#jloby

The wind shifted,blowing through the surrounding wheat fields, bring with it the slight sound of someone approaching. Jim shifted to be further inside the drain. No ordinary human would have been able to pick up the sound. His sense were far more acute, even more so than some trolls. He stopped trying to cram his form further into the culvert as the wind also brought a smell to his more sensitive nose. That can’t be? What could he be doing here?

Toby walked through the blowing wheat only a few yards away. He was obviously searching for something. It could only be Jim he was searching for. Jim thought briefly about hiding completely but he missed Toby more than he ever let on.

“Toby! Over here!” Jim called from the drain, surprising the other boy. Toby ran over and peered into the pipe.

“Jimbo! What are you doing here?” Toby yelled into the pipe. Jim flinched as the shout echoed in the confined space. “We can get some cover and get you out of there. Don’t worry!”

Toby turned to leave, but stopped when Jim called him back. “Don’t bother Toby. I’m not going back to the rest of Trollmarket. They are better off without me. Once they move on, I’ll follow from a distance.”

The other boy didn’t seem that surprised by what Jim said. “So you are still on that whole guilty self-sacrificing thing huh?” He said.

“You knew? Wait what are you even doing here? How did you get here?”

“I got here by gyre, obviously.” He sat down out in the sun, his face turned towards the light. “Blinky called Dr. L. to come and take care of Claire. Aaarrrgghh and I came as well.”

“Claire…” his voice was heavy with sadness. “Wait, my mom is here?” Jim asked excitedly.

“Yes she is. Now are you going to stay in here, or are you going to come out and see her?” Toby asked. Jim only tried to curl into a ball his hands on his horns again. Toby sighed, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Toby waited for Jim to say something. It was clear he was going to wait all day if he had to. Jim took his time moving out of the pipe. He sat as close to Toby as possible, while staying in the shade. After a few minutes of silence, Jim sighed loudly and started talking.

“Merlin has been pushing me harder than ever during training. Blinky wasn’t a push over as a teacher, but he is so busy with keeping all the trolls together as we travel, so Merlin has been taking over a lot of our training.” Toby had turned to face Jim while he spoke but otherwise neither of them moved. The only other sound was the wind blowing through the wheat field.

“Claire is really the only person I can train against. Aaarrrgghh is back in Arcadia with you. I could have beaten Blinky in a straight fight even before all of this.” Jim gestured to himself, taking in his transformation. “He wouldn’t even be a challenge now. Most of the other trolls aren’t fighters. They never were. It’s why they were in Trollmarket in the first place.” Jim looked down, sadness etched on his stone features. “Draal would have been a great sparring partner, but the only one available was Claire.”

He was silent a moment, scratching idly in the dirt with one claw. “Everything had been going wrong for the past week. The trolls were fighting among themselves. We kept running into farmers with guns. There’s almost no where in this damn state where we can be sheltered from the sun. The whole village almost got caught out in daylight. Claire had to create an emergency shelter with her magic, while we raced underground. You should have seen it, it was awesome. I think even Merlin was impressed.”

“And the whole time Merlin is on my ass. I have to be better, faster, stronger. If I’m going to have any chance against Morgana I’ll have to train harder.” Jim stopped his scratching in the dirt. Toby could see he had drawn a rough picture of Claire. “It was worse for her. He pushed her just as hard, and on top of that he didn’t even believe she would be able to help. He doesn’t trust her because she is a woman. I think she reminds him too much of Morgana, sexist pig.”

He punched the wall of the drain, flinching as the sound reverberated again. “I wasn’t even angry at her. It was just everything else. So much is still depending on me! And he wouldn’t stop nagging and harassing me.”

Jim pulled the Amulet of Daylight from his pocket. He looked at it sadly, turning it over and over in his hand. “My armor activated in a way it hadn’t done in training before. It lit up like it did when I took gravesand, like when I fought and killed Gunmar. I barely felt like myself. I could hardly see. I just attacked. Then she screamed.” Her scream echoed in his head again. As it had echoed non stop since the fight. Everytime he tried to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes the look on her face flashed before him. Past her pain he could see she was afraid, afraid of him.

“It’s better if I don’t stay with the group as they travel. I can’t be trusted. I’ll follow a couple of days behind to make sure they are safe. But I’m not safe to be around.”

“You do realize that’s not how she feels right?” Jim looked over at Toby. “She doesn’t blame you. Blinky has banned Merlin from being involved with your training. Dr Lake took care of her, got everything wrapped up. Claire is worried about you. So is your mom. So am I.”

“I’m supposed to be their protector!” Jim yelled. He tried to stand up, but recoiled from the sun. “How can I protect them from myself?”

“You’re really dedicated to this self isolation aren’t you?” Jim could only look baffled at Toby’s calm statement. “I feel like they will be better able to convince you. But you aren’t going to leave while you are still in this mood. That leaves me no choice. It’s time for the Toby Domzalski special.”

Jim’s bafflement only increased as Toby suddenly struck a deep curtsy. “Master Jim, might I amuse you?”

“Amuse...me?”

“Yes! Nothing changes a mood like some amusement. I know, how about a bout of juggling?”

Toby grabbed some rocks off the ground and began tossing them in the air. Jim wouldn’t call what happened next “juggling” so much as he would call it “Toby throwing a bunch of rocks into the air and letting them land on him as they fell.” He winced when one bounced off Toby’s head, but he couldn’t stop a small smile from creeping onto his face.

“Maybe juggling isn't your preference, Master Jim? How about dance?” Toby struck an elegant pose, something right from the ballet advertisements. Then began the most typical Jim Lake Junior dance moves possible. Jim's smile widened as he recognized some of his (unfortunately) signature moves, including excessive finger guns. Finally Toby stopped dancing.

“Ah, tough crowd, how about a feat of strength?” Toby summoned his warhammer, then began pantomiming lifting it. From deadlifts to arm curls. Jim knew Toby was changing the hammer's gravity and weight, but the theatrics with each lift were so over the top. He couldn't help but start to laugh.

“Alright you win Toby.  What would I ever do without you?”

“Probably sit pouting till you either died of old age or Claire found you and dragged you back to camp by your horns.” Toby collapsed his warhammer and offered Jim a hand to rise. Jim looked at the hand for a moment then at the surrounding day.

“Uh, Toby, aren't you forgetting something?”

“You're right, I am.” Toby reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stone. Jim gasped when he saw it. The stone looked like a single shining drop of sunlight. Toby handed it to Jim. “Its for your amulet. It should allow you to walk in daylight.”

Jim took the stone. His mouth open in awe. He placed it in one of the open slots in his amulet then summoned his armor. Hesitantly he put his hand out into the light. And it didn't burn. He stepped fully into the light for the first time since his transformation.

Together he and Toby walked through fields back towards where the Trollmarket trolls were hidden. Jim could barely see Claire and his mom several fields over. They had seen him and began walking towards them.

"Claire, no!" Blinky called out. When he had learned the truth about Claire and Jim, he had vouched for them and the fact that they deserved to be treated as people. When Morgana began to wield her, Blinky had refused to destroy her. He had protested when Jim had been willing to destroy himself so they could find Merlin's tomb. And now Claire was asking for death.

Claire gave them one last blurry-eyed smile before the air around her darkened. "I don't think I'll be around much longer either way."

Claire's body disappeared and reverted into a staff. A portal opened, and golden chains tried to grab for her. AAARRRGGHH! grabbed onto Claire's helpless form before Morgana could.

Toby grabbed his warhammer and rose into the air. He then began a rapid descent that ended in him destroying the Shadow Staff.

The fall ended in him killing Claire.

Jim didn't hate Toby. It would be easier if he did, because they were a trio and had been practically since the beginning of Jim and Claire's very state of being. There was nothing that had been supposed to be able to tear them apart. And yet, Toby was the biggest reason why Claire had been destroyed. It had been his hammer that had shattered her into too many pieces.

Maybe Jim didn't hate Toby because Toby had been the one to have killed him, but they had been headed to Merlin's tomb and he had fixed the amulet so Jim could come back. No one was going to fix Claire - there weren't really any people with the skill required to restore her given just how badly she had been broken. As Jim pulled back from the goodbye kiss, he handed a bag to Toby and whispered in his ear.

"While you were getting treated at the hospital and the trolls were seeking shelter from the sun, I picked up every last piece of Claire. I think she'll be safer with you than with me. I don't trust Merlin around her."

It made sense. Jim was horrified to learn that Morgana's hand was used to create him, both because of the fact that a part of the evil sorceress was a part of him and also because of exact way he had been created. Toby didn't trust Merlin with Claire, but he didn't want Jim to go with Merlin either. He couldn't be sure that the wizard would see Jim as a person and a miracle instead of a tool like Morgana had with Claire. However, the trolls needed a Trollhunter and Jim was the closest there would be to one for the rest of time, so Toby had to let him go.

"I will," Toby said, because if he couldn't protect one of the people he loved he could protect the remains of the other.

There was a scale for nonhumans passing for humans. Changelings, especially older ones like Strickler and Nomura, were at one end of the spectrum, being highly skilled at pretending to be human. The other end was set by Jim and Claire in the beginning, when they had human forms but they didn't even have human names; they were just Amulet and Shadow Staff. However, they had climbed that scale with some amount of grace. Aja and Krel, who were apparently aliens, fell somewhere in the first quarter of that scale. So did the guy who looked old enough to be their grandpa (but was actually their bodyguard) and their dog as well.

It honestly explained so much.

"We have an old phaser rifle that would be able to get through their armor, if it had a proper power core," Vex explained. Aja was holding a device in one of her four hands and was walking around Toby's, Steve's, and Eli's backpacks. When it started beeping, she pulled out a velvet bag that Toby kept with him because burying Claire didn't feel right and he couldn't exactly cremate her.

"This will work," Aja said, and Toby bolted to grab the bag back from her.

"Claire isn't someone's weapon to wield." She had been so much more than that.

Darci's legs were trapped underneath a large beam, and while Mary and Shannon were trying to lift it up and off of her they clearly weren't strong enough. Aja, Krel, Steve, and Eli tried to get closer to them, but they constantly being attacked by robots. AAARRRGGHH! could have lifted it, but it was a sunny day. All the trolls were safely inside, and the one troll who was immune to daylight was tutoring sophomores.

The bounty hunter advanced towards the girls. None of Toby's weapons could penetrate his armor. Not the Warhammer, which was capable of destroying people whose bodies were weapons. Not the phaser rifle. It didn't have a powerful enough core.

Claire wouldn't have wanted this.

"Steve? Cover me!" Toby called out as he ran to a nearby, somewhat sheltered area despite the other boy's indignant protests.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry about this," Toby said as he took out the broken pieces of Claire from the bag that he kept with him no matter where he went. He then took apart the phaser rifle, took out its old core, and placed shards inside of it. Claire, Claire and Jim were so much more than weapons, but when Toby had broken both of them they were just the pieces of weapons. Unlike Jim, who had been rebuilt by Merlin, Claire had implied that she was never to be rebuilt into the Shadow Staff again. That didn't mean she couldn't be recycled into something new.

Besides, she had died to save the world. Being wielded to save her friends sounded like something Claire would, not quite want, but be more-or-less fine with in the end.

"Hey, ugly! Eat a load of this!" Toby called out towards the bounty hunter, who turned away from the girls to face him.

Toby fired the rebuilt phaser rifle. Rather than a epic blast of light shooting out, there was only a puff of dark smoke.

"Is that the best you can do?" the bounty hunter asked.

The area around them grew darker. The areas of the phaser rifle that were normally glowing blue shifted to purple, and parts of the silvery body changed to black. Toby dropped the weapon in shock. That was a good thing, because it leapt out of his hands, glowing and fading in and out of reality. Out of the corner of his eye Toby saw Eli's jaw drop as the phaser rifle changed into the blurred silhouette of a girl.

The majority of her was the same black-as-shadows color, with brilliant purple eyes and the occasional purple streak flashing within her long, writhing hair. However, she was different now. She wore pauldrons and a chestplate reminiscent of her armor that were similar in color to the phaser rifle's, no. They were similar in color to Claire's casing. In addition, there was a crest and series of spikes running down her spine, in a way that mimicked her armor. Her armor would occasionally reflect purple light, but it too was blurred at the edges. However, she didn't have any finger-armor, because Claire's finger guards were the same type of claws as Morgana's and Claire was not Morgana's.

The bounty hunter backed away, likely unsettled by the writhing hair and fading in and out of reality. It was a common feeling that Toby had gotten used to as he had gotten used to living with two sentient weapons.

Claire raised her arms and brought them down like the conductor wielding a baton at an orchestra. Portals ripped open the bounty hunter's armor and the nanobots; others sliced through the beam to relieve the pressure from Darci's legs.

"No, that isn't the best I can do," Claire said to the bounty hunter's retreating form. She then began to collapse. Toby ran over and caught her.

"Okay, nevermind, that might have been the best," she said, violet eyes darting around and taking in the changed landscape of Arcadia Oaks.

"I thought I'd killed you!" Toby sobbed as he carded his fingers through his hair, which writhed in a less violent manner than before. If anything, it tried to weakly hug him.

I'm done. Done with the lies And trying to save you. Done with playing hero Because all you do is destroy now.

We were so similar Three bright lights Standing strong against Everything and everyone who threatened us. What happened to you To us?

Tobes, they don't deserve you. You told me that when my dad left So why is your mom any different? She abandoned you when you were two And doesn’t deserve your loyalty. She's a dictator And you exude that same pull. Does anything escape your gravity?

It is the East, And Claire, you were the Sun. But that isn't one of your names anymore, Is it? You traded away the actress, And welcomed the banished sorceress Burning a gold accretion disk. You are no longer the Sun Because the Sun didn't have enough To become what you are now.

I am the last star in our trio. I would have accepted the slow heat death of the three of us And dying as ourselves. Was I too much of a hypocrite? Is that why you turned to Black holes when it’s unnatural for you to become such? It was supposed to be Trollhunters and not Trollhunter, Who always fights alone.

But we’re done. I’m no longer a member Of this trinary star system. No matter how hard it is I’m breaking orbit And breaking free.

Goodbye.