I do have a set pairing for Elanor...and it's the same character who originally got me hooked on the Troll Hunter franchise once the third sequel came onto Netflix. I hint at it a bit later in the chapter.

Any complaints Blinky had to the inclusion of the odd History teacher dropped when he realized what she was doing while Jim was training. She was forcing the boy to multitask at a level he hadn't thought the boy was capable of just yet, and for educational purposes too.

"Why do I have to answer history and myth questions while dodging blades?" complained Jim.

"Hero is not a real world occupation that will keep you fed, Mr. Lake! These days a high school degree is a requirement, regardless of whether the world is about to end or not! Besides, this is a good way to make your ability to fight instinctive so your mind has the ability to think in the heat of battle," said Ms. Black.

"She is quite correct, Master Jim! A good troll hunter is able to multitask between strategy and fighting while in the midst of battle!" said Blinky in approval.

Jim groaned at his two mentors conspiring against him.

"A little hard work here means less chance of being killed out there young Paladin," said Elanor.

Jim gave her a fishy look.

"First Strickler, now you? What is it with my history teachers giving me nicknames?"

"What did the previous teacher call you?" asked Elanor curious.

"Young Atlas," replied Jim immediately.

Elanor made a face.

"Dear gods, that is a horrible nickname to inflict on a teenager."

Jim paused in a relative safe zone.

"Why? He said that Atlas had the weight of the world on his shoulders or something."

"That's not entirely accurate. Atlas was an immortal titan in Greek-Roman mythology. When Zeus overthrew his father, he sentenced Atlas to hold the sky up from the earth for the rest of eternity. One rather famous myth regarding Herakles, or 'Hercules' as he is better known, is that in order to obtain the golden apples for one of his twelve labors, he enlisted the help of Atlas. Atlas agreed so long as Hercules would hold the sky up for him in exchange while he obtained the apples. Hercules had to trick him into retaking his duty, before he left," said Elanor.

Jim and Toby were utterly fascinated with the story.

"What does Paladin mean?" asked Toby.

"Paladin has a few meanings, but the one I use for young Jim here is rather accurate considering his duty as troll hunter. A paladin is someone who is a leading champion of a cause. Though it could also be used as a reference to Charlemagne, who could be considered the French equivalent of King Arthur, mythology wise."

"Wow...how is it that you can make something like history really fun to learn, Ms. Black?" asked Toby fascinated.

"It helps that I remember all too well being a teenager. I'm only in my early twenties," said Elanor amused. "At the very least I know what not to do from my own history teacher, who was an actual ghost that insisted on droning on and on about goblin rebellions for some reason."

Dead silence.

"Wait...I thought teachers had to be like, thirty..." said Toby.

Jim, honed by several months of life and death battles and general survival instincts, immediately took cover. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH did the same in the scant two seconds it took for their teacher to unleash some rather terrifying killing intent.

"Are you telling me you honestly thought I was thirty?!" she said smiling, her voice almost sounding calm but there was no mistaking the fury behind it.

Toby eeped, as Draal, apparently summoned by the sheer level of killing intent, came in.

He took one look at the irate female, and wisely backed away without a word.

"Here's a rather special lesson for you boys in regards to the opposite sex. Females, particularly those who are over the age of adulthood, do not like having others commenting on their age unless the other party is deliberately making them younger than both parties know they are. And I'm only 22," said Elanor irate.

"Aren't you a bit young to be a teacher then?" asked Jim, as the killing intent bled off.

Elanor looked a bit sheepish.

"No comment," she said quickly. "However if you mention my actual age to anyone I will make you regret it in short order. Don't forget I do have some power over you in the school if you piss me off."

Both boys winced at that, and silently agreed never to bring it up again.

(Claire would find it more than a little hilarious that it was their history teacher who made the boys terrified of pissing off a girl during that 'time of the month'.)

She was trying the delightful French Bistro her coworkers suggested when she saw him.

He was rather ordinary looking, from a certain perspective. He wore punk-rock clothing and he was as skinny as a twig.

But to anyone who had the ability to sense magic, he radiated power in a way that most people would never fully understand without proper training.

He had black hair with blue streaks, and hazel eyes that were warm and held a bit of intelligence behind him. There was also a sense of age that only an old soul like her would recognize.

"Hello miss, welcome to Benoit's Bistro. What would you like to order?" he asked cheerfully.

His name tag read "Doux", which made her suspect it was more of a nickname and not his full one.

"What would you recommend?" she asked.

She had found her new favorite eating place, and it had little to do with the food. She had no real clue who this "Doux" was, but he was seriously cute, charming and his down-to-earth personality appealed to her greatly.

She made sure to tip extra well and made a note to find out what his regular shift was.

(And if she happened to become a regular at GDT's Arcane Books, well that was her business. Besides, she needed new reading material anyway.)

The inclusion of Claire due to the changeling that had taken the place of her brother was almost hilarious. Jim decided to take it as 'fairly terrifying' that the girl he had a crush on was taking tips from their teacher in how to be a badass and how to be more than a cheerleader in the fights to come.

If Ms. Black scared him when Toby got her age wrong, he didn't want to contemplate what Claire would do if she was trained by their history teacher.

(He would be right to be terrified...the way Claire kicked Morgana's ass when she showed up at one point was proof enough at how effective Ms. Black was at teaching others to become competent.)

Claire was sitting next to her teacher with a slightly impish expression on her face.

"So why were you visiting the bookstore again? For the third time this week?"

"No comment. Particularly not to one of my students," said Elanor promptly.

"Come on, I'm likely the best chance of proper girl talk you're likely to get anytime soon, especially since most of the other female teachers are older than twenty," said Claire.

Elanor considered this.

"Wait, how do you know I was at the bookstore more than once?"

"It's on the way to my house," said Claire.

"I needed new reading material," said Elanor.

"And the fact you've become a regular at that French bistro in town when a certain guitarist is working?"

Elanor's expression turned shifty.

She decided to aim her energy towards Jim. The teen did not appreciate the sudden attention from his teacher.

"You have a crush on Doux the waiter, don't you?" said Claire.

"I will neither confirm or deny that comment," she said quickly. "Besides, I doubt he'd be interested in me anyway."

Her luck with dating had been utterly abysmal at least. Never mind the magical side, even trying to get a boyfriend in the mundane side of things always ended in horrible failure.

She seemed to have the worst luck with men...the one time she thought she had something, he turned out to be an abusive bastard and he was completely blindsided when Elanor had enough and took a frying pan to his face.

Unlike some women, Elanor wasn't about to tolerate her boyfriend hitting her just because he had a bad day. She had dealt with enough crap in her life that the second she realized it was becoming a pattern, she dealt with the bastard.

When he developed stalker-tendencies, she insured that he was put in an unmarked grave someplace no one would ever find his ass.

After that fiasco she had delved into her studies with fervor, and had sworn off dating entirely.

The fact she was showing interest in another male was the limit of what she planned to do for the moment.

Claire was clearly trying to instill a sense of 'normalcy' into the group, considering her world-view had been thrown into the air. It didn't hurt that by this point the three teens had come to see Elanor as more of an 'older sister/mentor' than a simple teacher.

She was there as support, but more than willing to let them make their own mistakes unless a more 'seasoned' party needed to step in and keep them from getting killed. Her calm personality and surprising knowledge of how to handle the situations that kept springing up were a godsend to Jim, since he could usually rely on her for advice that made things so much easier.

"If you're going to quiz me about Doux, then I have every right to bring up your crush on Jim," she shot back.

Claire shut up rather effectively for a moment, blushing.

Elanor smirked.

Being the 'supportive older sibling' was far more fun than she anticipated, considering she remembered all too well the headaches of being a teenage hero.

The pain from that was still far too fresh, which was why she understood how to help Jim work his way through being the troll hunter and a high school student/teenager.

Blinky had firmly settled into the 'older mentor/father figure' role for Jim.

"Is this training really going to help?" asked Jim.

"You said that you weren't satisfied with Blinky's training regimen or how quickly you were progressing with Draal's swordsmanship class. I have the distinct feeling you won't be complaining much longer once you deal with my idea of training," said Elanor, her eyes gleaming a little too much for him to be comfortable with.

It was totally worth contacting that fanged pest with the Kaleidoscope to have this sent over. Apparently Zelretch found her idea entirely too entertaining because he sent them over at once.

Jim eyed the box warily, because it was moving and making sounds that were not good for his mellow. Add in the fact Elanor's eyes were looking far too anticipatory for something that he wasn't going to like, and you had a combination of pain and humiliation heading his way.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"Because you have common sense," said Elanor far too cheerfully. "I'm going to give you a special spell that will keep it from targeting any instantly lethal areas, and it will have a setting so that you can get a breather. However it's up to you to figure out what it is...don't worry, I have plenty of herbal remedies on hand so you mother won't freak out when you get home later."

"Not helping!" said Jim.

"Remember, the aim of today's exercise is dodging! You'll only make things worse trying to hit them!" said Elanor, before she kicked the box open.

A pair of professional regulation bludgers flew out of the box, and Jim only had two scant seconds before the first one tried to cave his head in.

"Good heavens! What sort of training is this?" demanded Blinky, after fifteen minutes of Jim learning very quickly how to dodge.

"Jim was saying he didn't find your training challenging enough, so I offered to put him through the same kind of training I went through for school when I was his age when it came to dodging," said Elanor, amused but reading a book.

"Is this really safe?" asked Toby.

"They're spelled not to attack anyone who isn't radiating active magic...which in Jim's case would be the troll hunter amulet. The worst he's going to get is a few broken bones and I can have that sorted out in a night. I also placed cushioning spells on the armor, which means it would soften some of the blow," said Elanor dismissively.

Jim, it seemed, had finally figured out that the insane cannonballs after him wouldn't attack if he was laying on the floor flat.

"Can we call off the cannonballs already?"

"You still have another two hours before I'll retrieve them," she shot back. "Oh and you only get ten minute breathers before they start pelting the ground and creating shrapnel that isn't spelled from actually doing some major damage. That only activates if you've been avoiding them for thirty minutes, so use that wisely."

"What exactly are those contraptions?" asked Blinky.

"Bludgers, the professional kind use by major teams in official matches," said Elanor promptly. "I used to deal with those things while playing the only official sport in my old school while flying mid-air on a broom and dealing with the occasional dirty bit of cheating while looking for a small object that was the size of a golfball made of gold that flew as fast as a hummingbird. Nothing motivates a young hero to learn how to dodge properly and fast like the threat of having your head caved in from bludgers."

Jim did not complain about Blinky and Draal's training methods again. It seemed that his original complaint about not being skilled enough to deal with Gunmar had opened the floodgates for the sadistic side of his favorite teacher.

And her sense of acceptable training methods were a bit skewed, as her own experiences had given her an odd idea of what the average human's pain tolerances should be.

On an unrelated note, he was getting faster and considerably better at dodging, even if her herbal remedies tasted beyond foul.