A Normal Mission

6

Before Jim could fully process what was happening, he felt a lurch as Strickler grabbed him around the sternum. The changeling's instincts had saved him from plummeting down into the depths along with the hundreds of pages fluttering down into the abyss. Jim hit the ground hard, Walter practically tossing him onto solid land.

"Run! Now, Jim, now!" He commanded, his voice booming in the empty corridor. Jim took the orders without really realizing, his ears ringing and his muscles taught. No matter how fast he ran, the destruction seemed only a heartbeat behind his heels. There was hardly enough room in the halls for Walter to fly but he did his best to remain nimble in the collapsing building.
"Why is this happening?" Jim shouted, determined to be heard over the crackling of the tiles beneath his feet and the walls surrounding them.
"The damned order!" Strickler cursed aloud, "they must have decided when they knew failure was imminent that no one else deserved to succeed!"
That seemed all too familiar to Jim. He'd seen so many people and trolls sacrifice everything they had for their ideals. But now that he was sprinting away from the crumbling destruction, it seemed far less noble.
In a way, it made sense. The changelings were persecuted, feared and demonized already. A well-meaning but uninformed outsider could easily have thought stealing their knowledge to destroy them was a necessary evil.

Foolishly, Jim was relieved when the building relented on pulling the floor from beneath his feet but his relief was short-lived as he heard the gentle hiss of something he couldn't quite place. Something hidden in the repressed memories of the darklands.

Strickler had no such issues identifying it, what little colour was left in his face drained away as he breathed the word "Antramonstrum."
"Wait, the evil fart cloud?" Jim asked, recalling what Toby had relaid to him. He'd never confronted one directly, only witnessing the smoke stalking its prey from afar.

Jim turned to the sound, his throat tight with terror as he saw the coiled mass of inky clouds raise from the collapsed floor. Instincts took over and the Trollhunter bolted, Strickler close on his heels. Jim didn't have time to glance over his shoulder, his legs burning from the constant push they were enduring. Despite this, he could see the antramonstrum spiraling after them. How many goblins and unlucky trolls had Jim seen devoured by this thing? Watching in wide-eyed horror as the cloud caught up with its prey and melted the skin from its bones, globs of sinew a, fat and muscle becoming smeared clumps on the Rocky ground. The way they screamed sometimes still haunted his dreams and he was far from eager to experience this for himself. The elevator was in sight, giving Jim a burst of energy to continue. His mentor at his side, the two trolls dove into the elevator but this was hardly the safety they'd hoped. The door remained open, not budging as the cloud rolled closer. Time seemed to slow as Walter's face shifted from fear, to realization and then to resolve. In one swift move, the changeling dove from the elevator. As if on cue, the large metal doors slammed shut behind him, leaving Jim alone and stunned. Still unable to entirely process, he tried to rip the doors open, roaring from the effort but, in the end, there was barely a dent.
"STRICKLER!" he called through the door, slamming his fist on it, "What are you doing?!"
"The elevator will not function with two inside!" He explained, "I-I am the one who came up with the idea. It was so a thief couldn't escape but his cohorts could for questioning."

"You knew about this?" Jim roared, trying again to force the doors open.

"I didn't know it was implemented!" Strickler defended, his voice shaking, "as soon as you touched the book, it was decided that we would not both escape alive."

The guilt blossomed in Jim's stomach, his eyes burning with unshed tears, "Then I should be the one trapped!"

"Young Atlas.." the changeling's voice broke, "What is the final rule in the code of changelings?"

Jim struggled to recall, the panic making his mind fuzzy before it all clicked into place, "that everyone and everything is a tool for your success?"

"Yes, Jim. I'm your pawn and I'm a sacrificed one at that." Walter's voice faltered, "tell your mother I never wanted to leave her but I couldn't let you die."

"Strickler, no!" He yelled again but was cut off by the sound of metal grinding on metal as the elevator lurched to life. The movement was enough to bring the already crumbling structure to complete mayhem, the walls and ceiling outside of his metal box crumbling and dropping great bits of rubble where Strickler had trapped himself.

The trollhunter jammed his sword between the elevator doors, trying to pry them open. Be it exhaustion or the strength of the doors, Jim couldn't even get them to budge. He sank back, holding his knees to his chest while his blue eyes burned. Strickler was gone, just as so many others, to save Jim. The guilt rose from his stomach to his throat, threatening to choke him as he swallowed hard to dampen it. Tears didn't come as he sat there, shivering and nearly denting the armor on his legs from his firm grip on them. It wasn't until he got home that it truly hit him. Wally and Zeze.. he couldn't bare to see them. He'd lost not only a teacher, but a mentor, a father, and a friend.