Hiccup and Hiro had Toothless and Baymax land low on the island so that no one would spot them. Hiro wasn't exactly sure about how visible Baymax was in the night sky without any artificial light in the area. With the dragon raid preoccupying the people in the village, though, getting onto the island was easy.
From there, the gang took a short break before they started walking. Hiccup, having lived on the island since he was born, took the lead and slowly progressed through the forest so that the others didn't fall behind. The truth was, he could have reached the village in just several minutes, and even faster on Toothless, but then they would have to run the risk of either losing the rest of the team or running into an angry Viking.
The noises one would expect to hear in a dragon raid were absent—they were still too far from the action, and Hiccup wanted to keep it that way. He guessed that the others would want to do so as well—even with their gear, they had no idea how each dragon worked and therefore would barely stand a chance, if any.
There was a loud wail off in the distance that gradually grew louder. A figure went hurling straight over the group, giving them quite a scare. Several trees went with it. It tumbled down a slope, over a slight incline, and disappeared downhill.
It came as no surprise that everyone went to investigate. Baymax had to provide light for the group, and he shined it in the direction that the figure fell.
Hiccup gritted his teeth and reeled back the moment he saw what it was. "Wow. We're about five years off," he says.
Toothless peeked over the incline to see what was down there, and his only response was to rest his head on the ground and watch its actions.
The figure down there was Toothless, entangled in a bola—the situation seemed all too familiar to Hiccup. Completely incapacitated, he attempted to writhe free from the bounds of the rope, but failed miserably.
"What's going on down there?" asks Honey Lemon.
Wasabi seemed bothered watching Old Toothless struggle. "He looks like he's dying. I don't like it," he says, taking a position next to Hiccup. "Do we cut the rope?"
"No," says Hiccup sternly. "This is basically the story of my life playing out right now," he explains.
"So what are you going to do?" asks Hiro.
"I'm going to spy on myself."
That left the entire group stunned and silent. It was definitely a weird thing to hear, but when time travel is taken into account and you just happen to end up such an important time, it feels completely normal.
"Okay…" Fred trails off. "Anyone else got a problem with what he just said?"
Nobody responded, which meant that no one had an issue with what Hiccup just said. Apparently, Fred was the only one who didn't seem to get it, so it took a bit of explaining from Wasabi and GoGo.
"The process is going to take a while," says Hiccup, "and we'll be on this island for quite some time. What that means for Hiro is…" he lifts a finger and points it at Baymax, "we're going to need to find a way to keep his battery up. So we've got about five and a half days left on that battery, along with a whole week's worth on the other. No outlets here, so you can't charge him."
Hiro glanced up at Baymax. "Sorry, bud."
"I know we are going to be here a while," says Baymax, "I understand if you have to use me sparingly."
"That means you're just going to have to fight through anything that happens to bite you," explains Hiccup. "If it gets severe, though, then we'll call in Baymax. But the biggest rule we want to follow while we're at it: Don't. Interfere. With. Anything. I don't care if it looks like someone's about to die—if you change one thing, then we're all screwed."
"Ah, so I see you went to the school of handling time travel," teases Hiro.
"Nah, just watched a lot of movies in San Fran," replies Hiccup. "Things are a gem when you find out what the lesson is.
"Anyway," he continues, "I know how everything plays out, and I'm sure I don't appear here for another few hours—at least till morning. I say for now, we find a safe spot to put Baymax and rest up a bit."
They all managed to agree on that, and Hiccup guided them back through the forest, making sure to keep clear of the dragon in the bolas. Obviously, Hiccup couldn't keep tabs of every part of the island he visited while training Toothless, so he knew he would just have to pick a spot and pray that no one finds them.
Eventually, after strolling around on the beach for several minutes, the group found a hole in the side of the cliff. It was inaccessible without the help of a dragon, though Hiccup looked to remedy that issue. Due to its out-of-the-way position on the island, Hiccup declared this cave to be a good hideout for the time being. From there, they could watch all the events unfold, while at the same time planning on returning to San Fransokyo.
Hiccup and Hiro flew up first, and the first thing Hiro did was set Baymax's charging station down in the cave. He wouldn't be able to charge Baymax, but at least it would keep him from getting in the way.
Fred easily reached the cave with a super jump, and Honey Lemon managed to make a concoction to get everyone else up.
"Oh, look at that, it seems we won't need a special setup to get up here," says Hiro upon noticing that everyone was up.
Hiccup just shrugged, suppressing a grin. "I guess not."
They all agreed on getting some rest while waiting for the sun to rise. The raid on the opposite side of the island was still ongoing, so Toothless made sure to keep an eye out for any dragons or Vikings who may have drifted away during the attack.
Everyone slept for a few hours, all of them snoozing even after sunrise. The first to wake up was Hiro, who immediately saw that it was daytime and promptly woke everyone else. "Rise and shine, everyone!" he calls out.
The rest of the group sat up from their spots in the cave. Hiccup was the first one all the way up, and he climbed down right away. "You might want to get down here right now if you want to see the first part of the story of my life," he says to everyone else. "You know, you could learn a thing or two, and right now, with no way of getting back to San Fran, it's the only thing we can do."
That was when the others crawled out of the cave, still waking up after last night's events. They all climbed down, and soon the only one who wasn't out was Baymax—completely understandable, since Hiro did want to be frugal when it came to using Baymax.
They began the trek up the forest from the beach, voices kept lower than a whisper the entire time. It took a bit of walking around before Hiccup managed to find the point of interest, and then he signaled for everyone to stop.
"Listen," he says, "that sounds like me."
"Ow!" yelps a voice from somewhere to their left.
They listened as a tree branch snapped, and then waited for a few seconds to hear a heavy gasp. Pinpointing the sound, Toothless guided the group to the spot they were at last night when the figure came crashing down.
Peeking out from behind the trees, everyone watched as scrawny little fourteen-year-old Hiccup approached the downed dragon in a manner that made him seem shocked, delighted, and frightened. To be frank, he seemed more frightened.
"Was that really how vulnerable I looked from the back?" Hiccup asks from behind a tree.
A few minutes of simply watching the past versions of Hiccup and Toothless passed, and then Hiro nearly stepped forward when the dragon had the little Viking pinned against a rock. Hiccup held his hand up, though, in order to stop Hiro.
"You're going to die," protests Hiro.
"No I'm not," Hiccup shoots back, "I know what happens, and no one is going to interfere with my, well, our—Toothless's and my—past."
Out of nowhere, past Toothless unleashed a vociferous roar right into past Hiccup before bounding straight out of the area. The entire group watched from distance as the dragon tore through the forest, and then fell down due to a sudden drop in the terrain.
"Okay, let's move," says Hiccup, sneaking off into a different part of the forest.
Everyone else followed behind him, ignoring the fact that the fourteen-year-old version of Hiccup just fainted and was lying on the ground, completely vulnerable.
Hiccup decided to take a longer path in order to ensure that they don't run into anyone. He already had his destination in mind, and knowing the island really well helped him tremendously.
They ran a quick check on the area that they would be watching for most of the time—a bright cove, half of it consisting of a large pond. The walls of rocks were just high enough that an average-sized dragon couldn't climb out of it.
In the cove was the past version of Toothless, mulling over his options as he strolled back and forth around the cove. Hiro immediately noticed the lost tail fin and started talking in a low whisper.
"When did he lose the fin?" asks Hiro.
"Sometime during his tumble last night," answers Hiccup. "I'm guessing he clipped a tree somewhere or the bola did a number on it—I don't know."
He then looked back in the direction of the village and signaled to the rest of the group. "Come on. I think we're done for today."
They went with Hiccup back to the beach where their hideout was. There was nothing interesting for them to look at on the way there, so nobody wasted any time just wandering around.
The group entered the cave one at a time, and then Hiccup requested that they stay quiet for just a minute, for quick briefing.
"We'll have to wait the day out," says Hiccup. "Most of the village will be leaving in several hours. After that, we can move around the island more freely."
"What should we want us to do until then?" asks Honey Lemon.
"Sleep, just get some rest for now, especially you three." Hiccup pointed specifically at GoGo, Wasabi, and Fred.
Fred just groaned in response.
"I know, boring. Believe me, I can read someone's body language and tell when they don't want to listen to me rambling on for a few minutes. I've been around that for much too long," says Hiccup. "You can have your fun once we get back to San Fran. That is, if we can find a way to get back to San Fran. There's really no reason for us to be here right now, so we might as well spend the garbage time spying on my past self while we're at it.
"I'll see later if I can snatch some food from the village. But for now, just rest."
"Look, Astrid, this whole thing is a lost cause," says Fishlegs. "This is the seventh time we've been on this island and we've seen nothing weird in any of the seven times!"
But Astrid, as she and the rest of the riders knew, was stubborn. "If we're not looking for him, then maybe we're just waiting for him to come here," she says in an attempt to find another reason to keep searching on the island. "A torn-up and crisped island like this is surely the kind that would lure Hiccup and Toothless."
Due to her insistence to keep returning to this island, however, the other riders began to lose hope in the search. There was the possibility that Hiccup had gone missing, or that someone (or something) somewhere had taken him down.
The latter was the part that nobody wanted to think about. It was much too early to already discuss the crowning of a new chief, and while one of the Jorgensons (i.e. Snotlout or Spitelout) would be the easy choice, the rest of the group knew that they would want to prevent that. Snotlout wasn't even sure what made a good leader.
The twins just dawdled around on the island, waiting for Astrid to make the call to go home. Snotlout sat alone next to Hookfang, looking out to the sea. Fishlegs continued wasting his time attempting to convince Astrid to finally let go of the island, but even he gave up after what must have been the thirtieth time.
"Fine," says Astrid out of nowhere. "There's nothing on this island. We'll continue our search due north starting tomorrow. Until then, let's go home."
The few hours it took to reach Berk were filled with absolutely nothing. Just a boring flight in a straight line. To a regular Viking, it would have been thrilling to fly in a straight line, but to the riders of Berk, it was just a blasé action.
Once they did get back, they found Gobber once again struggling to hold up the village on his own, so they had to step in and offer a hand. It took about an hour to get everything in the village back on track, but it was a lot better once they did.
"Still nothing," reports Astrid.
"How long has it been now?" asks Valka. "A month?"
Astrid nodded hesitantly. "I still haven't lost hope, even though the rest of the group seems to be doing so. I'm not sure how everything's going out there, but I can guess it's fine for now."
A clap of thunder interrupted their conversation in the Meade Hall. Valka pressured Astrid to return to her home for shelter, and Astrid complied.
Hiccup, where in Thor's name could you be?
"Fish?" asks Hiro.
"Oh, come on!" exclaims Hiccup. "Aren't you five from San Fransokyo? The city by the bay? I'm sure you guys already eat lots of fish back at home. Couple more can't hurt, you know." He dropped the entire basket onto the floor, and Toothless snatched the tail of one that was hanging out.
"Pacific, not Atlantic," mentions Wasabi.
Hiccup just shrugged. "It's still saltwater," he says. "You'll be fine. Since we can't really watch my past self tomorrow without getting spotted by some village wanderer, we'll be heading back to that island to look around the place. But for now, dig in."
Only Hiccup and Toothless ate for the first minute, and then Fred happened to be the first to reach out toward the basket. There was already a small fire in the cave—you couldn't exactly cook a fish off of it, but it was at least enough to heat up your food before eating it.
"You sure I won't get sick eating this?" asks Wasabi as he uses his plasma blades to slice his fish into smaller pieces.
"We've got Baymax," says Hiccup. "Plenty of battery life left. If anyone gets sick, we can power him on for just a few minutes to take care of whoever it happens to be."
"But we'll need him to fly back over to the island," says Hiro.
"How much does he have left, five days?" asks Hiccup.
Hiro nodded at the estimate. It seemed reasonable, at least.
"So, I'll estimate it takes about… eh… four hours to fly from here to the island if we take a direct path," says Hiccup. "That still leaves plenty of time for Baymax. Hopefully, we can get back to San Fran right away."
"To figure out how that time machine works?" asks Hiro.
"Whoa, whoa—that's what you're going to be calling it from now on?" intervenes Wasabi.
Hiro just shrugged as he swallowed a piece of his fish. "That's essentially what it is," he says. "Might as well call it that. And hopefully we can figure out how to work the thing so we can get Hiccup back to the right year."
"You had to kick it to get it working last time," mentions GoGo. "How are you supposed to 'set' it to bring you to the right year?"
Again, Hiro shrugged. "That's what we'll have to figure out when we're there. But I think it's the best for all of us—even Hiccup—if we were in San Fransokyo right now. So that's our new mission from now on."
A fleet of ships caught the group's attention from the cave. It seemed small, though they could barely see the thing since it was on a different part of the island.
When everyone except Hiccup and Hiro had fallen asleep, Hiro decided that it was time for them to talk.
"Look, Hiccup, I've been… kind of hiding something from you," says Hiro.
"What's that?"
"You know, at San Fransokyo, why we don't have dragons there?"
Hiccup didn't know. "You just said that you don't have dragons."
"Well… oh god, I don't really know how else to word this… but it's because it's taught—at least taught—in schools that dragons went extinct exactly 1000 years before the year it is in San Fransokyo."
That came to Hiccup like he had been fed a brick. To learn that dragons were about to go extinct held him confused for at least a few minutes. Couple that with the fact that his generation was probably going to be the last to see them, and it was a surprise that he hadn't knocked himself out yet.
"I wouldn't get my hopes down right now if I were you, though," says Hiro. "A lot of things taught in schools are wrong. Like… who thought the Coriolis Effect influences water in a sink, or that glass is a liquid?
"Point here is, there is a chance… there is a chance… that everyone's wrong, and there are still dragons during our time. Perhaps somewhere in a place where we can't find them, even with the greatest tech in the world."
"Gee, thanks. That helps after you almost gave me a heart attack there," says Hiccup. "You do know me, don't you? You know I always look at the slim chances and hope that, in this case, dragons are not extinct in the year 2056."
Hiro shrugged. "Guess we'll have to find out one way or another."
Once morning came, the group noticed that Hiccup and Toothless were gone. Honey Lemon was the first to alert Hiro of the missing party member, and Hiro immediately went scrambling around the cave and the beach for Hiccup.
Wasabi powered on Baymax, though the enhanced scanner was built into the robot's helmet. Since only Hiro knew how to put on Baymax's armor, Baymax couldn't find Hiccup himself.
After a few minutes of panicking to no avail, Hiccup and Toothless came landing on the beach. Hiccup was holding something in his hands, which he plopped down on the beach. "Managed to snatch this somehow," says Hiccup.
Hiro shot an annoyed look at Hiccup before picking up the leather-bound book and opening it to the first page. "Translation? This is in Runic characters, not Roman."
Hiccup had completely forgotten about that when he went to grab the book. He had grown so used to reading Roman characters in San Fransokyo that it didn't even cross his mind that the Dragon Manual would be in runes.
"Right," he says, taking the book back. "I'll make sure to write it up in Roman characters later. Anyway, I'm just going to drop this off back at the village and we'll be off to that island."
Hiccup then took off again to the other side of the island, and Hiro just realized that he forgot to put on Baymax's armor. He climbed back into the cave and had to struggle with the robot for a few minutes, and Hiccup and Toothless were already back by the time he managed to get the last piece on.
"Right, so we're all set to go?" asks Hiccup, surveying the entire group.
Everyone answered with a 'yes' in some form or another, be it a nod or a verbal acknowledgement. The group took the same spots as last time, and then Baymax lifted off before starting in a direction toward the other island. Hiccup and Toothless followed, and they soon caught up.
For the sake of the four figures hanging from Baymax's wings and arms, Hiccup and Hiro decided to take the speed up a few notches. Not so much that they threatened to shake off the others, but enough so that they could remain comfortable while still travelling quickly through the air.
They also rose up a bit higher the further they got from the village, though they made sure to dip right back down upon spotting a fleet of ships. In this archipelago, anything that moves through the air and leaves a trail could be easily tracked down, and since most Vikings have associated the term 'airborne' with dragons, they didn't want to run the risk of having to confront hunters later.
It still took a while to reach the island, which seemed to be in the same condition it was in when they left it the other night. Granted, they couldn't see much when they appeared here, but it seemed to be the same as they had left it.
It was much cleaner and nicer, though, than when Hiccup and Toothless came across the place for the first time. The first time the duo came across this place, there were all sorts of sorcery-like events happening. This time, it seemed calm.
But the same circle of desolation in the same valley was still there, but there was no sign that anything was going on with it. No buzzing, no rumbling, nothing.
They landed on top of a hill, and Hiccup pointed down toward the lifeless smidge on the island. "You see that? That's the part of the island I landed in and somehow ended up in San Fransokyo. Anyone hear anything right now?"
"Other than your voice, no," says Fred.
Hiro managed to catch onto a faint windup noise, as if something were just powering on. "Well, now I do. Just listen closer."
The rest of the gang couldn't hear it, though, at least not until the winding-up sound settled into the same buzz on Akuma Island.
"Your ears are pretty sensitive, are they?" asks Hiccup. "Anyway, this should work…" he lobbed a stone directly at the circle, and it disappeared just as he had expected.
Something small came flying out of the circle, something extremely difficult to see in the air. No one could see it coming until it buried itself in the ground right in front of Honey Lemon.
Of course, Honey Lemon isn't oblivious. She picked up the little object that the field spat out, and right away showed it to Hiro. "Microbot."
Hiro glanced at her, took the microbot from her hands, and snapped it in two before dropping it right where he was. "Doesn't matter. No one has a neurotransmitter in the 1000's so we should be good.
"Anyway, are we landing in there?"
Hiccup was already on Toothless. "Yep," he says, "I'll see you on the other side."
Everyone else rushed over to their spots on Baymax, and Hiccup and Toothless had already disappeared by the time Baymax took to the air. After contact with the ground within the circle, the rest of them disappeared as well.