Unity: One Year Later

by Kieva Lynn

Arcadia

Author's Note:

Tales of Arcadia timeline branches from series canon just after Trollhunters season three episode six, before the quest for Merlin's tomb begins in the next episode. (And yes, 3 Below has already begun by that point so Aja, Krel, and Varvatos are present as well.)
To avoid the confusion of multiple very different species with the same name, Arcadia Goblins will be called Gremlins, and Arcadia Changelings will be called Aufs (from my research, it's a fifteenth century Middle-English word that predates the term Changeling but means the same thing.)
Also, of course, Spoiler Warning for Tales of Arcadia.

Arcadia Oaks, California
One week after the public windows were opened in Unity

Javier and Ophelia Nunez sat in the Lake family's dining room, across the table from their daughter Claire and her boyfriend Jim. Having only just learned of the city of trolls beneath their very feet, of the battles the pair and their friend Tobias were involved in, having just minutes before survived an attack of gremlins, the couple can be forgiven for being a little shell-shocked. "Mom?" Claire asked, concerned.

"Claire... I hate this. Do you understand me? I hate this. You're teenagers! You shouldn't have to be involved! But... Barbara's right. I can't try to stop what you kids do. Not without making it even worse. And, I also understand that we can hardly get involved in the fighting ourselves. But: That doesn't we can just stay totally out of things. The world is in danger! We have to help you somehow!"

"I'm with her on this one." Barbara Lake agreed, sitting next to her son Jim.

"But how?" Jim asked. "I mean, the only smart thing would be to evacuate Arcadia. With Gunmar's army in Trollmarket right beneath us, if this does come to open fighting it'll be the first place to come under attack. But you can't do anything until it starts and it'll be too late then."

In the corner of the room stood a four-armed, six-eyed troll, Blinkous Galadrigal (Blinky to friends) the teen's mentor and trainer. "Perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand: Merlin's Tomb." He said. "If we can acquire the Staff of Avalon before Gunmar does, the Eternal Night will be rendered an academic issue."

The front door slammed open. Walter Strickler, a history teacher at the local high school who had also turned out to be a shape changing Auf (On top of trying to kill Jim multiple times before changing sides) rushed in and slammed the door behind his back. "I'm afraid that too is academic! Haven't any of you looked outside!?"

A peal of thunder rumbled through the air, and then more, a steadily increasing roar. Everyone ran outside, where they saw a terrible storm bearing down on the town, lightning flashing ceaselessly in the clouds. "Is this-?" Jim started to ask.

"No it can't be. Gunmar can't have freed Morgana yet!" Blinky answered. "This is something else!"

The lightning began to strike down from the clouds to the ground. "Something else, but no less dangerous!" Claire said. "Everyone inside!"

XXXXX

Unity. The terminal storm had formed with shocking speed, boiling out of a clear mid-day sky in seconds, it's outer fringes less than a half-mile from the southern wall. Citizens of all species poured out of homes and workplaces to watch in awe as the clouds spun about and the lightning crackled about, dancing through the clouds and slamming to the ground. Everyone was forced to look away as a brilliant flash of white light came from the clouds. And when they could look again the storm was gone, and the outer fringes of a new town was plainly visible.

While a trio of pegasai made high-altitude recon flights over the new town, Twilight rushed to the roof of Unity's tallest building. Sheriff Tucker and Midnight Steel were already there, looking out over the new town with binoculars. "What can you see?" She asked.

Steel passed Twilight his binoculars while Tucker said "It's from earth, for certain. And probably America, or somewhere in Australia or Western Europe from the design of the houses."

Twilight floated the binoculars to her eyes and looked. As she did so, she also subconsciously extended her magical senses in the same direction. And gasped at what she felt.

"Twi?" The Sheriff asked.

"I don't know... I know there's not supposed to be magic on your world, but... There's something mystical over there."

"You don't say? Well, I suppose we'd better see about making contact..."

XXXXX

"Um... Why is it suddenly daytime?" Toby wondered.

"A valid query." Blinky said, from his spot in the hallway where he had retreated to hide from the sudden sunlight which would turn him to stone.

While the trolls waited inside, the humans in the house rushed outside. All around, other people were coming out of their homes, confused. Someone shouted out, pointing up, and in the clear sky above a trio of small objects could be seen moving slowly over the town.

"Hey! Look at that!" The Lake neighborhood sat on a low hill higher than the rest of the town, and looking to the north it was apparent that the forest which should have been there was gone, replaced by another town.

"What the...?" Claire wondered.

"This... Has to be something... magic. Right?" Barbara asked.

"Absolutely." Strickland nodded.

"Back in the house!" Jim hissed, and everyone followed. Once inside he said "Whatever those flying things are, they're all moving in the same direction, coming from that town. Maybe we should take a look."

Claire activated her staff. "I can portal us near that edge of town."

"Do it." Jim said. "Blinky, stay here where it's safe."

"Of course Master Jim. I'll be in the basement."

A few seconds later, a swirling black portal appeared in an alley along the side of Arcadia nearest the mystery town. Claire was through first, followed by Jim and Toby, and then- "Ugh! Mom what are you doing!?" Claire hissed.

"I'm on the city council Claire." Ophelia said. "I need to see what's going on." She stumbled slightly. "That takes some getting used to doesn't it?"

Claire snorted. "Yeah."

"And the rest of you?" Jim asked, hands on his hips, staring at his mother, Claire's father, and Strickler.

"Well, you might need... Backup."

"So much for staying out of the fighting." Toby said.

Jim rolled his eyes. "Ugh... All right, let's see what's going on."

They slipped down the alley, which suddenly ended at the edge of town, not at a forest as it had been before, but a field of soybeans. The other town was visible, and from this closer range they could tell that most of the structures looked like the types of buildings they were familiar with. There were some unusual features however, such as homes that looked a little too small, seemingly permanent clouds hovering just above the roofs of their neighbors, a large rounded tower glowing a faint violet/pink, and of course the twelve foot wall surrounding it all.

All of this was secondary, however, to the much closer presence of two men and a young girl, armed, and accompanied by a pair of- "Are those... ...unicorns?" Strickler asked.

"Sure looks like it." Jim said. "Where the hell are we?"

Ophelia steeled herself. "Let's find out... Hello!"

"Hello!" The approaching group called back.

The two groups were in speaking range of each other two minutes later. Ophelia held out her hand, introducing herself, and the older of the two men called himself Sheriff John Tucker. He then introduced his companions, "Bert Gumbal, Bethany Stanz. And I saved our other friends for last since you won't have met ponies yet, this is Twilight Sparkle, and my second in command Midnight Steel."

"Ma'am." Steel said, causing Ophelia to jump.

"Talking unicorns even..." Strickler mused.

"Look, can you tell us what happened?" Jim interrupted. "It was night time, there's a weird storm, now we're here."

"Son, this is Unity. Your town's been abducted." Bert said.

"Okay, you say that like we should know what it means." Claire said.

"Well really you should." Tucker said. "Twilight here even did a interview last year in the news."

Everyone in the Arcadia group looked at each other, confused. Finally Ophelia said "Sheriff, I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about. And I keep up, I have to in my position. There has never been any press interview with a unicorn!"

"Mom's right, we would know about that." Claire said.

Tucker shook his head. "Great... It sounds like there's something else going on now. Twi? What do you think-?" He stopped and looked at Twilight, who had been unusually quiet through the entire exchange. "Twilight?"

Twilight was staring at the trio of teenagers. "These three have magic artifacts on them." She said after a moment. "Potent ones, too."

Jim and Claire began to deny any such possibility, but a stern look from Ophelia and Barbara shut them down. "Okay okay, yeah, but can you keep it quiet?" Jim said, glancing back to where a crowd had begun to form at the edge of Arcadia, thankfully out of earshot. "Please?"

"For now, okay." Twilight said. "But I want an explanation, seeing as how magic isn't supposed to be a thing on earth."

"If it helps," Barbara said, "That's what we thought too until recently."

"Recently as in two hours ago for Javier and me." Ophelia said. She turned to Jim. "But kids, I'm not sure quiet is gonna keep long now."

Jim said "I'm... actually fine with that, so long as exactly who it is with the magic stuff is a secret." Claire and Toby nodded vigorously.

"I have my doubts on that. But we'll try."

"Okay then... I guess we need to explain some thing to you folks then." Tucker said. "And we should do it somewhere private, and preferably where you can sit down, 'cause you're not gonna like it..."

XXXXX

Though it had seemed odd to the Unity envoys, an agreement was made for everyone to meet at the Lake home in an hour. "We've got some things to tell you as well." Ophelia had said. And so, using the direction and distance coordinates provided Twilight teleported herself, her friends, the Sheriff, and Bert, into the living room. The curtains were all tightly drawn which made some sense to Twilight given the councilwoman's desire for secrecy in the first meeting. Soon, everyone was gathered together. Ophelia motioned for Tucker to begin. "Before I tell you our story though, I should tell you that we have communications with the U.S. government, and they just confirmed to us that Arcadia Oaks California has not vanished. They think there may be some kind of alternate timeline thing going on, whatever that exactly means."

"Which explains why we don't remember a unicorn press conference!" Claire said. "It did happen. On your earth."

Barbara said "You said we'd need to be sitting down for what you had to tell us. This gets worse, doesn't it?"

Tucker nodded. Over the next hour, he and Twilight laid out the story of Unity. What had happened, how and why, and most importantly that fact that everyone was stuck there.

Then it was Jim's turn, to tell the group from Unity about the trolls, and the magic power Twilight had sensed. Tucker and Bert, along with the ponies, agreed to keep quiet about Jim and his friend's identities unless it was absolutely necessary. "But it sounds like we have a problem." Twilight said.

Jim nodded. "Yeah... Gunmar and Angor Rot should be back on our earth. They'll get the Staff of Avalon, but that doesn't matter with Morgana trapped here. What I'm worried about is what's going to happen with his entire army beneath our feet."

"Assuming of course, that Trollmarket was bought here along with Arcadia." Another voice said. The entire Unity group jumped to their feet at the sight of Blinky, who had come up from the basement.

"It's okay! This is Blinky. He's a friend." Claire said.

Blinky bowed. "Blinkous Galadrigal at your service." He looked at Jim. "Of course, the Gumm-Gumm army won't march without orders from Gunmar. They're not an immediate threat even if Trollmarket is here."

"Even if Usurna is down there with them?" Jim asked.

Blinky's many eyes went wide. "Hmmm... I hadn't considered that. Still we should have some time, if only because she likely doesn't yet know anything has happened."

"So... What should we do then?" Toby asked. "About all of this?"

Ophelia grinned. "I'm not a politician for nothing... I have a plan..."

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Wait a second, you've been reading Eric Flint's 1632 series, haven't you? I thought this felt familiar...

[Azryth]

Well... this is interesting... I'm going to have to catch up on Trollhunters. I've only seen about 2/3rds the way through season 1...

[Prismfire Productions]

9443378
I instantly picked up on that as well, here I was thinking I was the only one...

[Venerable Ro]

9443473
Oh, 'tis a marvelous series, a shining example of "what if". And I must say, the concept is absolutely perfect for arranging a huge intertwined crossover.

Needs more world-building though, you can't introduce new characters and then just forget about them again. Even if they're not the focus, they're still around. I mean, that steampunk airship full of dwarves, and elves and hobbits(oh my!) didn't just vanish, so I hope to see more of them settling in, or whatever they end up doing.

[badninja]

9443485

The problem here is we have about what equates to at least one maybe two hours at the most of story in this chapter. I think the next few chapters as we deal with the arrival of both new groups they will be fleshed out. We are still dealing with setting up where the new story is going to be going.

[Kieva Lynn]

9443485
I... Actually have not read 1632, though looking it up on Wikipedia I can see some of the parallels. What I was inspired by is a short-lived, darker, and much, much, much stranger than anything I'm doing here 1990's comic book series called Green Lantern Mosaic. As regards your other comments, please remember that, as I wrote in the author's note at the beginning, this story is just worldbuilding set-up for the main story to come. So it's acting like a series of one shots, the subjects of which will begin to interact in a meaningful way in that story.

[Kieva Lynn]

9443625
Yes, there's really just one more chapter here, but things will start interlinking in the next story. (Which will start publishing in no more than six weeks from the conclusion of One Year Later, possibly as little as a month. I want a big buffer on completed chapters before I start publishing it, but I'm wrapping up chapter twelve as we speak.)

[Azryth]

I like when you pulled Arcadia from. I'm, personally, not a fan of some of the things in final couple of chapters of Trollhunters.

Also, anyone else want to let Krel have a crack at the main computer?

[Kieva Lynn]

9483972
I also didn't care for certain aspects of how Trollhunters ended, not because of the change in and of itself, but because of how it took what had been the entire moral of the show and tossed it out the window. I hope it's not to big a spoiler to confirm that Merlin will be present here in time, and he will try the transformation spell, only for someone (Not Twilight, but you can probably guess) to take one look at the list of ingredients and tell him 'absolutely not' in no uncertain terms. Krel won't be working on Singularity, but he will get a crack at a piece of very advanced alien technology.

[CaxmtheNobody]

9484173
Haven't seen trollhunters in a long while. What was the moral of it again?

[Kieva Lynn]

10274911
The fact that Jim was strong enough as he was, despite nearly all of the trolls thinking otherwise.

[Vitae]

10275964
I am confused here.
I thought I was reading things related to Unity and the short stories from there.