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After the strange beam of gold-and-black light emerged from the ground of the city square, Eli and Steve knew that could only mean one thing: creepslaying time. It was the Eternal Night, and the Creepslayerz were back in action.
Eli thought that it was a bit inconsiderate of the Trollhunters to not tip them off about the Gumm-Gumm invasion, but now, he didn't care at all. Him and Steve were living out their glory days, fighting the things that creep in the night, protecting their city as Arcadia's guardians. Donning their black shirts, equipped with ninja stars and one baseball bat each, nothing could stop them now.
Or so they thought.
"Pepperjack, pass me your ninja star collection!"
Eli nodded. "Sure thing!"
He aimed the bag full of shurikens to Steve, who jumped and caught it mid-air.
Surrounded by a dozen or so goblins, Steve began lobbing a slurry of shuriken into the goblins' slimey green flesh, drawing an oozing green liquid from their bodies. Most of them exploded upon impact, but two or three goblins remained.
Before he could turn around, two surviving goblins climbed on top of Steve's backpack and onto his shoulders. One covered his eyes as the other began to chew on his limbs.
"AGGGHH!!"
Eli gasped at the sight of his best friend getting hurt. Without any more thought given to the situation, he reached for the baseball bat strapped to his back and started to swing the wooden bat at the direction of Steve's assailants.
"Ouch, Eli, that's my knee!"
Eli winced. "Sorry, Steve!"
Although Eli missed about half of his strikes, he still managed to render the two goblins into a slimy putty.
Steve grinned through the mild pain and bruising across his lower body. "Hell yeah!"
A couple of pint-sized creepers were no issue for the Creepslayerz. Those green monsters were crushed against their baseball bats like grass chopped up in a lawn mower. It was like coming back to the first checkpoint in a video game after leveling up to farm for gold against some low-tier monsters. Killing goblins was a piece of cake to the two seasoned monster fighters.
But, Eli and Steve couldn't just fight goblins off. There were bigger, stronger monsters that were beginning to slowly infiltrate the city.
The actual threats to Arcadia started to come along when the city square began to get a little too over-run with Gumm-Gumms.
At the time, neither of them knew exactly what Gumm-Gumms were, except that they were at least four times taller than any normal human could ever be. And Eli was pretty sure that they could step on both Steve and his own bodies in just one second.
Eli could hazily make out the frighteningly large trolls deep in the fog. He began to feel his heart rate rise.
"Dude... are we really about to do this?"
Steve gulped at Eli's question, but tried his best to shrug it off. "I — I mean, who else will? We need to protect Arcadia, don't we? We're the Creepslayerz! They're the creeps, we're the slayerz."
Eli exasperatedly sighed. "Why can't we leave it to Jim and the others? I'm pretty sure I saw Claire teleport off the stage with a portal. Maybe they can take care of it?"
Amidst the ruckus, a rogue Gumm-Gumm was alerted by the two boys' voices. As it turned to face them, it released a devastatingly loud bellow, and began to charge in their direction. Although it was still far enough away for them to have a short conversation, it was going to end up fighting the two boys eventually.
Steve's eyes narrowed as he protectively stood in front of Eli. He knew that between the two of them, he was more suited to brawl with these big monsters. If it came down to it, maybe Eli could run away fast enough to survive.
Eli felt like he was frozen in time. Stammering, he could barely mutter a response from the sheer horror of the unfolding scene.
"S—S—Steve, seriously?! Don't just stand there, c'mon, let's get out of here!"
Steve somberly shook his head, resting his palm on Eli's shoulder. "No. Eli, you have to look for Aja and Krel. Keep them safe for me."
Eli's eyes started to well up. "What?! Hell no! We can still make it!"
The short boy grabbed his friend's wrist and tugged on it with all his strength, but it was ultimately useless for him to try and move Steve. He wouldn't budge.
Steve looked down at the boy with a wave of newfound clarity. "Eli, you've been the best Creepslayer-in-arms I could ever ask for."
The brunet's tears streamed down his cheeks, his arms gripping onto his friend even tighter.
"No! Don't say that now! Let's get — get to a safe area! We can find shelter, in... in the high school!"
Deep down, Eli knew that wasn't true. Arcadia Oaks high school was miles away from the plaza, and there was no way they could outrun a giant troll the entire way there.
In an act of desperation, he dropped into a near-squat position across from the sidewalk, attempting to use his body as a weight to drag his friend away from the Gumm-Gumm's line of sight.
Too internally scared to look back at his fellow Creepslayer and regret his desicion now, Steve Palchuk gently pushed away Eli's hand and began his walk towards the corrupted troll.
Shaken by Steve's decision, Eli fell to the concrete floor, watching in horror as his friend slowly marches towards the towering beast.
Pepperjack reached out his left hand, but it was far too late for him to interfere. The Gumm-Gumm was mere meters away from Palchuk at that moment.
Steve clenched his baseball bat tight, and held it in front of his chest with determination. "Dieee!!"
The emerald-green Gumm-Gumm slowly dropped its toothed-spear down to the height of the blond boy. It lunged the sharp weapon forward, towards the Creepslayer's fleshy chest. Steve narrowly dodged the impaling attempt, as he turned the baseball bat-in-hand around 180 degrees, now pointing its narrow end towards the Gumm-Gumm.
Aiming the handle towards its feet, Steve locked his elbows and stabbed the handle into its two legs. He heard the sound of a crunch.
As his eyes quickly darted up, he saw the Gumm-Gumm reeling back in pain, stumbling a couple of paces away from him.
He grinned at the successful blow just dealt. However, his grin was quickly wiped of his face as the Gumm-Gumm climbed back onto its feet, balling its hands into fists. The troll's stony face was hidden under its helmet, but Steve could still tell based off its body language that he'd angered it.
Before he could react, the Gumm-Gumm stole the wooden bat away from Steve and snapped it in two. Now, he was left with nothing to defend himself with except the leftover wood chips.
His eyes widened with fear, and as the Gumm-Gumm reached its hand out towards Steve's body, he tried to smack it away, but it was a futile attempt. All of the bones in Steve's body are crushed between the mighty grip of the troll's massive stony hand. The Gumm-Gumm squeezed harder and harder, until Steve's arms are pressed into his ribs so hard that he could barely take in shallow breaths.
"ugh, I..."
Steve could feel his body slowly giving out.
Back on his feet, Eli rushed into battle, renewed by the sight of his best friend.
"Stop it!"
He used his own baseball bat to attack the sides of the Gumm-Gumm's outstretched arm. It was a valiant effort, but unlike the sharp stabs dealt by Steve towards the Gumm-Gumm's feet, Eli's blunt hits towards its arm weren't nearly enough to damage the troll's rocky exterior.
Disinterestedly glancing towards Pepperjack, the Gumm-Gumm merely swatted the boy's entire body onto the concrete with a flick of its wrist.
Steve winced at the sight of Eli getting violently chucked onto the curb, but he was too weakened to do anything about it. Gasping for air, he struggled to stay awake without enough oxygen in his lungs.
He murmured to Eli in a throaty whisper, but even whispering hurt Steve's constricted body, which was endlessly pulsing under the stress of slowly being crushed.
"Pepperjack, run—"
"Never! I'm not going to leave you!"
Now, with his back torn against the rough concrete street, and his face covered in dust, Eli cried out. It was the only thing he could do other than give up and let Steve be killed. And he would never succumb to the second option.
"HELP! ANYONE! PLEASE!"
The last syllable reverberated amidst the town square, louder than even the Gumm-Gumms thunderous marching. Eli had just alerted the entire undead troll army to their whereabouts, but he didn't care, as long as it meant Jim, Claire, anyone, could save Steve Palchuk.
A few moments passed. It seemed as if the Gumm-Gumm loosened his grip on Steve momentarily, waiting in silence to see if there were any other humans that it could torment alongside the two boys.
After a couple of seconds, Eli groaned under his breath. No one came. The streets were still empty.
He felt stupid for thinking that anyone was going to save them. It could very well be the case that Jim, Claire, and Toby were as screwed as they were right now.
Just a bunch of kids messing around with things that they never should have.
In that moment, Eli wished that he were somehow wrong about his theories. He was right about trolls after all, but at what cost? His friend dying to one?
Right as Eli was about to denounce his conspiracies as a whole and pray to god for everything to 'go back to normal', the strangest thing happened.
The once blood-thirsty Gumm-Gumm was now... scared? Frozen?
It seemed to have picked up on something or someone that hadn't yet reached Eli or Steve's senses.
After noticing something unknown to the Creepslayerz, the corrupted troll dropped Steve's bruised body onto the pavement, which is now curled into a ball on the cold, concrete sidewalk.
Eli's eyes widened with confusion. Why would it drop Steve like that?
Puzzled by the unpredictable turn of events, Eli scanned the perimeter. Could it be that there was an even bigger, scarier beast amongst the three of them right now?
He adjusted his glasses and squinted into the copper fog. No... nothing ahead of them.
As he turned his back to face Arcadia's plaza, there was nobody there either.
Was the Gumm-Gumm just tired after all this time? But why now?
At that very moment, Pepperjack's stomach dropped.
A noise. A purr?
Whatever that noise was, it meant that they weren't alone with the Gumm-Gumm. There was another troll among them.
Eli didn't see this troll, but he could hear it above them. Lurking, growling quietly.
It must have been watching the chaos unfold from atop the balconies for at least the last half-minute.
Eli's hands trembled as he steadied one side of the glasses' temple.
Unnerved by the inhuman vocals echoing from above, his lips quivered in an anxious anticipation.
If this was how he was going to go, at least he wasn't about to die alone. Steve was right beside him.
That thought brought enough comfort to the boy that he was able to slowly tilt his head up,
to finally come face-to-face with this beast.
....
He looked up at the troll.
Eli's mouth suddenly dropped in total disbelief.
Holy. Fuck.
"WHAAAATT?!"
Before Eli could scream another word, the body of the troll that he was gawping at turned into a motioned blur from the sheer speed of his movements.
Tenacious, capable, scarily agile, and able to scale entire buildings without breaking a sweat.
The half-troll swiftly descended onto the street below with a single jump from the multi-story building, not stopping to introduce himself to the two.
With no time for pleasantries, he got straight to work.
Firstly, the horned warrior wrung his hands around the Gumm-Gumm's helmet, and leapt a few feet forward. Then, with the swift build-up of momentum, he whipped his hands towards the side of a grocery mart, smashing his opponent's body into a wall.
The Gumm-Gumm, now laid vulnerably atop a pile of bricks, held his emerald-toothed spear towards the armored troll, but this didn't phase him at all. The half-troll simply swerved away from the spear, and sunk his Decimaar Blade down into the Gumm-Gumm's body, emitting a low, unyielding growl as he did so.
Like a butcher's knife against a slice of bread, one fell swoop of the blade was enough to penetrate the entire Gumm-Gumm's armor and stony flesh.
All that remained now were a pile of rocks.
Somewhat absentmindedly, the blue troll brought a hand to his fluffy-haired head, mumbling something about 'accidentally damaging his favorite 7/11 store'.
His back was hunched over the Gumm-Gumm's gravelly remains, and he caught a glance of his steely eyes peering into his own reflection, plastered across the convenience store's polished tiled floor.
His blue irises stared back at him pensively.
He reached down at the floor to tap the porcelain tiles with his four fingers.
There I am, he thought to himself.
He shook his head to escape getting off-topic. He was still getting used to his appearance, but that was irrelevant right now. There were bigger things to worry about at the moment.
The rest of the Gumm-Gumms. Gunmar. Morgana.
Not wanting to waste anymore time, he hastily smudged some dust off his cheek and stretched his back,
then promptly turned on his heel to find the next enemy to defeat.
However, the hunter wouldn't escape this corner of Arcadia's City Square so easily.
First, he would need to explain himself to two sets of prying eyes.
His fellow classmates.
Unbeknownst to him, the Creepslayerz had been watching the entire takedown from a distance, with unbreakable focus and slacked jaws.
While Jim was masterfully taking down one of Gunmar's spawn, the two meddlesome teenagers were exchanging looks of utter bewilderment,
and developing a shared suspicion between the two of them.
Was this... who they thought he was?
That armor, that voice, and that signature aloof demeanor... the 'thing' standing before them now could only be one person.
Yes, his skin, hair, and face were all different. He's bluer than the morning sky, impressively muscular, and hell, he's even grown an entire extra foot. At least.
But still, it was him.
Steve slowly climbed back onto his feet, but he never once took his eyes off of the Trollhunter.
Pulling the weight of his body atop his bruised and battered legs, Steve's wounded face was contorted into pure astonishment.
"... Jim?"
Eli stood beside Steve, who had just barely spoken the Trollhunter's name in a whisper. It was clear that Steve wasn't exactly sure if it was Jim or not. After all, maybe that style of armor was common amongst trollkind.
But Eli knew.
He knew, better than most, that not a lot of people, or trolls, would risk their lives to save two hot-headed teenager boys.
Jim would do that, though.
The corners of El's lips slowly turned upwards to form a grin.
Sure, he was scared, and honestly he might've passed out at that very moment from the sheer stress of it all, but he was also proud of Jim.
After all, this was the kid who had stood up for him ever since they were in primary together all those years ago. The boy that fought back against Steve when he was still a schoolyard bully.
It couldn't be anyone else.
With mild hesitancy, Eli slowly raised his voice to speak.
"It's... it's him. I think."
"....It's the Trollhunter."
Jim strolled back onto the mostly-empty city street. Apart from the thought of killing Gunmar, his mind was vacant.
He had honestly forgotten about Eli and Steve completely, assuming that they had already run off to seek shelter elsewhere.
But one trembling voice of a squeaky, blond teenage boy quickly shattered that assumption for him.
"J — Jim...?"
Jim's pointy ears perked up at the noise. His head cocked to the side instinctively, and his pupils dilated at the sound of a familiar voice.
The Trollhunter sprucely turned his head around to meet his classmates' gazes, he was met with two cartoonishly exaggerated figures before him:
Steve Palchuk, pointing towards Jim in horror with the whites of his scleras on full display. His face had broken into a full sweat despite it being a chilly afternoon, and his jaw was unhinged, with a mouth that curled up in a slight fear. His eyebrows were stuck in such an intensely tilted degree that Jim would've thought that Steve had wanted to kill him if not for the context of the current situation.
And Eli Pepperjack, mid-scream, pupils so shrunken from fear and shock that his eyes almost appeared to be completely blank. His hands cradled the back of his head; a self-regulating mechanism which clearly wasn't working so well. Eli's jaw was hung even lower than Steve's was, appearing as if it could drop to the ground at any moment. The boy's hair was frazzled, and his once-meek demeanor had been replaced by a morbid curiosity and fearful stupefaction.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH —"
"I —"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Jim's nose scrunched from total overstimulation.
His increased sensitivity to noise made him extra uncomfortable whenever people yelled,
and especially uncomfortable from the shrill teenage boy-screams of Steve Palchuk and Elijah Pepperjack.
"JIM?! IS THAT YOU?!"
Jim's eyes tightened. He knew he had to break the news to his classmates eventually, since this new form was permanent, but this was a pretty hectic time to do it.
"Uhh — hi, Eli. Yeah. It's... it's me."
"LAKE?! YOU'RE A TROLL?! What the absolute fuck?!"
Eli fumed in his friend's direction. "Language, Steve!"
Steve rolled his eyes at Eli and briefly paused before continuing on.
".... What are you?"
Jim cleared his throat following Steve's off-kilter comment.
"I'm a half-troll. ...It's a new development."
He waited for a moment for a reply, but his classmate's mouths didn't move, and neither did their bodies.
They were still stuck in the same bewildered poses.
The Trollhunter sheepishly smiled at the realization that he would have to clarify himself further.
"It's me, guys. Jim. Seriously."
Both Eli and Steve continued to gaze at Jim's new form with a mix of reverence, disbelief, and slight fear.
After a moment, Eli clamored to speak.
"I... I don't believe it! I — I... The horns, the sharp teeth, the height... HOW DID YOU EVEN DO THAT?!"
Jim tilted his head. "What, kill the Gumm-Gumm?"
Eli vigorously shook his head. "No, I mean...", he gestures awkwardly towards Jim's body, "...that."
Jim pursed his lips and sighed. "I used a magical potion to turn myself into a troll. Basically."
"You can just.... turn into a troll? Is that how you knew about all of these creepers since the start?! WHAAAATTTT?!"
Eli brought his hands up to his cheeks, visibly unable to process the stark change in his friend's new appearance.
Jim shook his head at Eli and held his palms out, signalling for him to calm down.
"No. I wasn't always a troll. I was a human before. A full human. But... things have changed."
Steve began to grin, and Jim was slightly unnerved by this. He was a bit puzzled at the thought of someone enjoying his half-troll form.
"You're like a killing machine! This is — amazing! Human Jim would never be able to do anything like what you just did!"
Jim winced. It was a nice sentiment, sure, but at least human Jim could eat out at restaurants and go to school. The trade-off didn't seem to be worth it.
Seemingly having picked up on Jim's solemn facial expression, Eli slowly dropped his hands from behind his head.
He spoke to Jim in a quieter manner now.
"So, your physiology... everything's basically the same as a trolls'?"
"Yes."
Eli bit his lip. He knew what this meant.
Now that the cat was completely out of the bag, Jim braced himself for the insults now. 'Beast', 'freak', 'monster'. It was typical with the territory. That's probably all they saw when they looked at Jim now, he thought.
Jim's gaze falls onto his feet in a sorrowful anticipation.
Following Eli's lead, Steve slowly lowered his accusatory finger,
and his expression stilled to be almost completely deadpan.
"So you... you're a creeper? Forever?"
Jim winced, again. Steve had a really harsh way of delivering words.
The blond-haired boy guiltily shook his hands in front of Jim's face right after he finished his former sentence.
"NO — not like that! I mean.... Can you still go to school, at least?"
"...Probably not."
There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.
Eli adjusted his glasses to get a better look at his half-troll friend. "You could always do online school."
The Trollhunter shrugged. "Maybe, but I'd still be a half-troll, at the end of the day. I wouldn't be able to get a normal job from a high-school degree while looking like this."
"Yeah, you couldn't get a normal job," Steve said.
Jim groaned. It couldn't be stressed enough how much Steve really, really didn't know how to deliver his words with any semblance of tact.
Eli elbowed Steve in his side. "Steve, what's your deal?! He just saved you!"
Steve furrowed his brows in anger. "What the hell, Pepperjack?! I was giving him a compliment!"
Amidst their feud, Jim's nose scrunched and his eye twitched.
"What? How could the phrase, 'you couldn't get a normal job', ever be a compliment?" Jim did his best to put on an accurate Steve impression; 50% voice cracks, 50% lisp.
Steve scoffed at the two boys that were interrogating him.
"Uh, duh! Getting a normal job would suck! Now that you're new-and-improved, your future job could be legendary!"
Jim's expression blanked.
"...what?"
"You heard me Lake. You're like, a machine now. What are you, six-foot-eight? And super ripped! You could be making bank as America's star football player in four years time! That's not a normal job, it's fucking amazing!"
Jim sighed. He forgot for a minute that he was still speaking to two sixteen-year-olds at the end of the day.
"Okay, that's a nice thought... I guess. But seriously, this isn't a safe place for you to be right now. There are Gumm-Gumms surrounding the entire plaza, so you should re-locate to—"
Jim paused.
".... Whaaaat are the two of you doing?"
In the five seconds that Jim took to sufficiently lecture the Creepslayerz, they had already closed the gap between themselves and Jim. Eli was tapping his knuckles against his armorplate, and Steve was firmly squeezing his bicep muscles.
"How is your armor so iridescent?! Is that a wizard thing or a troll thing?" Eli slowly circled the Trollhunter, in awe of the way that his armor's indentation changed color depending on where you were looking at it from.
Before Jim could respond, Eli was already tapping his digits against the armor's metal.
"Wow! This material is so resonant! This armor can't be made of any normal kind of steel..." Eli peered into his own twisted reflection in Jim's metallic suit. "Woah. So cool!"
Meanwhile, Steve cupped Jim's muscles in his palms, dragging both hands across the half-troll's arms in a frenzied excitement.
"Your dimensions are freaking insane! Your biceps are at least... hmmm... seventeen inches, under all of this metal. I've only met one other athlete with that good of a bicep diameter, and he was roided out of his mind."
Jim shuddered at the strange infatuation that both boys had with his new form. This wasn't how he had expected their reaction to be at all.
Then again, Palchuk and Pepperjack were the only boys in his class that were bold enough to try and involve themselves with his Trollhunting business, so maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised.
"Okay, both of you — there's got to be a better time to talk about this. Which isn't right now. I'm busy."
Steve guiltily smirked, but continued to run his fingers against Jim's tensed-up tricep muscle. "Ohmygod, the Arcadia Bulls are so winning Nationals next season."
Jim slapped Steve's hand away.
"Sweaty palms", he murmured.
Steve nodded and closed his eyes in agreement, but an appeasing smirk was still wrapped around his scheming face.
"Okay, alright... So that's a maybe to trying out for the team next year, then."
"What?"
"Nothing!"
Jim raised an eyebrow, and Eli rolled his eyes at Steve from behind Jim's back.
"Cool down, Steve."
Steve's jaw dropped, as he points at his Creepslaying partner. "You — you can't tell me off for that while you're climbing on his back!"
Jim's face crinkled in on itself as he realized that his classmate had scaled his back and was currently sat atop of it.
With Jim's newfound strength, Eli's body weight felt like a baby chick stood atop his shoulder.
Barely noticeable.
But still, it aggravated him now that he was aware of it.
"... Eli. What are you doing?"
"Haha... um, investigating?"
"I can feel your hand on my head."
"On your horns, actually!"
Jim could feel his blood pressure rising, but he did his best to suppress his trollish instinct to growl at the boy.
"... Eli."
The boy sighed in disappointment. "Alright..."
He begrudgingly let go of Jim's curled horns and climbed down the half-troll's back, and turned to stand in front of Jim beside Steve.
Jim took a minute to process the actions and words of his two classmates stood in front of him.
They were annoying, sure. Belligerent. Over-zealous, definitely.
But they were his friends, and he cared deeply about them.
Even in this new form, they clearly accepted Jim. A little too much, actually. But Jim wasn't complaining. He never expected to be given so much grace as a half-troll by Steve Palchuk and Eli Pepperjack.
Looking down to meet their eyes, Jim smiled.
Eli smiled back at him.
Steve... well, he grinned. Sort of. Which was good enough.
"Okay you two, I don't have any time to spend. But thank you, for trying your best to fight the Gumm-Gumms."
Steve nodded. "Of course. We need to make sure everyone is safe from those things."
"Right, but I'm the Trollhunter, and that's how I feel about you two. Trust me; I can handle the rest of these guys. I need you two back at the school, safe and sound while me, Claire and Toby clear the city to fight Gunmar."
Eli crossed his arms. "Jim, we can help too."
The Trollhunter sighed, and brought himself down onto one knee. Now, he was eye-level with the short-statured boy, holding his shoulder in his hand.
"Eli, I know that you and Steve could fight these guys off. But I've been training for this exact moment for the last year. I know a Gumm-Gumm's weaknesses, blind spots; everything. It's better for me to be fighting them off compared to you two."
Jim looked up at Steve, who begrudgingly gave him a thumbs-up. Pleased by the response, Jim rose to stand.
"Alright, Lake, fine. Me and Pepperjack will head back to the school. Set up barriers; lock all the doors shut; make sure no bad trolls get to the other kids taking shelter in there."
Jim lended him a toothy grin. "That's more like it!"
"Okay — but school is kilometers away from here," Eli said. "And between all the screaming we did back there, and you wrecking the Seven-Eleven, we're going to be easy to hunt down."
Jim smirked coyly. "You know what? I think I could help with that."
Eli gasped. "Really? How?"
Without saying another word, Jim turned around, and pointed his extended thumb towards his now-hunched back.
Eli giddily smiled. "Ahh! Troll-ride!"
Steve pinched the flesh between his brows with his fingers. "Nope, no way. No way I'm doing that."
Eli impatiently shook Steve by his hand. "C'mon! Jim express! Jim express!"
Steve grimaced. He wasn't going to win this argument, was he...?
Leaping between Arcadia's towers, Jim sprinted across Arcadia city in a flash.
"DUDE, YOU MOVE QUICKER THAN SPIDER-MAN!"
Jim chuckled. "I don't know about that one, Steve."
The artwork above is the wonderful comic strip made by zenayumiii that inspired this fic!