"Let go!" Jack struggled as Merida refused to let go of his arm, dragging her from the gun torrent to the cockpit and saw the blond woman on the pilot seat. "You can't keep me here! Take me back to Burgess!" he demanded.
"Calm down. That's exactly what we're doing." Rapunzel told him, and the kid snapped his head around to look at her.
"Wait. Right now? With the Kingdom chasing us?" shouted Jack.
"We lost the DDAs when we jumped, and the Gummi Ship can scramble its signature so they won't recognize us when we return." explained Rapunzel.
Jack let out a breath of relief. "Oh. That's pretty cool." He shook his head, going back to his main problem. "So just drop me and my guns outside Guardian City and-"
But Merida cut him off before he could finish, "They're not your guns." Right on time, when Hiccup entered the cockpit, already listened about Jack's demand to the capital.
"And we're not going back to Guardian City." The dragon rider said. "The job's not done."
Jack let out a long, slow breath and crossed his arms. The cockpit lit up with light as the ship jumped through hyperspace back to Burgess and Jack relaxed only slightly as the planet came back into view.
By the time the ship landed Jack was back in the cargo bay ready to go. When the ramp lowered, Jack could only see field until he looked down and saw a small village in the middle of nowhere. Noticing that Hiccup and Rapunzel were going in a different direction, Jack couldn't help but ask, "Hey, where are they going?"
Merida, who was carrying two stack of boxes (made Jack wondered how strong this woman can be), rolled her eyes as she walked down the ramp. "Grab a crate, pull your weight." she said.
Merida grabbed a box in silence and followed Merida down to the village. Jack could see and feel in everyone's expressions that they feel no hope. Only acceptance and weariness.
"Lived on Burgess my whole life," he said. "Never been here."
"The Kingdom doesn't advertise it." Merida sighed. For some reason, he could hear a hint of sadness in her voice. "Locals call it Frollotown. Named for Claude Frollo, Governor of the Outer-border. He kicked these folks off their farms when the Kingdom wanted their land. Anybody tried to fight back got arrested for treason."
By the time they stopped in the middle of Frollotown, the sun had risen enough to bathe everything in a soft, yellow glow.
"Who wants free grub?" Merida called, popping the lids off the crates, all of which were filled with various fruits and vegetables.
Jack couldn't help but think, 'I grabbed the wrong crate.' He was startled when a man with ripped of clothes put a hand on his shoulder.
The man smiled at Jack. "Thank you, thank you."
"I...I didn't do anything." The brunette muttered in confusion. Looking over, he could see that Merida have the food under control so he left the scene.
Not far from Frollotown, Hiccup and Rapunzel stood off to the side as Duke Weaselton examined the stolen muskets.
Duke, like his last name, is a slender weasel with brown fur, dark brown nose, red eyes, wearing a white sleeveless shirt and black shorts with red-and-white stripes. He's an Anima to be exact. An Anima are animals who can speak and act like humans. Very common in Terah Mared.
"Any problems procuring these lovely ladies?" the weasel asked, running a hand down the length of a barrel.
"Nothing we couldn't handle, Weaselton." Hiccup answered curtly, trying not to think about a certain brunette kid. "Your intel was accurate this time."
Rapunzel nodded, "We got the goods and took a bite out of the Kingdom. That's all that matters."
"Business is all that matters," Duke corrected. "But I love that you don't know that."
He gestured to his ram partners to take the muskets and pulled out a stack of golden munny, dropping a few into Hiccup's waiting hands.
"Keep going," Hiccup ordered impatiently, eager to be done with the shady 'businessman.'
"I could," Duke said, fingering the remaining munny. "Or I could stop and trade the rest of the bounty for another bit of intel you've been begging after."
"The Foresters?" Rapunzel asked quickly.
Duke grinned. "The Foresters."
The Foresters are the Anima living in the Deer Forest world, one of the world that the Kingdom hadn't conquered. But recently, the Foresters had gone missing, including the Royal Family of the Forest, the Deer Family. Without the Royal Family, the world will die.
This will be the Gummi Ship crew's new mission. (They really need to think for a better name)
Jack went back to the ship and sat on a small container out in the field staring out into Frollotown. He couldn't help but wonder who these people were. Sure they stole stuff but they also gave back to others.
Then, there was it again. A small humming inside Jack's head. He turned his head toward the ship, feeling like the humming came from inside it.
Going up the ramp, he followed the humming until he came to a locked door. Unfortunately, it wasn't traditional door like on Burgess, it was a mechanical door.
Jack searched around the corridor and saw a vent. Grinning, he took out the lid easily the stared to crawl in.
Totally missing Pascal spying on him.
Jack made his way through the vent, following the sound of the humming, until he reached a panel. The humming got stronger and Jack knew this was the room.
He opened the panel and dropped into the room. It was a simple room, with a bed, a locker, a table, and a chair.
As he neared the bed, his eyes were drawn downward. He knelt and ran his hand over a drawer and opened it. Inside was a strangely marked cube made metal that could pass as tarnished gold with circular motif around it.
"Might be worth something," he decided, slipping it into one of his hidden pockets. He pulled the drawer open farther and picked up the only other thing inside.
It's a chain with a black dragon, similar like Toothless, at the end. And as he grasped it with his light hand, lights started to gather in his hand. Brown eyes widened as the lights finally transform into a giant key with a black and red dragon motif.
"Whoa..." he breathed, dragging it through the air. Despite having gained weights, the key felt very light, and Jack brought the key up close to his face, mesmerized. So much so that he barely registered the door opening behind him.
"Careful. You'll cut your head off." He turned around slowly. Hiccup was standing in the doorway with a cold expression on his face. Beside him, Toothless is growling at Jack and Pascal beeped.
"Look, I know you're not gonna believe me, but it' like...this thing...wanted me to take it," Jack explained lamely.
Hiccup's face didn't twitch. "You're right. I don't believe you." He outstretched his left hand. "Now hand me the Keyblade."
Brown eyes widened even more. "Keyblade? Isn't that the weapon of the Wielders?"
"Give it to me, and get out," Hiccup said coldly.
Jack handed it back to him, who took the Keyblade and it changed back into a keychain. As soon as Jack was around the corner, Hiccup let out a slow breath. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms as he met Toothless who tilted his head to the side.
"Now we'll see." He petted Toothless' head. "Can you keep an eye on him, bud?"
Toothless gave him a look that said 'I don't want too'. Hiccup chuckled. "Don't worry, bud. Just a few moment. If he does anything suspicious, just growl. But don't eat him."
Toothless huffed. Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "Toothless you don't eat human. You don't even eat livestock."
Toothless rolled his eyes but walked toward where Jack had left.
Jack wandered through the ship and into a room that wasn't locked. It was the galley or kitchen. Maybe he can find something to eat here. He was about to climbed the counter to open one of the shelf, he heard growling from behind him. He turned around and saw the black dragon.
"What are you doing here?" the brunette said to the dragon. When Jack want to get out from the galley, Toothless rammed into him.
"What's your problem?" Jack asked again in annoyed tone.
Toothless yawn, showing his toothless gum. Jack stared at the mouth in awed. "So that's why you're call Toothless."
Toothless sneezed. Suddenly, his body is glowing blue. Jack took a step back and covered his eyes with his arms as the glow became brighter. Then the light dimmed, Jack lowered his hand.
Toothless is no longer a big dragon with big black wings. Now he's a small slender dragon with small wings and still no teeth.
"Whoa..." Jack knelt down. "You're amazing." His hands reached out trying to touch Toothless. But the dragon still didn't trust the boy, so he hissed, making Jack pulled his hands again.
Jack starred at the door again, wondering what was going on with the rest of the crew. Jack looked around the room and smirked when he found the air vents. With ease, he opened the vent, ignoring Toothless' squawks of outrage, and climbed in. Climbing through the vent quietly, he stopped where he could hear the voices.
Meanwhile in the common room, Hiccup, Rapunzel, Merida, and Pascal were talking about their new mission.
"We have a new mission." said Hiccup. "Weaselton acquired the flight plan for an Kingom transport ship full of Forester prisoners."
"Why the Foresters?" asked Merida. "They are a peaceful Anima. Why does the Kingdom want from them?"
"Probably their magic powers," said Rapunzel, playing with her hair. "The Foresters magic are healing magic, able to cure any sickness. The Kingdom probably thought that if they can suck every single drop of magic from the Forester, they would sell it for high prize."
"Which cause lots of problems, especially for the poor Outer-border worlds." continued Hiccup. "If we're going to save them, we've got a tight window. They've been taken to an unknown slave labor camp. If we don't intercept this ship, we'll never find them. Now, I have a plan-"
BANG!
Hiccup stopped talking. Every eyes turned toward the closet Merida had thrown Jack into earlier. The man, looked at Rapunzel slightly apologetically and hit the button to open the door, dropping the brunette teenager onto the floor.
Before Jack could climb into the vent again, Merida grabbed his ankle and tossed him to the ground. "Can we please get rid of him?" The redhead demanded through clenched teeth.
Rapunzel immediately pushed Merida a bit. "No. We can't."
"I thought Toothless was supposed to watch him." said Hiccup. Right on cue, the small black dragon came into the room, flapping his wings while roaring like he was defending himself and was outraged.
"We don't have time to take him home anyway. We need to move now." Rapunzel helped Jack up. Walking Jack away Rapunzel said, "I'll keep an eye on him."
Jack just sighed in defeat and climbed into the cockpit with Rapunzel right behind him. He sat down in the co-pilot chair and was very uncomfortable and was fidgeting in it. When Rapunzel sat down, he just had to say what's been bothering him.
"You know, this whole mission thing is nuts." He said. "I'm not against sticking it to the Kingdom, but there's no way I'd stick my neck out this far. Who does that?"
"We do." Came a short reply from Rapunzel.
Jack then asked again, "Who are you people? I mean, you're not thieves exactly."
This time Rapunzel turned toward the boy, offering him the sweetest smile. "We're not exactly anything," she said. "We're a crew, a team, in some ways a family."
When she said 'family', Jack turned away, feeling the familiar feeling of hollowness in his chest.
They came out of the Lanes Between and a metalic Zeppelin with some DDS circling it was the first thing that drew Jack's eye.
"A Zeppelin made out of metal?" Jack questioned out loud.
"It's called an Apollo." Jack turned to Rapunzel who just answered that. The woman is now wearing a headphone with a microphone attached to it and started to pressed some buttons. "Zeppelin for space. You know the balloon part in Zeppelin?"
"Yes?"
"In Apollo, the balloon part is actually filled with rooms and cabin. The Kingdom usually uses the Apollo to transport goods and prisoners through space or the Lanes Between. It even has it some bridges to connect with other spacecraft." Jack nooded at Rapunzel's explanation.
Rapunzel finally heard that they were connected to the Apollo. "Kingdom transport 713," Rapunzel said in a cold tone. "This is Skywalker coming inbound."
Rapunzel heard a reply from the other side of the headphone. "State your business."
"Bounty." Rapunzel answered. "We captured an additional Forester prisoner and have transfer orders to place him with you."
"We have no such orders." Jack saw two DDS that were guarding the Apollo earlier broke away from their formation and circled the Gummi Ship.
"That's fine." Rapunzel shrugged. "We already got paid by Governor Frollo. If you don't want the precious pixie, I'll jettison here, let you explain to your superiors why the Kingdom has one less slave."
"Permission to dock. Bay 1." Rapunzel smiled while Jack looked away.
Two knights walked through the bridge toward the door of the Gummi Ship. When the door was opened, Hiccup and Merida stood there with Toothless in a bird cage. While Pascal hid behind Merida's skirt.
"I'm pretty sure that thing's not a Forester." said a knight, gesturing to the caged Toothless.
"Haven't you ever seen a rare mini Forester before?" asked Hiccup. Toothless let out a growl that sounded like an eagle having a sore throat. The two knights exchanged glanced.
Hiccup smirked the whispered, "Toothless, transform." The dragon roared as his body surrounded by blue light. The lights grew bigger, and bigger, and the roar became louder. Toothless spread his black wings, now in Night Fury form.
The knights didn't get the chance to react as Toothless pounced at one of them and slapped his tail onto the other, easily knocked them up.
Hiccup smiled and petted his dragon. "Good boy." He then turned to Merida. "Okay. You know the plan. Pascal, work that gravity generator. Toothless will be Pascal's backup. Merida and I will release the Foresters. Let's go." The four of them started running.
"No knights. Security's soft-" Static filled Rapunzel's ears.
"Dragon, come in. Will-o-Wisp?" No answer. "Ah, communication's down," she said in frustration. "No, not down...Jammed."
Jack had a bad feeling about all of this as the hair on the back of his neck rose. "Something's coming," he muttered, snapping his gaze to the window half a second before a spacecraft appeared. It's actually a giant plane in space.
"What's that?" Jack asked, eyes widened at the implication.
Rapunzel gasped. "It's a Saturn V! A port on space."
"Was this whole thing a setup?" Jack asked in realization.
"It's beginning to look that way," Rapunzel muttered as she tried to raised the rest of the crew on their HT.
In the Saturn V, Megamind lead an army of knights, marching forward. "Prepare to board."
"You need to board the Apollo and warn them," said Rapunzel.
Jack was taken back when she said that. "What? Why don't you do it?
"I need to be ready to take off, or none of us stands a chance."
"No. No way. Why would I risk my life for a bunch of strangers?"
This time, Rapunzel looked at Jack with hard eyes. "Because Hiccup risked his for you. If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing." Her eyes then softened. "Our crew boarded that Apollo to selflessly rescue Kingdom prisoners. They have no idea they walked into a trap, no idea what's coming." She put a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You need to go warn them, Jackson."
Jack pushed the hand away. "No, it's too late for them, Rapunzel. We should run now, while-"
"You don't mean that!"
"I do. I swear I do." Jack exhaled slowly and moved his gaze back to the Saturn V, while Rapunzel let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The brunette stood up. "Which is why I can't believe I'm doing this!" The door opened and Jack dashed through, leaving behind a smiling pilot.
"I can."
When Megamind and his army arrived at the Saturn V, they were greeted by a white knight.
"Welcome aboard, Captain Megamind," the knight said. "The rebels are headed for the brig, where quite the surprise awaits."
Hiccup and Merida peeked from the corner and saw the door where the Forester prisoners were kept. "No guards on the door," Hiccup commented as he and Merida ran toward the door.
Merida immediately did her job, unlocking the mechanical door. "At least things seem to be going smoother than our last op," she muttered.
Jack took off running down the halls, trying to find Hiccup and the others. He followed his feet that seemed to know where he needs to go. He was glad he finally could hear Merida.
"It's a trap!" Jack yelled. "We gotta get out of here. It's a trap!" Hiccup and Merida were startled when they heard Jack's voice with Hiccup ready to unsheat his sword.
"Damn it!" Merida swore. "The kid's blowing another op."
"It's not an op. It's a trap. Rapunzel sent me to warn you." The sliding doors opened revealing knights.
"Run!" The older of the three ran past him as Jack loaded his slingshot with some dried rock and shot it to the knight in the front. The rock landed right on the knight's forehead, killing him instantly.
"We need to warn Pascal and Toothless," Jack told them once he'd caught up. "But they've jammed the communicator."
"They'll follow the plan," Hiccup replied. "It'll be fine."
"Yeah, 'cause the plan's gone just great so far." Jack scoffed, but followed after them anyway.
Meanwhile, Pascal and Toothless were in the control room. Pascal grumbled about something, but Toothless rolled his eyes and roared at the robot, like teliing to kept working on the gravity generator. Pascal replied it with a waved of his mechanical arm.
The three of them kept running until they saw a group of knight led by a blue skinned captain rounded the corner in front of them.
"Push off now!" Hiccup ordered, drawing his sword.
Pascal let out a beep if triumph when they finished his job. Signaling the escape plan is on.
The floor fell away and Jack floundered as the sudden lack of gravity threw off his balance. Hiccup swang his sword against a knight's chest. Merida's hand landed on Jack's head and she pushed herself forward and Jack down out of the line of fire. Megamind took out his gun and started shooting at the trio. Avoiding the shot, Jack grabbed onto the first secure thing he could reach, which happened to be Merida's dress.
"Hey!" Merida cried as Jack scrambled up her back and latched on her shoulders. Merida smashed her way through the knights and pulled them around a corner with Jack still holding her shoulders.
Toothless held Pascal body in his claws as he swam their way toward the Gummi Ship.
"You doing ok, kid?" Hiccup called back as he lead the way to the Gummi Ship.
"You kidding?" Jack answered as Merida pried him loose. They had just reached the corridor that lead to the air lock and the Gummi Ship when the gravity came back on, with Toothless and Pascal were waiting them. Jack landed on all fours with a grunt. Merida hauled him up by his backpack and they took off after Hiccup. Toothless and Pascal growled/beeped in confusion, asking about the Foresters.
"No Foresters," said Hiccup in frustration. "Pascal, tell Rapunzel to take off."
Pascal let out a confused beep, but ran to the Gummi Ship, with Toothless and Hiccup running behind him. Jack followed Hiccup when Merida pushed him backwards. He glared after Merida and made to charge after her when he was yanked back.
"Let go!" he cried, struggling against the arm holding him in place.
"Kid, get out of the way!" Merida yelled, trying to get a clear shot.
"I'm...trying!" Jack choked out and drove his elbow into his captor's stomach. The man retaliated by fisting his hand in Jack's hair and tightening his chokehold, pulling them further from the Gummi Ship. Jack let out a strangled cry and tugged at the arm wrapped around his neck.
"Sorry, kid!" Merida said, tear came from the corner of her eyes. "You did good."
That was the last thing Jack saw before everything becomes black.
