Hiccup and the others made their way into the Royal City and noticed that everyone was cheerful. They saw men drinking with one another, the women giggling as they shopped around and children playing in the street as if everything was normal.
"Everyone so happy," said Ruby.
"It's not what I expected, I thought this place would be dark and scary," said Merrill.
"Not exactly my idea of a dictatorship that's for sure," Ruby frowned.
"Yeah, we were able to enter the city without fighting a single guard," said Hiccup and even with his helmet on the two girls could tell that he was deeply concerned.
"Compared to the other towns we've been to it's like a fair," said Ruby crossing her arms.
"I'm sure it's because they steal magic everywhere and horde it off here," Stormfly guessed. "They then gloss over their pride to make it look more patentable to the general public."
"Well, it's not working for me," Ruby muttered.
Once they turn round the corner Merrill saw whole crowd of people.
"Hey, guys, it looks like there's something going on over here," said Merrill.
Ruby looked at the crowd. "Are they having a parade or something?"
"Let's find out," said Hiccup as he and Toothless wandered off.
Stormfly glared at the two of them and yelled, "We're here for business not pleasure! Remember?"
"I have a bad feeling about this," said Hiccup as they wandered over to the crowd.
"How can get a bad feeling about a crowd?" Ruby asked catching up with them.
"Because of that," said Hiccup pointing.
Ruby looked and her eyes widened, because right in front of them was a giant Lacrima the size of a temple. There was a small plinth and surrounding the entire crystal were soldiers from the Royal Army.
"No, that's a Lacrima," Merrill gasped.
"A giant one," Ruby added, "which means—"
"All of our friends are inside of the," Toothless finished.
"And if you look closely, you can see there's a missing piece," said Stormfly noticing the jagged pieces.
"What? You mean there's more of that thing somewhere?" Ruby gasped.
"Makes sense," said Hiccup crossing his arms. "They show enough of the Lacrima to please the public and hide the rest for themselves."
Then suddenly appearing on the podium was the King and he looked exactly like Stoick, but looking into his eyes Hiccup could see the power hungry look behind them and knew that this was not his father. Then appearing next to him was his counterpart looking quite smug as pleased about the cheering clouds ignorance.
Edolas Stoick raised his hands in the air and the people cheered at the top of their lungs.
Unknown to Hiccup and the others, Eret was watching not too far away from behind a stone pillar.
Hiccup looked around and noticed the tearful faces and people placing their hands together as if their prayers had been answered. It proved his theory about pleasing the crowd with a small piece of the Lacrima, but of course that raised the question where the rest of it was.
"Children of Edolas, it brings great joy to my heart to tell you that our Anima program has produced enough magic power to last another decade!" Stoick announced.
"Produce it? More like stole it," Toothless grumbled.
"Please, control your temper tomcat," Stormfly snapped.
"Let us rejoice together, let us sing and dance, let laughter roar through our sacred kingdom!" Stoick yelled at the top of his voice. The crowd cheered uncontrollably, much to the dismay of Hiccup and the others. "The power within this Lacrima belongs to all loyal subjects of their homeland, today we hold our future in our hands to ensure its prosperity into tomorrow and beyond. Therefore we must swear to protect this gift from Valhalla with our very lives!"
The crowd cheered once again. "My dear children, today I shall make most solemn pledge to you as your benevolent ruler." He then slammed his staff into the Lacrima which began to crack. "I will bring you more power so much more power than you can possibly imagine."
Pieces of the Lacrima fell from it and Hiccup clenched his fists. He knew that those pieces belong to his friends that any damage to it could kill them. It got even was when the crowd began to cheer for the King and for their homeland.
From behind the pillar Eret snorted. "Man, what a joke, the people here are bunch of suckers. They fell for his whole act hook line and sinker." He then walked off. "Now what am I going to do about this?"
"Let's leave," said Hiccup looking at the others. "This celebration is making me sick."
Later that evening, they booked a room at a hotel so they could plan the next move. However, all of them, except for Stormfly, who was drawing something on a piece of paper, were all extremely depressed and couldn't think of a single idea.
"We really need a good idea," said Hiccup looking at the castle. "About our magic we can't just march through to the front gate and all due respect Ruby had you can take on the entire army." He then got another began pacing up and down. "What we really need is a secret entrance in order to sneak into the castle."
"Even if we did get into the castle we don't know how to change them back from a crystal," said Merrill.
"The King will just have to tell us that himself," said Stormfly.
"But he'll never do that," said Merrill.
"And if he's anything like my father brute force won't work," said Hiccup crossing his arms.
Ruby then got an idea and looked at Merrill. "Do you really believe that the King knows how to change them back?"
"Probably," said Merrill.
"Then we still have a chance," said Ruby getting up. "If we can get close to the King we can pull this off."
"You have a plan I take it," said Hiccup curiously.
"How do we save them?" Merrill asked.
"With Gemini," Ruby smiled. "Remember, not only do they have the power to turn into the people they touch, but they can also read the minds of who they turn into. Which means that able to transform into the King they'll also be able to tell us everything he knows."
"It's not gonna be easy," said Hiccup.
"Yeah, the timing is going to be critical with using them, because they can only transform into someone no more than five minutes and they can only remember a couple of people at a time, readily just two, so there's that."
"It's a good plan, but we still lack the means of entering into the castle," said Hiccup.
"Yeah, no joke, he always has a lot of guards surrounding him," said Merrill.
"I've come up with a plan for us to get into range," said Stormfly holding out a diagram of the Royal City.
Everyone stared at her.
"As with any paranoid ruler and the castle was originally constructed there was a tunnel built as an escape route which links up with the mineshaft just outside of the city wall," Stormfly explained.
"There is?" Merrill said joyfully. "But how do you know about it?"
"It's just in my head, coming to me in little bits and pieces," Stormfly explained. "From the moment we first set foot in Edolas it is as though I have a mental map that slowly being filled in."
"I haven't felt anything like that," said Toothless crossing his paws.
"If we can find that tunnel then we may have a real shot at getting close enough to the King," said Ruby.
"Well, looks as if we've got a plan," said Hiccup. "I suggest we go under the cover of night."
Stormfly nodded in agreement. "Until then we should get some good night's sleep."
About midnight, Hiccup and the others exited from the city towards the mining shaft that Stormfly had mentioned. Stormfly was leading them with the map she created in the hotel.
"We should be arriving at the entrance of the tunnel any moment now," said Stormfly.
It and take them long to find the entrance, and by the looks of it it had been deserted for years.
"Is this it?" Merrill asked.
"Yes, I'm positive," Stormfly nodded.
"Then let's go," said Hiccup.
"Stop," said Stormfly.
"Now what?" Hiccup asked.
"I understand time is of the essence, trust me, but will need a source of light in the tunnel," said Stormfly.
"I've got that covered," said Hiccup pulling out Inferno, he then extend the blade and set it alight. "Follow me."
Hiccup then led the way with Inferno shining brightly.
"So can you still eat fire?" Ruby asked curiously.
"I believe so, it seems that I am only unable to produce fire, but my other Dragon Slayer abilities still work," said Hiccup.
"I wonder why?" Ruby frowned.
"It's because the ancient ritual that was used to make into Dragon Slayers," Hiccup explained. "The ritual plan to be rewrote our body's physiology so that were part dragon now."
"Wow," said Ruby awestruck.
"Sadly, it still means were unable to use our magic," Merrill groaned.
"Well, let's just focus about saving our friends right now," said Ruby and began looking at the mineshaft's walls and notice the broken support beams and discarded tools all over the place. "Looks like nobody's been here in awhile."
Suddenly Stormfly came to a stop. "But the light out right in front of us," she ordered.
Hiccup shone the flames right in front of them and they saw a dead end right ahead of them. It looked like that it was closed off by the miners a long time ago and etched on the wooden planks were the letters, KY-2c.
"That's our link," said Stormfly.
Ruby tapped against the wooden beams trying to understand how thick the wall could be. "It sounds pretty thick and I think it's been fortified by some sort of magic."
"Does that mean this is a dead end?" Hiccup asked.
"We'll have to find a way to get for it, I'm sure the passage leading to the castle on the other side," said Stormfly.
"Guess we're going to have to break it down," said Toothless.
"That'll be no problem," Ruby smiled. "Because I know somebody who can bust right through it."
She then pulled out Taurus' key. "Open! Gate of the Golden Bull! Taurus!"
Then appearing out from the ground came Taurus.
"Bring on the muscle!" Toothless cheered.
"If you're looking for brute strength Taurus is definitely the Celestial Spirit you want to call on," Ruby smiled. "Now plough through that wall, Taurus, will you!"
"Of course, Miss Ruby, because you always know I'm in the ploughing mood," Taurus smiled.
"Then knock that thing out of our way!" Ruby ordered.
"I'll make it vamoose," said Taurus as he approached the blocked off tunnel.
He then swung his fist straight at it and punched right through and kept on repeating the process.
"Boy, he's strong," said Hiccup.
"Yeah, you can say that again," said Ruby.
When the dust settled they found the blocked off tunnel no longer blocked off and so that it carried on.
"Hey, look," said Ruby pointing.
"There's a passageway," said Merrill.
"Impressive work," Toothless smiled.
"That wall wasn't so hard to move, Miss Ruby," said Taurus.
"Thanks for your help, Taurus," Ruby smiled.
"Anything you, Miss Ruby," Taurus smiled affectionately before vanishing.
Stormfly looked down at the passageway that Taurus had opened for them. "Whether or not this passage leads to the castle remains to be seen," she said.
"You've been right about everything so far, I'm sure this is where we want to go," said Merrill.
Stormfly didn't look convinced and Toothless look deeply troubled about something and Hiccup notice this at once.
"What's wrong, bud?" Hiccup asked.
Toothless looked up at him. "Hey, why do you think I'm not getting any kind of map inside my head?"
Everyone turned and looked at him.
"I mean I'm from Edolas like she is and supposedly we were both sent away on the same mission, so how come I don't know anything?" Toothless asked.
"We agreed not to talk about that, remember?" Stormfly reminded.
"I know," Toothless sighed.
"I can't give you an explanation that's just seems how it's working out," said Stormfly placing her paws on her hips.
"For now we've gotta keep moving forward," said Ruby.
"Right," Merrill nodded.
"Yeah," Hiccup agreed.
They then began to wander deeper into the passageway.
"I hope this thing doesn't cave in on us," said Hiccup looking at the rotten support beams.
"Shut up, Hiccup, you're gonna jinx us," Ruby quivered.
"This mineshaft is pretty old and rundown, isn't it?" said Merrill looking around.
"I wonder what it was used for?" Toothless wondered.
They kept on walking and Stormfly kept on looking at the map she drew out.
"Let's see, now in about fifty paces we'll take a left," said Stormfly and a few paces later they found a crossroads. "We should be turning here."
It wasn't long until they wandered into a cavern.
"This looks more like a cavern than a tunnel," Ruby noted.
"Yes, and I believe this cavern is directly underneath the castle," said Stormfly.
"I don't understand how you're doing all this, but I'm so glad you're on our team," Ruby smiled.
"I'm perplexed as well, but like I said the map matches gets more and more filled in."
"You're amazing, Stormfly," said Toothless sounding impressed.
"Well been able to find a way through here surely to be the easy part," said Stormfly. "But what will be truly amazing will be sneaking in and out of the king's royal chambers undetected. As defenceless as we are now, this mission will be over the moment we're spotted."
"Now don't forget we could always use my magic if we get into a pinch," Ruby reminded.
"With all due respect Ruby I doubt you can take on the entire Royal Army single-handed," said Hiccup. "The sites you need to save your strength in order to use Gemini against my father's evil twin. Don't forget there's a limit to how many spirits you can summon in a row."
"Okay, good point," said Ruby slightly disappointed.
Merrill looked down at Toothless. "Is everything okay, Toothless?"
"I think so, but has got this nagging feeling at the back of my skull," said Toothless.
Despite this they carried on down the cavern, but then out of nowhere a sticky substance wrapped itself around Ruby.
"Ruby?" Hiccup yelled.
"What is that?" Merrill asked horrified.
Everyone turned and found Ruby trapped in some sort of sticky substance and she was unable to free yourself.
"Oh no, I'm stuck," she said as struggle to free herself.
Then before Hiccup and Merrill could do anything the same sticky substance wrapped itself around them.
"Can't, reach my keys," Ruby groaned.
Next second they found themselves surrounded by the Royal Army.
"Royal troops," Toothless gasped.
"Why are there so many down here?" said Ruby terrified.
"How in the heck did they find us?" said Toothless confused.
Stormfly just stood there shaking uncontrollably.
"So, these are the magic users from Midgard," said a voice.
The eyes widened, because appearing out of the shadows was the Edolas Hiccup.
Edolas Hiccup then turned and looked at his counterpart. "The resemblance is uncanny, but I find it hard to believe that I would ever be a part of a lonely guild." He then turned and looked at Ruby. "And it's remarkable that you resemble so much like Ruby Scar." He then looked at Merrill. "And I thought elves were just fiction."
"And I find it hard to believe that I could be so arrogant and pig-headed," Hiccup growled.
"I'd watch your turn, because unlike you I'm the Prince of this land," he then looked at his soldiers. "Take them away."
"Yes my Lord," they said.
Hiccup, Ruby and Merrill were then dragged away roughly by the soldiers.
At once Toothless and Stormfly ran after them.
"Hiccup! Ruby!" Toothless yelled.
"Merrill!" Stormfly cried.
However, they were soon stopped by Edolas Hiccup, who looked down at them with a fixed stare.
"Great Exceeds," he said.
The two of them gasped as Edolas Hiccup and the remaining soldiers bowed at their feet.
"I am honoured to welcome you home," said Edolas Hiccup.
Hiccup and the others stared in horror.
"I don't understand, what's going on?" Ruby asked.
"I don't know," said Hiccup honestly.
"Who are you Merrill and Toothless?" said Merrill. "I thought you were our friends."
"We are most grateful for your help for capturing the intruders," said Edolas Hiccup.
Toothless stared at Stormfly, who was quivering uncontrollably. He had no idea what to say for he was just as confused as she was.
