Trollmarket

"Usually they don't. Sorry I need a second alright?" Wei says with clenched teeth, stomping out of the room and wanders around until he lands in the heroes forge.

"Who are you?" Draal asks, eyeing the upset teen while he puts his father's remains together.

"Wei. You?" He replies.

"I'm Draal, son of the late troll hunter." He introduces himself proudly.

"Ugh, son. One word I don't want to have to hear for a while." Wei grumbles angrily, walking past the troll and towards a weapons area where he sees a few dummies and some maintenance equipment.

"Are you a friend of Jim?" Draal asks him, getting back to his father's remains.

"No, I'm friends with Claire." Wei replies.

"I see." Draal says before the two of them fall into silence.

Wei activates his voulge and sharpens its edge, testing it on the dummies regularly.

A couple minutes later Claire, Toby and Arrrgh enter the heroes forge.

"Prepare yourself for the sacred grounds where troll hunters are broken down and remade in to warriors. The heroes forge!" Tobias says enthusiastically.

"Wei, where were you? You were suddenly gone." Claire asks him, going over to the teen, waving at the blue skinned troll in the arena who's working on his fathers remains.

"I need some time to think. During my talk with Blinkus I realized that Gunmar couldn't have known I would survive the trip through the bridge... I was just a disposable pawn for him." Wei says, feeling betrayed.

"Gunmar is heartless. He only cares about Gunmar." Arrrgh says, joining the two with Toby.

"I know, I just thought he'd be different towards me." Wei says, turning his voulge back into a piece of its staff and slumps down on the floor with a frown.

"Come on, it's going to be alright. I'm here for you. So are your Goblin friends and I'm sure Toby and Jim will get along great with you soon too." Claire tells him, sitting down in front of him and gives him a hug.

Are you sure you want to be seen like this... I imagine your boyfriend wouldn't be too happy." Wei says, sounding void of any life.

"Jim? He's not... we're not..." Claire says flustered, releasing the brunette teen from her hug.

"I see how the two of you behave around each other, you don't need to deny it. Even if you haven't put a word to your relationship yet, anyone can see how you feel towards each other." Wei says disappointed, looking at his hand and clutching it around the voulge handle so hard Claire assumes the device will break.

"It's OK. I shouldn't have expected to have a chance. I watched your play afterall." Wei says and gets up, walking out of the room solemnly.

"I'm worried about him." Claire says, looking after her mentor on all things troll.

"Yeah. Realizing your daddy doesn't care if you life or die and getting shot down by the girl you like in one day... though break." Toby says.

"I didn't shoot him down... It's just... with Jim." Claire mumbles sadly.

"Hey, I know and Jim is head over heels for you. So one of them was bound to be disappointed." Toby tells her, patting the girls shoulder.

"I think I know what you need. Arrrgh, hit it." Toby says and Arrrgh pushes the button activating the forges training simulation.

"How's that going to help?" Claire asks, seeing the various blades swing around the room and the middle of the platform being in constant motion.

"It's going to distract you." Toby says cheerfully and starts to climb a raising platform. With Claire following his lead, forgetting about the uncomfortable situation she was just in and loosing herself in the training simulation.

Blinky is telling Jim that both he and Arrrgh are going to join him on his mission to save Enrique, despite the fact that all of them know it's akin to a suicide mission.

"Trollhunter hurry. Your friends are about to get squashed." Bagdwella shouts, storming into Blinky's quarters.

Jim and Blinky then rush to the heroes forge, running past Wei, who was making his way back to the surface.

"Come on Blinky, pick up more speed. I don't want to have to leave with my best friends' corpses." Jim shouts, getting Wei's attention.

"Claire." He says, hurrying back to the training hall as well.

When Jim and Blinky arrive, they see Claire and Toby hanging from some turning platform, both looking as though they'd fall off any second.

"Help Toby. I'm OK here." Claire says, getting on top of her platform while Jim rushes to the other one which has Toby dangling on it with one hand.

"Or not!" Claire shrieks when the platform turns and makes her slide down its side.

Wei, who arrived at the heroes forge moments earlier throws his voulge, impaling it on the platform Claire's sliding off , giving her something to hold on to.

"Thanks." She shouts still scared, hanging onto the weapon for dear life.

"Hang on, I'm getting you down." Wei yells and takes his mask out of his pocket, fixing it over his eyes, causing his hair to get longer, his muscles to bulge and green markings appear all over his body while his eyes glow an angry green through the eye-holes of the mask.

"What the?" Blinky says surprised at the change.

Wei crouches down and jumps up, landing next to Claire, grapping onto his voulge with one hand, the other wrapping around the girls waist.

"Let go, trust me." Wei says, looking down at her, due to his larger frame.

Claire looks up at him for a moment before releasing her grip on the weapon and grabs onto his chest while he rips the weapon out of the platform and drops down, landing in a crouch with Claire in a bridal carry, having changed her position in the air.

"Are you OK?" Wei asks, taking off the mask with his features returning to normal.

Before Claire can respond though Jim runs over, shouting "Claire!" while Wei helps her back to her feet.

"Thank god you're safe." Jim says, embracing the girl.

"I'm fine." She says, trying to push Jim off, but he's holding onto her with his amulet empowered strength, not budging an inch.

When Jim releases her Wei is already at the entrance of the forge, walking out.

"Wei." She says in a whisper and hurries after him, but he's already gone by the time she reaches the entrance.

"Did I miss something?" Jim asks, surprised by Claire's concern for Wei.

"Uhhhh... no?" Toby replies unsure how to respond since what happened between Claire and the brunette warrior was rather private.

Moments later the statue in the middle of the heroes forge lights up and Jim gets pulled inside the object.

"It's speaking to him." Blinky says relieved.

"Hey, you're back." Toby says happily, going over to him with the others when Jim reappears in front of them minutes later.

"So, trolls and spirits are real, what's next?" Claire asks, having been filled in by Blinky.

"Master Jim, what did they say?" Blinky questions.

"They won't try to stop us. But they said the only way to get back out of the dark lands safely is if we kill Gunmar. And with Strickler gone, we might have a chance." Jim informs them.

Meanwhile trudging through a unruly wildlife Strickler is searching for the tomb of Anger Rot, who he frees and puts him under his control with a special ring made out of the trolls soul.

Hours later Claire heads to her home but on the way, she decides to stop by Wei's place, which formally belongs to Nomura.

When she arrives at the apartment, she hears noise from inside and opens the door, peering inside she sees multiple Goblins jumping around the room.

"Oh man. Hey, you there. Have you seen Wei?" She asks the goblin marked with his blood.

"Waka, waka?" She tries to ask, only for the goblins to snicker at her with wide grins.

"Man I tried my best, come on bring me to Wei" she says, shaking the leader.

"Waka Waka, Chaka." The goblin replies and leads her out of the room with Claire following it around town until it climbs the school's roof.

"Wei?" she shouts, walking across the roof after she climbed the fire escape.

She doesn't see her friend however and due to the lack of light she also doesn't see that she's walking straight for the roof's edge.

"Careful. I think plummeting to the ground once is plenty, don't you?" Wei says, pulling her back by her shoulders with her looking at the drop she just walked into.

"Why are you looking for me?" Wei asks, throwing his Goblin half of a cracker, having found out that at least this particular Goblin likes salty foods.

"I was worried about you after you took of without so much as a word, again." She says.

"I just didn't feel like sticking around and watch you with your boyfriend." He grumbles, sliding his hand through his hair.

"I tried to get out ..." she murmurs sadly.

"I know. And look if he makes you happy then I have no right to object, just try to keep it between yourselves." Wei requests.

"So, how are you doing with Gunmar almost killing you?" She asks Wei, sitting down on the edge of the roof with Wei joining her.

"If we're being honest, I shouldn't be surprised, you won't believe how often I've been nearly mortally wounded by him during training." Wei says.

"Must've been rough." She says empathically.

"At first it was. These guys got me through the hard times however." Wei says rubbing his goblin under his chin, feeding him the other half of his cracker.

"I still don't understand this. Nor do they understand me." Claire says, motioning over him and his Goblin.

"What did you say?" He asks intrigued.

"Waka, Waka." She says, repeating her words from earlier.

"Hahahaha." Wei laughs heartily with the Goblin chuckling.

"What?" Claire asks flustered, her cheeks lighting up red.

"You said that you saw your teacher running naked across the football field." He says.

"How in the heavens did I say any of that?" She asks shocked and disappointed, covering her face in her hands.

"Don't take it too hard Claire, you won't believe how many times I said nonsense. Their language is ... unique." He tells her.

"Hmpf. Well since you seem to be having a blast on my expense I'll head home." Claire says with a frown and climbs down the fire escape.

"Let me bring you home." Wei says, landing in front of the surprised girl after he jumped off the school's roof.

"Fine." She accepts with a small smile playing on her lips.

"I have to say though, I'm pleasantly surprised the goblins didn't try to eat you." Wei says while they head for the girl's home.

"Eat me?" She shrieks.

"You went to their nest in Nomura's apartment did you not?" He asks.

"Yeah." Claire replies.

"Well I'm not sure if they didn't attack you because they know your smell or something, but their natural response would be to eliminate the threat." Wei explains.

"That's it. This is the last time I went to your place." She says dramatically.

"Wait. Here." Wei says, stopping her and hands her a heart shaped necklace which is made out of a light blue crystal with a red heart inside of it.

"What's this?" She asks, accepting the jewelry.

"Originally I wanted to give this to you if we went out, but I think it's better if you have it." He tells her, putting the necklace around her neck.

"What does it matter if I wear this? Don't get me wrong I'm flattered." She asks curiously, looking down at the jewelry which rests just above her cleavage.

"It's a special necklace. I put a goblin spell on it, these little guys won't dare hurt you. They think of you as their queen as long as you wear it." Wei explains, holding up his Goblin who stares at the necklace with wide eyes, before trying to bow while still in Wei's hand.

"Wow. Wait, is that your blood in it?" Claire asks, seeing that the red heart inside actually is actually a fluid.

"Yeah. That's how Goblins will know not to mess with you." Wei explains.

"Cool. Thank you so much." Claire thanks him, looking at him with admiration.

"It's fine. I just want you to be safe." Wei explains.

"Speaking of which." Wei then says, throwing his voulge at a tree across the street of them.

"What is it?" Claire asks, being on guard.

"I could have sworn there was someone there." Wei says, going over to the tree and collects his weapon, spotting some stone flakes on the ground.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Wei tells her, rubbing the flakes between his fingers, some yellow energy escaping his hand.

"That can't be. I thought he was kidding." Wei says surprised while the two humans and one goblin continue walking to the girls' house.

"What is going on?" Claire questions.

"There might be someone, no something lose rumored to be even worse than my father." Wei says ominously.

"I don't like the sound of that." Claire says.

"I hope I'm wrong, but if you ever see a humanoid troll with glowing yellow eyes. Run." Wei instructs her.

"Why? Who is he?" She questions.

"I've only heard rumors. But he's supposed to be a troll magician, the murderer of thousands Angor Rot." Wei explains.

"That doesn't sound good." Claire says.

"It isn't, let's just hope I'm imagining thigs, he's supposed to be dead in a tomb somewhere afterall." Wei says and the two reach her house.

"Ok. See you tomorrow in school I guess." Claire tells him before heading inside her house.

"What do you think?" Wei asks the goblin, showing him the bit of stone powder, he collected.

"Bah. Waka. Wakaaaa." The goblin replies.

"I agree it reeks of death." Hak says.