A Dragon on Earth
By D. O'Shae
Chapter 11 (eighteen days after arrival)
The mood in Nick's main planning room grew somber as Jack explained what he discovered and Hiccup's condition. He drew detailed maps of the section of the prison he scouted, including the house above the entrance he used. They lay on the table, visible to all who sat or hovered around it. No one said a word when he explained the escape plan he formed while traveling back to the North Pole.
"Stellar work, Jack," Bunny said when the report ended.
"Thanks, but… I… wanted to… take them all out," Jack confessed the feelings he harbored since leaving Hiccup. "I hate them for what they're doing."
"And what does that hate get you?" Nick cautiously inquired.
"Nothing… nothing but more hate."
"Da, most difficult lesson of all to learn, Jack."
Jack and Nick locked eyes. The youngest of the Guardians did not relate his violent outburst at the stone quarry. He did not feel a need to reveal how destructive his powers could become under the right conditions. His mentor held his gaze and then nodded.
"When my parents were killed, all I wanted was revenge for the longest time," Toothania quietly said. "It's weird, but… it's how I knew I was still human. Not hunting down the Monkey King was the hardest thing I ever did. After a while all those feelings helped me focus on being a Guardian and understanding why I do it."
The Tooth Fairy never spoke so openly about the experiences that led to her becoming a Guardian. He saw the anger and sadness in her eyes and realized those moments remained fresh in her mind despite more than a millennium of time between then and that point. Nick intimated once before that each of the Guardians suffered a great personal loss that magnified the reasons why they so steadfastly pursued their purpose. It gave Jack a new perspective on his colleagues because he now possessed personal experience.
"Every day when I look at the sentinels in the Warren, I'm reminded what can happen when folks give into that hate like that, Jack. Don't be like those buggers who are doing this Hiccup. Be better, mate," Bunny told him with certainty.
Jack nodded. Sandy caught his eye, and the little man smiled the same sad smile he once saw on the yellow face. Jack returned the smile, except this time he understood how and why a grin did not always convey humor.
"So, Nick uses a transport tunnel to pop in and get Hiccup while you dematerialize Toothless and fly him out, right?" Toothania summarized the plan. "Is there anything we have to worry about?"
"What, besides the dozens of heavily armed soldiers, who knows what else is in there, and all the surveillance equip…" the elemental Guardian began to rattle off the list.
"You know we're breaking the rules?" Bunny quipped at Nick, interrupting the litany of the Spirit of Fun.
"Man in Moon has not complained," Nick replied.
"What rules?" Jack interjected.
"The rules that say were not supposed to reveal ourselves adult mortals," Bunny said as though Jack should know.
"I don't think Hiccup counts in this situation," Toothania remarked.
"Not talking about him: I'm talking about the blokes who run the place. They'll see you and Nick."
"No," Jack immediately replied. "They'll only see Nick, and do you really think they're going to shoot at Santa Claus?"
"Naughty list could be very big this year," Nicholas said as if warning a child about behavior.
"And Toothless is just going to disappear right before their eyes. Don't forget he'll be able to see me when the people can't."
"Really thought this through, eh, kid?" Bunny inquired while a determined sneer settled over his features.
"It's not like we've got a huge set of options, Bunny. We have surprise and a means to travel they don't know how to defend against," Jack answered the rhetorical question. "Plus, I think Sandy should be ready as back-up in case we need to knock them out… or slow them down."
The Sandman's spiky yellow hair bobbed in counter tempo to his head.
"So I guess I sit this one out?" Toothania said and sounded aggrieved.
"Hardly. Need you to fly the perimeter when back-up gets called in. There's an airbase nearby and helicopters could be up in the air in seconds. If they start to head in, you'll need to confuse them with your speed," Jack informed her, and his friend began to grin. "You can head in with Bunny who'll be keeping an eye on the forces hidden outside of the main building. They'll come running once the alarm goes off… and it will."
The four other Guardians looked at Jack with something akin to surprise on their faces. Nick or Bunny normally formed the master plans since both were used to sneaking in and out of locations. He met their expressions with a stern one of his own. His ice-blue eyes glinted with inner fury.
"I had time to think about this," he explained when the silence became extended. "Since this whole thing got started in New York, military people are just itching for a confrontation with… some kind of enemy…"
"We are not their enemy!" Nick retorted in a caustic manner.
Jack simply stared at the man. From the corner of his eye, he saw Bunny slowly close his mouth over an unspoken reply. After shifting his head slightly, he caught the worried expressions on both Sandy and Toothania. He came to conclusion on the flight back to the North Pole that this action constituted a radical shift for the Guardians. Never before did he hear about them going up against humans. The silence grew for another time.
"I know I'm asking all of you to do something that goes against your nature… your very purpose, but… Hiccup and Toothless never asked for this. Don't I have a responsibility to them as well?" Jack partially exposed his concern.
"You weren't here during the Crusades, kid, so this isn't our first tangle with an army," Bunny told him. "Or Yugoslavia."
"Or the Inquisitions… and Vietnam, and the tribal wars on the Arabian Peninsula and in Ethiopia," Toothania chimed in.
Above Sandy's head a map of the America's formed and he saw several tiny ships sailing into the Caribbean Ocean. Then it shifted to a map of Africa and zoomed in on the southern tip.
"Zulu and Boer wars; those were nasty," the Pooka murmured, glanced at Jack and said: "Nanking, Armenian Massacre, American Civil War, World War One and Two…"
"The wars of Napoleon, the Mongols and Cossacks… ach, the Dark Ages!" Nick added to the list.
"See? We've seen humankind at its worst, Jack," Toothania told him in a quiet, weary voice. "We saw to the children through all of that."
Jack blinked, and now the surprise emanated from him. He knew his friends battled the seemingly mythic dark forces that surrounded people, but he never factored in the bloody history of the human race. However, quick reflection showed it made perfect sense. Children trapped in the worst of conditions would need their aid the most. It called to mind the day he saw the ship sink on Halla and his first encounter with the Breathless One. Horror got visited on children all the time.
"But we never do this for an adult," Nick said in response, "but this one is different like you said."
"Plus Hiccup knows about us already, so it's not like were breaking any rules regarding him," Bunny chipped in. "And this is for you, too."
"If we don't stick up for each other…" Toothania said and let the rest go unfinished.
Nick stood and looked over all of them and pronounced: "We are Guardians. Nowhere does it say just for children. We guard who we must, da?"
"Spot on, Nick," Bunny quickly seconded the notion.
"Here, here!" Toothania gamely lent her voice.
A huge exclamation point appeared about Sandy's head.
"Thank you," Jack whispered as a new set of emotions, ones more appropriate to his life, roiled through him. He felt a tug at the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt.
Sandy peered at him with intent. Above his head the scene of Pitch Black enveloping the Sandman in grains of night mares played out. Despite being golden, it looked gloomy for several seconds. Then it burst open, and Jack saw himself flying up as though pulled along by his staff that erupted with frost magic. Eyes like a lion shone in the Sandman's face.
"It's not like you never stood up for us," Toothania told him in confident, soft manner.
Jack looked around and saw the same fierce visage on each of the Guardians. He nodded his head. With that, the team began to refine their plan. They studied the maps Jack drew and determined how best insure military reinforcements would not impede either Nick or Jack as they rescued the Hallans from imprisonment. Jack stated he felt very certain he could escape with Toothless without risking either of them. Nick also espoused the same confidence regarding Hiccup once he understood the proportions of the prison cell.
"It's gonna be a heck of a show!" Bunny exclaimed with an almost manic glee.
Later the evening Jack stood before great globe at the heart of the North Pole. A small team of elves looked as though they tried to polish it, but the in-fighting hampered their efforts. Reginald stood over the console and made certain the little bundles of delightful terror did not do any damage. Jack watched for a short time.
"They can't hurt… it?" He said in yetish.
"No, but they… do you know nuraphurumph?" Reginald started and ended with a question.
"The swarm of little ones who… ensure small… tiny disaster no matter what… how diffi… hard they try?" Jack drew out the translation.
"Close enough," Reginald said and laughed in the fluffy manner of the yeti. "That's not an… easy one to translate."
"Tell me about it."
Reginald threw him a look.
"That's not a complaint. Your language is so…" Jack paused for second and switched to English, "expressive. Just so many layers of meaning to even simple words."
"Now do you know why we… only speak when… oolph… something important needs saying?" The yeti asked in its native tongue.
"Oh, yeah!"
Jack watched as Reginald punched a whole series of buttons on the console. The overhead viewing projection came on-line. Static files began to flicker one after the other, presenting pages of words, blacked out text, and strange images. Once again the yeti mastery of computers impressed the elemental Guardian to no end.
"Loorooloo pulled this together for you. She thought you… pherum… might want to know what they have planned," Reginald said and stopped pressing keys. "This is not good, Jack Frost."
Jack stepped up and began to read. Still images from the video of the fight between Toothless and the helicopters got referenced repeatedly in what he read. The blue glow of the balls of plasma figured prominently on one page. Jack struggled to read the German words. Reading and writing in a language always proved far more difficult from him versus learning the spoken word from children. Jack struggled to make sense of what he read, and finally turned a pleading eye to Reginald.
"It's… they want to know how he made that… siphamraphrum … blue fire," Reginald explained after a few moments. "They – what you call – x-rayed him."
Jack tried not to look stunned by the yeti's use of an English word.
"He has several glands in his gut and neck that somehow… transform… hyphogen…"
"Hydrogen?" Jack guessed.
"Yes, that… into an isotope, and then into a superheated and supercharged ionized gas…"
"Plasma," the Spirit of Fun clarified.
"As good a word for it as anything. Quite… remarkable," Reginald concluded.
"I always thought something like that took place. I wonder what they'd make out of a… spokelsedrake or a flightmare?" Jack pondered and resorted back to his native language for the last part.
"What they are going to do with the black flying…"
"Don't!" Jack abruptly ordered. "Please don't say it like that. Creak uses similar words and…"
"Apologies, friend Jack. I did not know."
The elemental young man and yeti regarded one another. Jack forced himself to relax. Reginald's small, dark eyes scanned him.
"Toothless," the large yeti said the name as though it came naturally. "Jack, they're planning on dissecting him soon."
"What!"
The word echoed around them, and even the elves halted mid-fight and slid off the globe. Jack could hear his panicked panting. A cold the likes of which he detested swam in his stomach.
"They wanted to see the interaction between Hiccup and Toothless first," Reginald continued in a calm manner. "But they really hoped to be able to speak to Hiccup and find out how Toothless was… chiphorphum…"
"Engineered," Jack breathed the word although it completely failed to capture the eloquence of the yeti word. "Great heavens, Reginald: Creak told me they're going to kill him."
"That creature spends time there, then… because… it took Loorooloo a long time to get this… information."
"Or he knows people."
The yeti shrugged his huge shoulders. Jack's mind began to settle, but the sense of urgency remained. He gaped at the pages displayed before him.
"Reginald, you're German is better than mine, could you…"
Before he finished, Reginald began to read and translate the report into yeti. Several times Jack requested clarifications since the technical aspects exposed the technical nature of the yeti language. The dreadful details temporarily sidelined the Guardian's awe of the language. What he learned in those few minutes horrified him.
"Why would they execute Hiccup?" He yelled the question.
"They did destroy two gunships and killed four people," Reginald offered a possible and very likely reason. "He is a… terrorist by their logic."
"They shot at him first!"
"When he would not land."
Jack threw a nasty glance at the yeti.
"I am not defending their actions, Jack Frost," Reginald said in a slightly angered tone and his fingers danced along the keyboard. "I simply… interpret their intentions based on what… I am reading. That is all."
"Sorry, Reginald," Jack apologized.
The yeti snorted.
"How soon?" He asked and returned to main topic.
"Three… four days from today," his large, furry friend stated. "Lethal injection since they want to preserve his body for examination. It looks… Hiccup's not… human, Jack."
Jack twisted his head to one side.
"The arrangement of his internal organs is different. His heart rests below the lungs, and from this… they think his breathing and heat beat are… regulated in symbiotic unison. He…"
The yeti stopped and gazed at Jack.
"What?" The Spirit of Fun inquired.
"If this is accurate, and I think it is, Hiccup pulls… ophexgen directly from his lungs into his proportionately larger heart in a… much more efficient manner than you or me," Reginald explained.
"I don't breathe… really."
Reginald rolled his eyes and said: "But you did once, but not nearly as efficiently. Didn't you ever… wonder how his people can fly… without ophexgen tanks or masks?"
"Never thought about it to be honest."
In yeti terms, the raising of a single eyebrow indicated Reginald questioned both Jack's intelligence and sanity. Jack tried not to take offense. He simply nodded once. Reginald returned to reading, and then whistled.
"Reginald?" Jack prodded.
"They did a… genetic scan on Toothless. His DNA is not DNA as we know it. There are two extra chemicals…"
Jack then got treated to the longest lecture on genetics he ever endured. From what he could gather, Toothless' DNA regularly broke along the bipolymer chain to form two distinct branches that eventually reunited back into a single chain. Within these new chemical compounds formed that never appeared in the DNA of any living creature on Earth. Reginald sounded fascinated as he read, and Jack just tried to understand the complicated language and privately vowed to learn more about nuclear genetics in the future.
"It explains why he has six limbs and a visio-acoustic sensory organ bats would envy! This creature can form pictures in its brain from dual echolocation and refracted light patterns!"
"Meaning what?" Jack begged and hoped for a simpler answer.
"Meaning these military people just discovered a new way to track objects no matter if stealth technology is used," Reginald replied and his voice dropped an octave. "This changes the arms race, Jack Frost. This endangers Nicholas Saint North. You need to get Toothless out before they can figure out how his… siphamraphrum works!"
The stress in Reginald's voice did nothing to ease Jack's already stressed system. The rescue mission took on added importance given the dire consequences of leaving either Hiccup or Toothless in the hands of their captors. The elemental Guardian never once imagined the physical properties of either Hallan could be exploited for military purposes. It could well tip the balance of powers on the world to such a degree that whatever natural evolution awaited humans on Earth would be altered beyond recognition. At least on Halla the other tribes could also access dragons as a countermeasure.
Jack shudder as he considered the consequences and said: "I'll tell the others right now. This… we can't let any of that happen."
"The mixing of worlds has never been good," Reginald mumbled while Jack took flight to head to the main room, and the statement fueled the Jack's suspicions.
The next morning Hiccup sat in the interrogation room with his hand cuffed to the table. This time his captors did not appear to be in a good mood. Unlike other times when they attempted to converse with him in one of the Earth languages, they showed patience. Even the woman acted short with him. They presented him images on paper that looked pulled from real life. The familiar face of Toothless and the familiar glow of one of his plasma blasts sat dead center. The dark-skinned man with the graying hair pointed at the plasma ball.
"Wie kommt er die Eidechse, dies zu tun?" The man said in what could only be called a demanding voice.
"Dette er ikke naturlig, men vi vet ikke hvem som kan gjøre denne typen genteknologi," added the woman in the same manner.
Hiccup heard the supposed words come out of their mouths, but he understood nothing. Of the two, only the woman came close to making recognizable syllables. However, the Viking did not hear a single word. The woman acted like she knew he could understand, but he stared at her in frustration. Their interest in Toothless and his fire-breathing ability made him nervous.
"Er ist entweder der größte Schauspieler der Welt oder ... und diesmal nicht spotten, er ist nicht von diesem Planeten," the male captor said to his compatriot.
The woman rolled her gray eyes.
"Dass ... drachen Genetik machen keinen Sinn! Sie wissen, dass es so gut wie ich!"
"Dann sind, wo die anderen? Wie kam er hierher? Wo ist sein Schiff? Warum wurde er trägt Lederrüstung, das sieht aus wie es gerade aus dem Mittelalter kam? Huh?" The woman barked at the man.
The Hallan Viking watched the exchange. He could identify a disagreement since he and Astrid often spoke to one another in the same fashion on multiple occasions when discussing dragon business, although for the past six months they said little to one another. Apparently, he surmised, his two interrogators disagreed over something regarding Toothless. Even if he could speak their language, Hiccup did not know how much he would tell them about Toothless. They appeared far too interested in the dragon for it to mean any good.
"Nichts an diesem Mann sagt High-Tech," the blonde-haired woman huffed.
The dark man glared first at Hiccup, then the picture, and finally at the table top.
"Ich gebe zu, er ist ein Rätsel, aber ich glauben nicht, dass er handeln, und ich glaube nicht, dass er ist dämlich," she spoke up after a few moments. She faced him a, pointed at the picture of Toothless and said: "Hvor fikk du denne skapningen?"
Hiccup gazed at her in confusion. Time and again she sounded close to saying something intelligible, but only garbled syllables came out of her mouth. The Viking grew tired of the game. As a result, he slumped in his chair. Both lead captors narrowed their eyes at him.
"What do you want me to say? It's a dragon. He's a night fury. There're not a lot of them, I know, but it's not like his kind have never been seen…" and Hiccup paused for a second. His eyes shifted back and forth between the two. "But you've never seen one. You don't have dragons here. You don't know what Toothless is… and you're afraid of him."
"Toot-hlephs! Toot-hlephs!" The woman repeated. "Du fortsetter å si det navnet, og du har å bety skapning, men hvorfor? Hva betyr det egentlig?"
Hiccup sat up and leaned forward as much as he could. He looked right at the woman and said: "Listen to me and learn what I am saying."
The young Viking man then looked directly at the picture of his beloved winged friend and slowly said: "Toothless. Dragon. Toothless. Dragon."
"Toot-hlephs? trah…ker…jahn?" She repeated while also looking at the photo.
"Close enough, I guess," he mumbled, but then said more loudly: "Dragon. Toothless is a dragon."
"Trahker… jahn," the man took his turn, and it came closer to Hiccup's pronunciation.
Hiccup nodded.
"Toot-hlephs er en trahkerjahn," the stern looking female muttered. "Drage?"
"Warum nicht? Es sicher wie die Hölle aussieht und wirkt wie ein!"
After the man spoke, the two glanced at one another. The man shrugged. With a less hostile look on her face, she turned to Hiccup again.
"Toot-hlephs. Trahkerjahn. Toot-hlephs. Trakkerjahn," she said in a fair approximation of the words the Viking used.
"Yes! Toothless. Dragon. He's a dragon!" He burbled relieved that they seemed to finally understand two words. Then he grumbled, "But you still sound a little retarded when you say it like that."
"Du er ikke herfra, er du?" The blonde woman intoned, and it sounded like a question.
Hiccup stared blankly at her. The moment of connection quickly dissolved as the woman spoke rapidly at him as though he suddenly could make sense of her language. Frustration huddled around the table when further communication failed. After another fruitless hour passed, the team apparently gave up on the Hallan for that day. Hiccup got led back to his cell with hands bound and a hood over his head. They followed one of their three favorite routes, although Hiccup knew they only traveled roughly forty or fifty linear feet. Once in his cell and freed of the manacles and hood, he slouched down on his stone couch and surveyed the room.
"How is he is going to get me out of this place?" Hiccup wondered aloud. "He's not going to kill these people… is he?"
The question hung in the air. Jack said someone else would free him, the Viking remembered, while the elemental Guardian went off to rescue Toothless, and he quickly assumed it would be the one he called Santa. A giant rabbit, a fairy, or a man made out of sand would attract too much attention; however, large man – if Jack's descriptions proved accurate – appearing from nowhere would also create intense interest. The Viking realized he simply did not know enough about the rest of the Guardians and their abilities to formulate a good hypothesis. In the end, he realized he needed to trust Jack's instructions.
"Little flyer," the words came out the thin air and grated along Hiccup's nerves.
He ignored the taunt.
"Soon, flying boy, soon they cut up black flying lizard. Them who keeps you wants to know what's inside of the lizard," Pulhu said in a jovial but completely nasty manner.
"He's not a lizard," Hiccup rejoined and tried to keep from reacting.
"Then they cut up you."
Hiccup's head snapped up and he searched for the tell-tale sign of the monster. To one side, a yard away, he spotted the barely visible glowing orange patches. The being stared at him with maligned intent.
"Flying boy not like these humans," Pulhu rumbled with perverse joy. "They see inside of him and see things different. They want to know why."
"See inside of me? How?" He challenged the strange assertion.
"Machines, little alone flyer. Machines can see in you, in black flying lizard, and many things not the same. They cut you open to see why. They talks about how your making and want to know why."
Based on what he already experienced, the news justifiably unsettled Hiccup. He vaguely recalled being manhandled for a long time when they first brought him to the prison. They drugged him, the Viking knew, and it made his first day in their prison a surreal nightmare of disjointed images in his memory. Then Hiccup sometimes thought he heard the screams of others he knew these particular Earthlings kept numerous people in captivity. One issue got revealed in the revolting creature's words: if they planned dissecting both he and Toothless, neither would be alive. The Viking knew he did not want to die in the place.
"So they're going to kill us, huh?" He asked so he could hear himself say it.
"One bullet in head – boom! – and little flying boy gone," the monster quietly cackled.
"What's a bullet?"
The eyes titled to one side, and Hiccup could just discern the faint outline of the head of the foul being.
"Metal tubes that spit fire and death… made holes in lizard's wings."
"Oh, those," Hiccup ruefully retorted. "Yeah, we've come across those."
"Why for does round light man and cold boy let them do this?"
Hiccup searched through his memories and rediscovered that the creature called The Man in the Moon a round light man. It seemed odd to him in that moment the monster never referred to anything by name except itself. However, the descriptions tended to be apt. Aside from that puzzle, he also wondered to what end creating fear and terror served the beast. Hiccup fought the sense of rising panic in his gut at the knowledge his captors intended to end his life so they could study his body, and the same went for Toothless.
"How do you know they're not planning on freeing me from this place?" He countered with the only question that could fend off the fear.
"And where are the Guardians? Hmm? They have no care for you," Pulhu said with clear distaste.
"Why? Because I still sit here? I've still got time."
"But so little. Keepers grow weary of flying boy's useless words. Soon they have no use for little flyer but what is inside him."
"How do you know all this?" Hiccup half-growled the question.
"Pulhu will watch when they come for flying boy and put bullet in head. So afraid you will be. So alone. All alone when death comes. So all alone," the creature nearly giggled the phrases and did not answer the question.
Only the thought Jack found him the day before kept Hiccup from collapsing under the weight of the fear the predictions inspired. He held fast to the promise of freedom from the dreadful prison, and the promise to escape the death apparently waiting for him. Moreover, the notion Toothless would again take to the sky gave him hope. As the thoughts took root, he heard the monster snarl. The orange blob of eyes raced toward him.
"No fear for Pulhu?" It inquired while nearly nose to nose. "Why no fear?"
Hiccup swallowed against what seemed like a natural reaction and said: "Doesn't death come for us all? It will come for you one day."
Hot, dry vapors issued from the being's mouth and wafted across his face. Hiccup tried not to breathe it in. He began to sweat.
"Death only comes for Pulhu when fear dies… and fear never dies!"
The Viking's eyes popped open and he stared at the orange orbs as comprehension took over. He began to grin. The monster growled at him.
"That's what you are: you're fear. Like Jack is made from cold, you're made from fear," he spoke as much to himself as to Pulhu. He continued: "And that's why you hate Jack and the Guardians: they stop children from being afraid."
"Pah," Pulhu hissed at him. "Guardians are nothing."
Against all likelihood, Hiccup began to laugh. More than once he heard some villainous person make a claim as to the ineffectualness of someone else, usually him, only to be proved wrong. Mocking or scoffing at what one feared tended to be a last bastion. Hiccup knew this because of the brave face he tried to present to Pulhu. Thus, to hear the twisted wraith spit on the name of the Guardians became a telling sign. As he laughed, an eerie, bone chilling keening sound came out of the monster. Hiccup stopped.
"Little flying boy so brave when so alone," it said and ran a twig-like finger down his face. "Lizard and boy die soon, soonest. Cold boy not save you, and Pulhu will eat your fear when you scream. Little flyer will die, alone, most alone, and afraid."
A horrible pressure existed both on the inside and outside of the Viking's head. Something terrible wanted to seep in while the terror tried to escape into the wild. Hiccup swallowed against a dry throat as he sought to hold himself together. He guessed it to be an effect of the creature, what it used to milk fear from a person, and he did not want to give into it. The strange battle caused Hiccup to feel light headed and rather nauseous. The world swam in circles and he felt as though he fell off his bed.
Seconds later he shook his head. Pulhu disappeared and his cell appeared normal. However, the lingering sensation something awful took place did not evaporate. Never in all his short time with Jack did the elemental Guardian use magic on him in such a vile manner. Granted, the one time they flew at supersonic speeds would never be forgotten, but it did not carry such a threatening undertone. The Viking sat up and stared at his reflection.
"Oh, gods! I think I challenged that… thing," he mumbled and became worried.
Far above Hiccup's head an abandoned village sat sagging under the weight of decay and time, or so it looked. Buildings, old houses, and other ramshackle structures looked incapable of standing upright in a strong breeze. Paint, looking sun-bleached and gritty, peeled from casements and clapboards in an almost artistic manner. Old telephone lines hung from poles and entry points, but the ends gave the impression of being cut instead of snapping. Random bits of debris and paper lay scattered along the long unused roads, except one might question why tire tracks seemed a bit too fresh. Moreover, the complete absence of animal life became distinctly noticeable since a setting such as that would provide much needed habitation for small creatures. A passing glance told any casual observers to ignore the ruination and move along. A careful study revealed the scene to be wholly constructed.
The five Guardians sat well off to one side behind a small but thick growth of trees. Jack's stomach gradually settled after the nauseating trip through Nick's tunnel. All save Bunny wore similar expressions. Bunny eyes swept over the assembled.
"Impressive, huh?" He asked.
"It looks like much of nothing but old town," Nick replied while peering through the trees.
"It's a ruse," Jack flatly rejoined. "It's how they want people to see it."
"I'd fly right over it and never give this place a second thought," Toothania remarked.
"Exactly, and that's what makes it so impressive," Bunny concluded, and then glanced at the Sandman. "What do you think, little man?"
A question mark slowly formed over Sandy's head. A concerned expression crinkled his facial features. He stared at the sagging wire fencing.
"Electrified," Jack responded to his gaze, "and enough to knock any person out… might even kill 'em if they fall on it and can't get off."
"The whole place is designed to keep most people out and certain people in," the Pooka explained. "Right, Jack?"
The youngest of the five nodded his head. His white hair moved in counter-time. Jack gripped his crook and streaks of ice crystals formed on the surface. Since he hated to wait, he began to draw in the dirt while the late afternoon sun provided light, and that would end within minutes. He sketched out the grounds as he knew them, of which all memorized the day before, and added their relative position.
"When the sun goes down, we go in. As soon as you see me enter the building, count to ten and begin," Jack said. "Nick, the room is about ten by twelve feet, so you need to center yourself in it. Sandy?"
The day before the Sandman repeated the trick of sharing a memory with Jack and obtained the vital information. He then projected an accurate scale model of the room above his head. The cement couch, the steel toilet and washbasin, and then a perfect likeness of Hiccup appeared in the right locations. Nick focused on the image with incredible intensity. Finally, a swirling vortex appeared, one of Santa Claus' travel vortices, came into view. Out of it stepped a miniature Nick. The tiny Hiccup stood while the tiny Nick beckoned. The two then stepped into the portal together and it closed behind them. Jack grinned at the careful display, but it did not convey humor.
"This I can do," Nick rumbled. "Is your man going to know what to do?"
"I told Hiccup to wait on the bed until you arrived, but that's it. We didn't have a lot of time to talk," Jack reported, repeating what he said at least a dozen times the day before. "Bunny, you keep an eye on the ground forces up top and cause them problems if they start to deploy. Toothania, you and the fairies need to circle the compound and watch for air support. Distract and confuse any helicopters that try come in."
The two bobbed their heads in unison and wore grim expressions. Satisfied they knew their parts, Jack turned to the Sandman. Sandy gazed up at him.
"Sandy, if alarms start to go off, you'll have to flood the air vents with dream sand… located here, here, here, and here," the Spirit of Fun explained and poked the ground with his staff to point out the spots. "Some of the military personnel might put on gas masks if the alarms sound, but that should give Nick enough time to get Hiccup out. Got it?"
The Sandman nodded, even though he helped devise the plan. Jack realized they reviewed the plan not more than a half an hour before, and many times during the day, but arriving at the real location seemed to warrant another round. No one seemed to mind or protested. Jack then felt a large hand on his shoulder.
"It's a good plan, kid," Bunny stated. "And you know what to do about the dragon?"
"I fly in fast, immaterial, and invisible. When I get to him, I channel as much magic into Toothless as quickly as I can and dematerialize the both of us. Then I fly him out since he's probably too weak to do it on his own," Jack recited his role.
"And if the alarms trigger?" Nick inquired on the heels of Jack.
"Then I still get Toothless out. I can always go back for Hiccup afterward… but I really want to get both out at the same time! Who knows what these people will do to the prisoners if the security gets activated."
"Understood," Toothania confirmed what they all seemed to want.
"This will work," the large man in red said, but Jack suspected it came in response to an internal conversation.
A golden yellow fist with a thumb pointing upward took form over Sandy's head. While Jack tried to silently convey his thanks, the sun dipped below the horizon. For the first time he got to witness what happened to the Sandman when the sun set. A golden aura surrounded the small man, and he literally grew an inch and his chest puffed out as power flowed into him. Grains of dream sand formed around his feet, causing Sandy to hover slightly. A sense of peace settled over Jack, and he saw the others fall under the spell as well. It buoyed his mood.
"This never gets old," Bunny whispered in an awed voice.
"It's time," Jack said even though he started to think a nap might be in order.
With that and fighting off the effects of the dream power, he turned immaterial and semi-opaque.
"You look like a ghost," Nick quipped.
"You sound like Gobber," Jack retorted, but his words carried only respect. "Watch for my hand to appear and disappear. That'll mean I'm heading in."
Then Jack vanished. He briefly noted the subtle, surprised expressions on his friends. He alone among the Guardians could completely disappear when not in the presence of adults, although Sandy could also dematerialize and travel through barriers. With his crook leading the way, Jack sailed through the trees, over the short expanse, up and over the fence, and to the house hiding the entrance to the prison. He passed though the broken, open wind and stopped. With his free left hand, he held it aloft and let it become visible for three seconds. Then it popped out of sight. He also began to count down as he aimed for the stairwell.
"One, one-thousand," he allowed himself to whisper a single time. The next count happened only in his head.
Because Jack did not possess a total familiarity with the layout, he followed the route he knew as he slipped through walls, down stairs, and into hallways. The silence of the complex hit him again as something terribly wrong for a congregation of people. Humans liked to make noise, but this showed how fully they could control themselves. Jack reached the count of five in his head while zipping down the large aisle. He neared the cell holding the dragon. Seven, one-thousand passed through his mind.
"No, little cold boy," a voice hissed.
Alarms blared through the compound. Lights flashed. People began to rush around or press themselves against walls. Orders got shouted in three languages. Jack felt his mind go numb, unable to figure out what happened. It took four people passing through him before he shoved aside his mental confusion. He shot down the last remaining piece of hall toward Toothless' room. Across from it sat one of the control and staging areas. As the red and white lights strobed in conjunction with the alarms, he saw it. Two pale orange dots hovered near a panel covered with important looking buttons and blinking indicators. A translucent stick-like finger punched a button, sending the alarms wailing anew.
"Damn him!" Jack grunted.
Since the original plan went sour with the alarms, the back-up one came to the fore. The elemental Guardian continued onward to Toothless' cell. He zipped through the wall, and his heart sank. Six guards stood around Toothless with guns pointed directly at the dragon. Jack tried to calculate if he could dematerialize the beast fast enough before bullets started to fly. He instantly dismissed the option of getting Toothless killed in the attempt.
Anger began to blossom in his chest. Anger at those who held the Hallans captive got eclipsed by his anger at Creak for triggering the alarms. In response, his body began to cull energy. He made a quick assessment and decided he could risk distracting the guards. Thus, against all the rules taught to him by the other Guardians, Jack began to act like he did before becoming one of them. He held out his hands, and then saw the dragon's head attempt to raise and look at him.
"Hi," Jack said aloud.
Within seconds the floor became a sheet of ice as power poured out of his hands. Several of the guards gasped in surprise. When two tried to move to a new position, the unexpectedly slick surface caused them to fall. They took down two more guards as they lost their footing. The upright two tried to maintain their balance by allowing the arms to splay out on either side of their bodies. As the four guards lying on the ice thrashed around, it meant none aimed a weapon at the dragon. Jack made his move.
The elemental Guardian snaked around the confused guards. He spied Toothless watching him. A second later he hovered over the dragon and allowed his limbs to become partially solid. Jack flung his arms around the stout neck and began direct energy. Unlike on Halla, the power immediately reacted and surged like a tsunami. It flooded into him and then into the dragon. Less than three seconds passed before he deemed the dragon ready. He made Toothless immaterial, heard the creature snort, and then made him invisible. Chains, the head cage, and the shackles fell away and clanked on the ground. The guards began to yell in their astonishment, but the icy floor meant they could not bring their guns to bear.
"Hold still," Jack ordered Toothless, and then added: "Take me home, wind!"
A strong, sub-zero gale whipped around the confined room. The two standing guards fell down, and one discharged a weapon. The bullet ricocheted while Jack and Toothless floated upward. As they passed through the ceiling, the dragon suddenly began to thrash. The Guardian suspected the animal might react negatively to moving through the ground, so he held on with all his might. Toothless felt solid to him since they shared the same dimensional phase plane. Toothless bucked but could not dislodge Jack.
"Almost there," he promised the dragon while guiding them upward.
Toothless bellowed. His roar rang in Jack's ears even though they just managed to clear the ground. An infuriated night fury now struggled beneath him. Without warning, a plasma bolt shot out of the large maw, but is passed harmlessly into the ground. The lack of explosion appeared to puzzle Toothless, and he went motionless.
"Welcome to my world," Jack calmly told the dragon. "Won't do anything as long as we're like this, so just relax."
The dragon roared again, but a plaintive quality echoed in the sound. As they continued to move through the edge of building and into the sky, Jack realized Toothless called out for Hiccup. Part of his preparations the day before included a contingency plan should Hiccup and Toothless fail to get immediately reunited. He hoped Sandy remembered what to do as well. Thus, with his arms latched firmly around a distressed creature with rather incredible powers of its own, he guided them into the sky and looked for a golden glow. Toothless roared again, a loud clarion of anger, fear, and frustration.
"Sandy!" Jack yelled when he spotted his friend's distinctive signature and allowed both he and the dragon to become semi-transparent.
Four tendrils of yellow snaked down from the heights to the ground, but vanished when the name got called. On a cloud of dream sand the Sandman sailed toward them. Toothless spotted Sandy as well, and growled in warning.
"He's my friend, Toothless. Don't shoot him!" Jack begged as he realized he did not know what would happen if the dragon let loose with a blast while in immaterial form at another Guardian.
Toothless continued to growl but did not fire. The Sandman came up to look, and he suddenly wore a worried expression when he spied the dragon beneath Jack. Toothless' head followed the progress of the small man.
"Just enough to daze him," Jack requested, and it sounded more like begging.
Sandy raised his hands. Toothless snarled and Jack caught sight of the blue glow.
"Dodge!"
The Sandman rocketed to one side as a blue ball of destruction whipped past him. A yellow haze of dream sand enveloped the dragon's head within a second. Jack felt the body go lax. The neck lost tension. Wings unfurled and drooped lazily on either side. Toothless let out a long sigh.
A question mark formed over Sandy's head.
"Creak. He was there. He set off the alarms," Jack reported.
The Sandman looked stunned.
"Tell me about it," the younger Guardian grunted. "Where's Bunny? I've got to get Toothless to the Pole before your sand wears off."
The notion an irate dragon might suddenly became an issue caused the Sandman to respond in short order. He pointed to the ground, not far from where they made their final preparations little more than five minutes before. Although Toothless ceased struggling, Jack now contended with what amounted to over half a ton of dead weight. He called upon his preternatural strength to help him guide the dragon to the ground. As they started to float downward, Sandy's head spun to one side just as Jack heard it.
"I hope Toothania is ready," he remarked and shifted back into invisible form.
The sound of helicopters grew steadily louder. Toothless raised his head and swung it around looking for the source. It seemed he did not forget his last encounter with the machines. Ten seconds later the rotary engines began to whine in the distance. Jack could only guess what caused them to veer off course and take evasive action, and he hoped none of the brave little fairy minions who volunteered for the mission got hurt. Jack did not waste time and then approached the ground at a faster speed while helicopters performed various aerial maneuvers. Just before he and his cargo hit, he halted in a jerking motion.
"Bunny! Transport tunnel!" He called out as the Pooka raced toward them.
"Whoa! Big!" Bunny said when he spied Toothless.
"Yes, it's a dragon, like I told you a hundred times," Jack spat out the words. "Now open a tunnel so I can get him out of here."
"Ah… will do."
Bunny tapped his foot twice on the ground, but his eyes never left Toothless.
"You're really not going to like this," Jack warned the currently docile creature. He hoped Sandy applied enough sand on the dragon for it to last the short trip.
The Guardian and the winged Hallan dropped into the hole in the ground. Hugging Toothless as tightly as he could made the strange journey feel less so. The dragon never reacted.
In the span it took to cough three times, they emerged into a specially prepared chamber in the North Pole fortress. In some regards Jack thought Toothless traded one cell for another, except this time there would be no chains or a cage. Instead, the room got appointed with a large disk of wood, a trough of water, and a huge barrel of fish. Thick stone doors sat closed on one side, and the elemental man knew them to be barred on the other. Jack set Toothless carefully on the ground once the transport tunnel closed. He released his grip, released the magic, and flew around to face the dragon.
"Hur," the ebony mouth uttered while the great yellow-green eyes stared unfocused at some distant point.
Jack scratched under the chin in the places the dragon enjoyed most. Toothless' head extended outward as he accepted the caress. Thus and aware the tide would turn when the magic dust wore off, Jack spent as much time comforting Toothless as best he could. Without Hiccup around, he worried the dragon might become a dangerously unpredictable element.
"Your free now, pal," he cooed in a soothing voice. "Hiccup will be coming home in a little bit."
Toothless rumbled with an odd sound showing he definitely remained under the spell of dream sand. The unusual trill carried discordant notes, and Jack suspected the dragon to be very unhappy. Given all that Toothless experienced, he could not blame the beast. He hoped he created enough of a connection with the dragon to help it maintain composure. To help secure that end, he applied himself to catering to Toothless' needs.