Unity: A Tale of Arcadia

by Kieva Lynn


Book One: Chapter Six

Book One: Gremlins and Gumm-Gumms

Chapter Six

After the blast, all was quiet. The Lake's home had survived, though it was going to need a new front porch. No one had emerged from any of the surrounding homes to see what was going on, though given the nature of Arcadia's new situation that was hardly surprising. The Gumm-Gumm that had been at the center of the explosion was no more, broken stone rubble littering the ground all around. Twilight lifted her head and looked out the door. "That may have been a little too much." She said.

"No such thing as overkill on a Gumm-Gumm." Blinky said, rising to his feet. "Let's just hope Usurna hasn't sent any more of them."

"Right. Trixie, Tess, you okay?"

"My ears are ringing but I'm unharmed." Tess answered.

"No worse than before." Trixie said. "Maybe a little better, actually." She looked at Barbara and smiled. "Thanks doc. I'll be feeling it in the morning, but right now it's not too bad... But where'd those kids go?"

"Right here." Jim entered from the back, along with Toby and Claire. His armor was now off, and he was tackled and hugged by Barbara.

"Is it over?" Barbara asked.

"It'll be winding down." Jim said. "Usurna won't have time to send any more soldiers, it's just a couple of hours 'til dawn. And the gremlins should be pulling back now that their job is done too."

Twilight said "I'm gonna teleport back to Unity, make sure things are going well there. I expect we'll be having another meeting as soon as we can in the morning though..." She looked at Blinky. "After this, we can't afford to leave this Usurna under our feet with an army."

"I heartily agree." The troll nodded.

Twilight looked at Jim. " I understand your desire to remain anonymous. But it stands to reason that with what just happened your town council and ours will both want the Trollhunter to be there for the meeting."

"I can armor up and activate the helmet." Jim mused, "And Claire could be there with the excuse of being there with her mom. Tobes, not sure how to get you in without people wondering."

"No worries Jimbo. Someone has to be on the street keeping watch."

"Okay." Twilight said, "I'll see you all sometime later." She gave a smile, then teleported herself, Trixie, and Tess back to Unity.

They arrived to find a mess. As Jim had predicted, the gremlins had finally retreated, so the fighting was over, but the aftermath wasn't pretty. Sighting Sheriff Tucker, Twilight called out to him.

"Twi. Ma'am." Tucker tipped his hat to her and Tess. "This one was ugly."

"At least it's over for the day." Twilight said. "Do we know how bad yet?"

"Well, the hospital's full up. No deaths yet, so far as I know, but word is there's at least twenty who may not make it. Infrastructure damage is moderate, nothing we can't have repaired in a few days to a couple of weeks. And Bert's taken one of the creatures prisoner." Here Tucker managed to chuckle slightly. "Remind me to never get between Fluttershy and something that's harmed a kid."

"A kid!? Fluttershy!? Are they okay!?" Twilight gasped.

"Silver's got a cut on her back but she'll be fine soon enough. Which reminds me, all your friends are in the town hall waiting for you, along with Bert and the captive. It seems to understand English just fine, but can't speak it beyond a few basic words. We're hoping your translation spell will make a difference."

"I'll go now. But before sunset we need to have a meeting on how to proceed in dealing with this."

"Already working on setting it up." The Sheriff said.

XXXXX

To the amusement of both Trixie and Tess, who had continued to tag along, Twilight didn't even make it two feet in the door before she was tackle-hugged by her friends. Greetings were passed around, stories exchanged, and then Twilight asked to see the prisoner. It was tied up in a hard plastic chair in an otherwise empty office, Bert standing guard along with the deputy Virgil.

"Twilight, I hope you can do something with this." Bert said when she entered the room.

"I'll try." Focusing her magic, Twilight used the translation spell on the gremlin, then looked it in the eyes and asked "Can you speak now?"

"Yeeeees... You... knee... corn..." The creature grumbled.

Twilight looked at Bert, who merely shrugged and said "That's better than it was doing before."

"Why did you attack us?"

"Queeeeen.... Queeeeen say play.... We play..."

"Play!?" Rainbow Dash shouted from the door.

"Fuuuun...."

Twilight pushed everyone back out the door. "Don't waste your breath. It is what it is."

"She's right." Bert agreed.

"Then is there any point in continuing?" Rarity asked.

"I think there is." Twilight said. "We need to try to get a few answers..."

Back in the office, Twilight thought about the things Jim and his friends had told her. "Gunmar. Is he in Trollmarket?"

"Noooo.... Gunmar go.... Queeeen in charrrge...."

"How many Gumm-Gumm soldiers are there?"

The gremlin cocked it's head. "Muuuch."

"I doubt this guy can count much past one." Bert said. "We're not getting a hard number."

"It was worth a try Twilight." Tess said.

"Yeah... Let's talk in private."

They stepped back outside the room. "I assume you wanted intel for planning an attack." Bert said.

Twilight nodded. "We can't just leave them down there to keep doing this every night."

"After what we saw in Arcadia, I would tend to agree." Tess said. "These gremlins are the least of the problem."

Eyes wide, Trixie looked at Bert and said "We saw two of the Gumm-Gumms. Goofy-flank sounding name or not, they're no joke."

"Tell me everything you saw." Bert said. "Then I want to go to Arcadia and speak with Blinky and the Trollhunter. Hopefully they can provide enough data to put a plan together before the meeting..."

XXXXX

The meeting was held just past noon in the auditorium at Unity's school. Earlier that morning, with Arcadia's power restored by an emergency patch from Unity's magicite generator, the town's mayor and council had broadcast a press conference to let the population know what happened. As a result, the room was filled to overflowing with people from both towns.

On the stage were Arcadia's Mayor and council, Unity's provisional council, Twilight, Bert, and Blinky who had been smuggled in through the sunlight under a tarp. Claire and Toby managed to be present without raising questions by sitting in the audience. Macintosh called the meeting to order, and deferred to Twilight for a report on Unity's wounded.

"I spoke with our doctors less than fifteen minutes ago." She began, "Among our human population, we're now standing at two dead, seventeen seriously wounded, and two hundred forty with minor to moderate wounds. No more fatalities are expected. Among our pony population, we have three dead, twelve seriously wounded, and one hundred twelve with minor to moderate wounds. There is one pegasus still hanging on who may not make it. In addition, there were three griffons injured, three goblins injured, an elf who may not survive, and a sylph expected to be in the hospital for two weeks though there's little doubt he will pull through. Infrastructure damage and clean-up is expected to take ten days to two weeks. Luckily, none of it was critical."

Ophelia Nunez stepped forward and spoke for Arcadia's delegation. "We suffered eight deaths and four hundred seventy wounded, with infrastructure damage much the same as Unity's. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, all things considered, though still bad enough."

As she finished, one of her fellow council members stood and said "And I for one want to know why this was allowed to happen! Where was this supposed 'Trollhunter?'" The man glared at Blinky. "Where is he now!?"

At this the crowd, especially the Arcadia portion of it, began to shout and complain, echoing the questions. It looked, for a moment, as if they might degenerate into a riot. Before that could happen, a voice said quietly but firmly "Right here." And Jim walked onto stage in his armor, helmet covering his face. He walked to the microphone. "I'm the Trollhunter." He said, "And you all have my apologies for what happened last night. There was just no way to predict that Queen Usurna would break the Gumm-Gumm's usual methods so severely... Up until now, staying hidden has been very important to them."

"Easy words for someone who's also staying hidden behind a mask!" Someone from the audience yelled.

"You're right. It is. But I have friends and allies to consider. I won't jeopardize their normal lives-" Here Jim stopped and looked in surprise as Claire and Toby had left their seats and come on stage to stand to either side of him, with Barbara, Claire's parents, and Toby's grandmother standing behind. "What are you doing!?" He hissed under his breath.

"Sweetie, we talked about it." Claire whispered back, "And we all agreed that as much as we might hate it, there's no hiding things for long now. So we might as well get it over with." She looked out over the assembled people. "It's actually Trollhunters. Plural. Toby and I have stood by his side for a while now."

With a sigh, Jim deactivated the armor, to the shocked gasp of several Arcadia residents who recognized him. "Hey! You're the kid who destroyed the Vespa I gave a test drive on!"

"At least it was just a moped." Claire's father said. "We lost our entire living room suite to a black hole made by an angry twelfth century sorceress." Ophelia elbowed him.

Jim chuckled. "Your bike was actually totaled by a angry flying vulture... troll... thing... But I promise that I will do everything I possibly can to prevent last night's attack from happening again. And to continue to protect everyone, human and good troll alike, (And I guess pony and whoever else is around here,) from the Gumm-Gumms."

"We all will." Claire added.

That seemed to satisfy the bulk of the people in the auditorium, and Bert spoke next. "Our primary goal for today is to get volunteers for our counter strike. I've coordinated with Sheriff Tucker, Twilight, Blinkous, and the Trollhunters to put together a plan which we're all confident about. Blinkous?"

The troll stepped forward. "I hope you can all forgive my nervousness. Until very recently, we trolls did everything in our power to remain hidden from humans. Indeed, even now it is only the friendship and respect for our first human trollhunters that has begun to change things." Blinky paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, then continued. "The entrance to Trollmarket is under the Center Street canal bridge. We've devised a two part plan of attack. Miss Twilight?"

Twilight took the microphone in her magic, causing no small stirring of surprise from the Arcadia part of the audience. "We plan to begin early tomorrow morning. This does of course mean that the trolls hiding from the sun in various places around Arcadia won't be able to join in the attack, but as you'll see it's a calculated risk related to the second part of the plan. Trollmarket itself is buried very deep, with a winding staircase beyond the hidden door leading down to it. Once the door is open, we'll send someone fast in to get the Gumm-Gumm's attention. When they chase that scout, we will have the benefit of the high ground to do as much damage as we can."

Here Bert picked up the explanation. "Of course, as tough as we've been told, and in Twilight's case seen, these guys to be, and as many of them as there are, the high ground alone won't be enough. Sooner or later, probably sooner, we'll have to retreat. And that's where attacking during the day pays off: The Gumm-Gumms won't be able to pursue our retreat into the sunlight, meaning we should be able to get away clean and prepare for phase two."

"But isn't this just stirring up the hornet's nest?" Someone called from out of the crowd. "Won't it just guarantee that they come boiling out of the cave as soon as the sun sets?"

"It sure will." Twilight said, then smiled, "And that's the whole point of phase two..."