good. He was going out of his way to treat them simply because he wanted to, no strings attached. Major difference.

The crowd of children cheered once more, and went off to find their parents to get flavoring for their treats after they had said their goodbyes, Jack ruffling a few heads playfully as he did.

Letting out a satisfied chuckle, Frost stretched his arms over his head. "Man. Time sure flies when you're having fun."

Such was his usual routine since becoming a Guardian, one of the Man in the Moon's chosen protectors. Particularly, the one who embodied and protected children's right to have fun. He would go about the world, same as he did in the Before Times, when he was unseen and invisible. However, ever since he had taken the Oath years ago, more kids had started to believe in him wherever he went. It wasn't so much as that they were believing in because he was a Guardian. It was more that he finally understood what he needed to do to be seen.

Because now he knew. He was not brought into this world simply as Jack Frost. Once upon a time, he had been born a human, and went by the name of Jackson Overland. A young man, he died when he saved his younger sister from falling in the ice, though fell himself in doing so, sacrificing his life for hers. And he did it by getting her to play a little game of hopscotch.

It was this selfless act bravery, his laughing in the face of fear, that made the Man in the Moon, the first Guardian, resurrect him as a Winter Spirit, albeit at the cost of his memories of his past life.

Whether or not he had always meant o make him a Guardian, Jack didn't know. But when he finally remembered who he used to be, it all suddenly made sense. And since that day, he has never felt less alone.

Sitting down in the shade, Jack planted his staff in the sand, and lied down, arms crossing behind his head. As great as it was to go around having fun with people- and actually getting in on the fun - the wintry youth never took into account how exhausting actual conversation would be for him. And yet, he wouldn't change it for the world. Still, a break every now and then never killed anyone, right?

He certainly needed time to mull over whether or not to stop by the Warren and leave a little surprise for Bunny...

*BZZT*

"Hm?" Jack blinked, lifting his head to glance at his left pocket.

Reaching into it, Frost pulled out a smartphone, the screen of which said 'Jamie.'

Jamie Bennett. His first and longest Believer. The Last Light of Belief that had turned the tide against the Boogeyman during his last siege years ago. Someone Jack liked to believe was a very close friend.

A close friend that hadn't spoken to him in months, prompting the Guardian to quickly press the green button.

"Jamie! What's up, kid?" he greeted excitedly.

"Hey, Jack," the boy greeted simply from the other end. "You busy?"

The white-haired spirit shook his head, even though they were speaking on the phone. "Nah, just hanging out down under. Just got done freezing up some killer waves here in Australia. Took some photos, if you want me to send-"

"Maybe another time," Jamie cut off, Jack's mouth twitching as he paused. "I'm actually sending you some photos right now. Lemme know if you get them."

"Oookay..." Jack murmured, pulling his phone away as it buzzed against his ear.

Putting the call on speaker, the immortal young man pressed the text notification as soon as he saw it, leading to the chat. There, he saw two photos, one of some kind of silver watch with weird tunes on it, the image of a face with sharp teeth, and some blue jewel thing beneath it.

"Um... What am I looking at?" Frost asked.

"My friends and I found this weird amulet a few days ago," Jamie explained. "Thing is, it spoke to us. It called out my friend Jim's name. And it's been one weird thing after another ever since."

"Weird things? What kind of weird things?"

The boy sighed on the other end of the line. "Sorry, I don't have time to explain right now. Can you show that to the others, and see what you can find out? Maybe North?"

"Uh, you're not gonna ask me if I know anything about this?" Jack inquired, trying hard not to come off as annoyed or put off.

"Jack, you literally asked what it was the second you got the picture," Bennett pointed out blankly.

"...Touché."

"Look, can you please look into this as soon as you can? Time's kinda of the essence, here, and we really need to know more about this as soon as possible. Please?"

Jack Frost frowned at his words. Not because he was not going to do it; of course he would. No, what alarmed him was the underlying hint of desperation in his voice. The kid hid it well, to be sure, but Jack could hear it plain as day.

Whatever it was that this mysterious amulet had been doing, it was enough to spook, or at least worry Jamie. And that kid did not worry that easily. At least not unless it was something important.

"...Alrighty. I'll go meet up with the others. See what they can tell me," he finally agreed.

A sigh of relief sounded out from the other end. "Great. Thanks, man," the Last Light thanked. "Meet us back in town as soon as you're finished talking with them. I'll explain more then."

Jack arched a dark eyebrow. "'Us?' You gonna finally introduce me to your new friends?"

"They're involved in this, Jim more than anyone. They have to be there," Jamie answered.

Frost shrugged. "Hey, I'm all for it. Though it might get awkward if you end up having to introduce me as your invisible friend."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I'll be in touch. Later."

"Later. And, hey, be care-"

*CLICK!*

"...ful," he sputtered, glancing at the smartphone before scoffing.

Letting himself simmer, he then curiously studied the pictures that the Pennsylvania native had sent.

A weird amulet that was making strange things happen? And here he thought nothing ever happened in Arcadia.

Still, whatever was going on, it made him curious.

Tossing the smartphone up once, he then shoved it back in his pocket when he caught it. Then hopping off the sand, Jack snatched Twinetender off the beach, and then waved it in of him.

"Wind!"

At his command, gusts of the North Wind blew towards him, blowing away any bits of sand as it surrounded it him and a wild gust.

"To the North Pole!"

With one strong kick up, the winter Guardian shoot into the air, speed picking up the further up he ascended. Then, with a wild burst of air, the wind propelled him northward bound.

Jack Frost didn't know what Jamie and his friends had found, or what he was getting himself into.

What he did know, however, was that there was only one way to find out.

*~*~*

*-CHAPTER ONE END-*

*~*~*

Next Chapter: For the first time in history, Trollhunter and Guardian unite.