Daylight is Mine to Protect

Part One: Merlin; Becoming the Norm

New place, new people. Great. I stand in front of my new school: Arcadia Oaks High; the first school I had ever been to. The place has blue tinted windows and red bricks lining the walls. It looks like your typical school. But, little did the students know that this place is far from ordinary. And all because magic lurks around one student; the student I am looking for, and the reason I am here. I put my dark sunglasses over my eyes. Unlike regular sunglasses, these allow me identify any student I come across. Given to me by Morgana, the Lady Pale, it uses magic to detect the DNA of anyone I look at. It is one of the only things I managed to take with me when I went rouge and left her side.

No one talks to me as I approach the entrance, and I am suddenly glad the students are so oblivious to everything. "Hi," a small voice squeaks. I turn and internally groan. My readings analyze him as Eli Pepperjack, one of the two students who is not as oblivious and ended up finding out the secret of Arcadia. He has slick dark brown hair, hair that is so dull next to my long, vibrant red-orange hair. Now's not the time to be vain. I reprimand myself. I continue to study Eli without him noticing. He has broken glasses around his dark green eyes, that almost look brown in the dim light. A bruise on his cheek sticks out on his unusually pale face. By its color and size, I guess that he had only recently acquired it. When I don't respond, he holds out a hand. "I'm Eli. Ignore the bruise." He chuckles nervously. "I got shoved into a locker." He shrugs. "It's no big deal really; it happens everyday." I do a few calculations in my head and decide it would look too suspicious if I didn't shake his hand. "What's your name?" Eli asks apon shaking my hand.

"Amber," I say, my voice smooth and unfaltering. "Amber Waystar. But you can call me Amy." I let go of his hand and walk away, before he can ask any questions and cringe, wondering what was wrong with me, towards my first class of the day.

* * *

"Okay everyone. We've got a new student in class today." My sunglasses identify the tall, buff man in front of me, whose red baseball cap covers his bald head and whose blue eyes and black mustache make him look like someone from the Founding Fathers' time, as Coach Lawerence. Facts I had read about him run through my mind faster than most could process. He had started out as a gym teacher until Walter Strikler had become Principal, leaving the teaching of History to Senõr Uhl and Biology to the Coach.

"Hello? Amber?" Coach Lawerence stands in front of me while the class's snickers bounce around the walls.

I blush beet red and ask, "Uh, yes Coach?"

"Well, I was just asking if you wanted to tell the class something about yourself."

"No thank you sir. I'm good," I respond politely. More snickers. To the Coach and the class, it probably just sounded like a joke, but thousands of ways to control the situation run through my mind as I speak the words.

"No really. Tell us something." He is insistent. "And please take off your glasses." I nod my head and do as he says. I have all the info I need.

I sigh dramatically. "If you insist." I pause for a very drawn out moment as though trying to think of something to say. Truthfully, I had already imagined what I was to say and the reactions of those around me. "My dad was murdered by a teenager." Silence fills the room. It's a half truth. I think. The Pale Lady adopted me when I was young, and she was the only person I really knew, besides Bular, until my thirteenth birthday. In a twisted sort of way, Bular was my father and the Pale Lady my mother. And Bular was killed by Jim Lake Jr, the first human Trollhunter and the man I was seeking and have found.

My eyes flick slightly in the direction of the young Trollhunter. His dark brown hair hangs low on his face, yet is kept neat by a few comb strokes. Blue eyes portray shock at the words that I had uttered and I wonder how many times that emotion had appeared in the last year. My sunglasses had identified him as soon as I had stepped through the door as well as his girlfriend Claire Nuñez, whose chocolate brown eyes burn as fiercely as the purple streak in her black hair and that same color in her shirt, and his best friend Tobias Domzalski, with his red brown hair, green eyes, and not-so-skinny build. Eli and Steve Palchuk, who joined Eli on being observant even though his dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and quarterback build makes him almost the complete opposite of Eli, are also in the class as well as a few others who I recognize, but don't care to acknowledge.

"Well, I um... I'm sorry for your loss." Coach Lawerence pats me on the shoulder uncertaintly. "Anyway, um, moving on. Everyone take out your laptops and start studying up on the... uh... the.. function of the... Tray-key-ah."

I take out the new laptop that the school had provided every student with on their first day of school. My fingers trace over the design and I feel the thrum of the machine under my palm. A smile spreads across my face as I gently open the computer. If there's one thing I'm comfortable around, it's machines. I sign on under the school provided log in and take a few minutes to secure my account, even though I am pretty sure none of the students have the skills necessary to hack my account. Then, I log on to the school board and find Jim's address. After writing it down on a piece of paper and tucking it in my jacket pocket, I start researching the types of projectors Arcadia Oaks High uses.

Bingo. Type A23. Easy enough to hack the computer attached to it. I copy down the code I was to be using and download it to my phone, which is situated in my brown leather backpack resting against my feet. I feel a buzz confirming my phone had received the information, and I quickly switch to studying the throat.