Chapter Thirteen: A Fitting Title, Part Two

The damaged Hunter didn't even see it coming. With much of its side exposed by Qiao's explosive arrow, it had precious little protection to stave off a mosquito sting, much less another explosive projectile. So when the plasma blast hit the core of the platform straight on, the platform disintegrated like dirt crumbling into water.

The second Hunter floating nearby had been ordered to send some of its troops down to capture Qiao and kill the rest, so it only had a handful of crewmembers when the first Hunter blew apart. They were so mesmerized by the disaster that they didn't see the Night Fury zoom by until they were feeling the wind of its passing. Two of the five men panicked and jumped, floating down like leaves toward the perceived safety of the ground.

The pilot was a braver soul and brought up the platform's air defenses. With a wave of his hands, dozens of rocks piled on the flattop of the platform rose into the air, spreading out and circling around the crew section. The pilot had been told that these defenses had kept the Night Fury at bay during the Battle of the Repository, and so he felt a lot more secure once the swarm of rocks was orbiting his platform. He almost felt like pursing the Night Fury to do battle, now that the scatter-cannons were activated.

That was when a strange mist came out of nowhere, enveloping the platform in a yellow-green haze that smelled like a basket full of sweaty towels. It came in from above, thick and almost nauseating, obscuring the rest of the world from sight. The pilot's two companions raised their crossbows, expecting trouble. The pilot's optimism swiftly dissolved; a fat lot of good a bunch of swarming rocks did against a fog.

Then the sky above cleared enough that they could see the culprit, the mist-maker in the flesh, and the pilot immediately screamed at the archers not to fire. The two-headed dragon hovered above them, its two identical heads leering threateningly, its two near-identical riders smiling mischievously.

"If I were you three," said Tuffnut, "I'd be jumping right now." To press the point, the dragonhead he rode flicked its tongue at them, sparks shooting out with each flick.

They didn't have to be told twice. The three soldiers took one look at each other, screamed, and jumped overboard, falling through the mist at feather-like speeds.

Barf-Belch waited for the soldiers to fall clear, then lowered its ignition-head and sparked the cloud. The mist instantly transformed into a torrent of fire, surging over and around the Hunter, baking and cracking it in key places. Losing power, it fell through the fading firecloud and plummeted to the bottom of the cliffs hundred of feet below.

"Now that's the kind of 'normal' that never gets old," said Ruffnut, giving her brother a high-five.

Hiccup barely registered the explosion of the half-dead Hunter before Toothless was barreling past it and coming up on the flying warship. He barely registered the fact that the warship was, in fact, flying. He'd long since stopped having expectations about much of anything. A flying ship was only slightly more incredible than the flying platform he'd just had Toothless blow up. Maybe tomorrow he'd meet an ant that could write poetry, or a yak that ate hot coals.

Hiccup was running on anxiety and determination, two emotions that made admirable substitutions for sleep. Considering that he, Nestor, and the Twins had raced nonstop through the night to get ahead of the Alchemist's forces before they could find Astrid and the others, he was feeling surprisingly little fatigue. It was all that Viking blood in him, and his blood was as fired up as a Viking could get.

Astrid was here, and he was going to save her. It didn't matter if there were a dozen flying warships or a thousand men between him and Astrid. He was going to save her.

The wind buffeted Hiccup mercilessly as he hunkered down to lessen the air resistance. He was glad Nestor had made him put on his myssteel riding armor as hitting a bug at these speeds was likely to put him out of the battle. Toothless was traveling so fast that Hiccup couldn't react quickly enough to give out new orders, but the dragon already knew what needed to be done. Thanks to Proto and his eavesdropping on the Alchemist's conduit network, they already had a semblance of a plan.

Toothless buzzed the warship at such a clip that his passing sent the remaining soldiers onboard ducking and screaming "Night Fury!" instead of opening fire. Toothless didn't give them a chance to react, flying away from the ship as Toothless veered around for another pass of the hillside battlefield.

"That should attract their attention," said Hiccup. "I hope he knows what he's doing."

The "he" in question was Nestor, who was about to do something that Arc would categorically call very stupid. At least Nestor had Proto with him, and the machine could work his own brand of magic. Still, he wished Nestor all the luck in the world, because Hiccup and Toothless were needed elsewhere and wouldn't be able to come to his aid if his plan went south.

He looked over the battleground and felt his chest tighten up. Their friends on the ground were being overwhelmed. There was already a platoon of the Alchemist's troops in the forest where Astrid and the rest were hiding, and a second, larger force was coming up the hill. Even with their dragons and all their various powers and skills, Hiccup's rescue team was vastly outnumbered.

"Send them running, Toothless," he ordered.

The dragon did so the best way he could. He lobbed three plasma blasts to the rear of the first platoon, aiming for clear spots to minimize the casualties. Three explosions bloomed in the forest, and the effect was immediate. The soldiers' semi-orderly formation broke apart like dried clay shattering on a rock, many of them running out of the forest and back down the hill, running smack into their reinforcements and causing further delays and disruptions.

A new explosion rang out to Hiccup's left, and he saw the second of the Hunter platforms fall to the ground, coated in thick flames. Ruff and Tuff doing what they did best – causing misery for others.

As the Night Fury banked into another turn, Hiccup almost ordered Toothless to do a second barrage to further disrupt the ground troops, but he reconsidered when he realized how many men he was dealing with. He needed to conserve the firepower for now, as there was also the warship and the third Hunter platform, and he might need Toothless's fireballs to take on those threats.

Instead, he considered the geography of the battlefield… and the fact that there were a lot of trees lying around.

Sheen and Cragfist had moved to join the rear section of the cannon-fodder platoon to see how well they were fairing against the blond-haired brat and the redheaded Seer, which placed them right where Toothless sent his fireballs. It proved to be a tactical nightmare.

The ensuing chaos sent them diving to the ground, Sheen struggling to bark out orders while her men screamed and ran about like headless chickens. Cragfist had been so near one of the Night Fury's fireball blasts that the skin on his face and arms had reddened from the heat. He even initially thought his medallion had prematurely detonated and that he had somehow survived it. He was thus disappointed when he felt around his neck and found the death-necklace hanging there.

"Get the ship over here and cover us!" shouted Sheen into her armband, a wasted effort as the armband gems projected thoughts and not sound. The captain of the Cauldron was clearly telling her things she didn't want to hear. "What do you mean you don't have air defenses in place?"

Cragfist let himself chuckle, his laughter swallowed up by the bedlam around him. This was how his life worked, how his dealings with his sister had always gone down. She made these kinds of reversals happen, as if summoning such bizarre twists of fate with her very nature. Most of the crew of the Cauldron had been so confident in their success that there were running bets on how quickly the Seer and her allies would bite the dust. But then the Dragon Rider shows up to save his friends and all bets were now off.

Cragfist hated that skinny twig-of-a-man, but today Cragfist almost felt like thanking him… though that wouldn't stop him from filleting Hiccup for fish bait if their paths ever crossed again.

Sheen picked herself up and walked over to Cragfist. She was covered in dirt and soot from the dragon's attack, but such grime did nothing to mitigate the pure rage on her face. "Two Hunters are destroyed, and the Cauldron's cannons aren't prepared to take on air targets. If the third Hunter goes down, we're sitting ducks."

"What do you want me to do about it?" chided Cragfist. "I'm fresh out of bola launchers."

Cragfist could see the gears in Sheen's mind working. A more sensible person might have ordered retreat, or at least a regrouping. Her men were way ahead of her, most of them fleeing from the explosions and the falling Hunters and heading down the hill to safety underneath the shadow of the Cauldron. But instead of following them, she grabbed Cragfist by the sleeve and dragged him forward, into the woods where Saga awaited.

"We need a hostage to even the odds," stated Sheen. "I'm getting Astrid, and you're helping me, or the next explosion that occurs will be you."

The soldiers surrounding Heather and Linebreaker had some intellect in them, as they approached as a group, ringing their prey from three sides. They were a quartet of archers outside the ring, fitting new darts to their crossbows. Their targets would be Heather and Linebreaker, as Qiao was already out of it. They'd probably drug them into submission and then kill them while they were helpless.

Linebreaker detested the use of shields normally – unwieldy things frequently adorned with vulgar imagery – but he would've put his fashion sense on hold just to have one. It would help against those darts.

One of the archers finished reloading and raised her crossbow, targeting Linebreaker. He readied his cutlass in the vain hope he might deflect it, but someone else beat him to it.

A translucent arrow shot over his shoulder and pegged the archer's crossbow right in the central mechanism. The archer looked at the ruined weapon dumbly, then threw it away when it started glowing ominously. The crossbow flew several feet and exploded into dozens of jagged fragments as it hit the dirt, the blast causing several soldiers to duck for their lives.

"Dere we are," said Qiao, propped up against a tree, looking and sounding more and more like one of Linebreaker's regular pub patrons the longer she stayed conscious. But she held her bow remarkably steady, a mean feat considering her condition.

"Got 'em right between the noses," she added.

Heather was dumbfounded by the expert marksmanship from Qiao. "I hope she meant to do that… and that she can keep it up."

"No worries, boys and not-boys," said Qiao, creating a new arrow and selecting a new target. "I'll take care of them faraway things. You handle all the ones with the pointed sticks." To prove the point, she fired another arrow and blew up a sapling between two other archers, flattening them with the blast.

Speaking of sticks, Linebreaker looked at Heather's crude weapon and cringed. "Oh, that will not do for such a pretty lady as you. I assume you have basic training in combat, considering you're Norse."

"Hey, I resent that," said Heather. "Not all Norse are warriors. A lot of us are farmers and ranchers and traders and…"

"One moment, please," interrupted Linebreaker as one of the foot soldiers rushed him. He parried the man's sword thrust, caught his sword arm, twisted the man's wrist painfully, and held out the helpless man's long sword to Heather.

"Does this work?" he asked.

"Ah… it's a little big for me," said Heather, dumbfounded yet again. Astrid's new friends were certainly not pushovers in a fight.

Linebreaker elbowed his captive into unconsciousness, then immediately did the same move to a second soldier who thought he could stab Linebreaker while he was occupied. Linebreaker inspected his newest captive's short sword, wrinkled his nose, and then knocked the soldier out with his elbow.

"What was wrong with that one?" asked Heather.

"Rusty," said Linebreaker. "One never tolerates rust."

Having not learned from the fates of the first two soldiers, a third one bore down on Linebreaker. This time, Heather reacted first and swung her branch as a bat, clubbing the soldier on the head and laying him low in one blow. She then stooped and plucked up the short sword from the man's loose grasp.

"I'm really not that picky," she said, brandishing the sword in a fighting posture.

Linebreaker laughed as he turned to face the next soldiers. Side-by-side, he and Heather easily held them off, taking down half of them before the remaining troops realized that reinforcements weren't coming and fled.

Qiao did get in a few more shots, keeping the archers occupied until the archers gave up along with the rest. But as Linebreaker went to attend to her, he found she had fallen asleep at some point in the fight, her bow lying limply across her lap and a goofy smile on her face.

The Cauldron cautiously moved through the air, skirting the edge of the battlefield and keeping its port-side siege cannons at the ready, prepared to fire at the forest where most of the fighting was taking place, provided the order was given. A few remaining archers kept vigil on deck, waiting for the Night Fury to try and sink their flying ship. The eyes of the crew were on the spectacle below them and the airspace above, but no eyes were on the starboard side.

Which was why no one had spotted the pair of hitchhikers clinging to the hull, just below the main deck. More accurately, Proto was clinging to the hull with its four powerful grippers while Nestor rode atop the Guardian. Toothless's diversion had done the job, allowing the two of them to fly up to the warship while the crew was otherwise occupied.

"I told Hiccup I could handle this," Nestor whispered as Proto furtively climbed the hull, making remarkably little noise as they ascended. "Now I just have to figure out how to do that."

Does Human Nestor desire potential options? Proto's words flowed into Nestor's head instead of out loud in order to keep things furtive.

"Ah, yeah," said Nestor. "What do we have?"

Destabilize hull of vessel with sufficient kinetic force.

"If we had sufficient kinetic force, that'd be great," said Nestor. "It's just you and me, Proto. What can we do?"

Gain control of vessel's guidance system.

Nestor liked the sound of that option. "If that's what you call the helm, I say we go with that idea. Did you see where said guidance system is?"

Based on structural pattern of vessel, guidance system is positioned at rear of vessel in elevated position.

Nestor looked the ship up and down, finding what looked like a raised section of the ship, fortified with a few stone barricades. That was probably the place… and of course it was on the other side of the ship from their position.

"Okay, here's the plan," said Nestor. "We'll stop creeping upward and start moving along the side until we reach…"

ALERT! Detection imminent!

Nestor screeched in surprise as Proto's warning went off in his head. He tried covering his ears on reflex, but it naturally did no good.

That's when he noticed the third Hunter platform floating not far away. Most of the platform's crew was watching for attacking dragons, but one of them had seen the metal boil on the Cauldron's hull, and was yelling out a warning. The jig was officially up.

"Get us on deck now!" shouted Nestor. Proto complied and raced them up the hull like a four-legged spider on a sugar rush.

The Hunter pilot decided to take the initiative and opened fire with a scatter-cannon, the rock projectile colliding with the warship's hull and exploding into pebble-sized shrapnel. The hull absorbed most of it, while Proto took a few hits that did no damage to his myssteel hide. Nestor's barrier field flared as a piece bounced off him, keeping him uninjured but ruining what was left of their subterfuge by announcing his presence to the crew on deck.

"Remember our discussion, Proto," said Nestor once his boots touched the stone deck. He raced for the rear of the ship, moving past open cargo holds and surprised crewmen who hadn't quite pieced everything together. Proto clanked after him.

This unit cannot harm human organisms per command structure, Proto unnecessarily reminded Nestor.

"What did I say about that?"

Proto paused as he accessed his memory. This unit can conduct non-injurious actions in the defense of itself and human organisms classified as allies.

One of the soldiers on deck decided to get in Nestor's way. Nestor removed him with a solid punch. "Right, so… do that."

The first test of this new line of thought came when a group of archers that had been searching for dragons now had their sights on Proto and Nestor. They opened fire and were pretty on target, but their arrows never got there. Two of Proto's tentacles lashed out and caught all six arrows in flight, gripping them hard enough to crack their shafts and dropping the debris to the deck.

Proto then skittered toward the archers, a move that sent them into understandable panic. Proto ignored their cries and plucked all their bows and weapons off their bodies with unreal speed and accuracy, crushing the weapons into uselessness. Once they were all disarmed, he turned his back on them and returned to Nestor.

Nestor watched the short battle and marveled speechlessly, though he did have to toss one soldier aside who hadn't gotten the message about how barrier fields worked and had tried backstabbing Nestor with an ordinary dagger.

Are this unit's actions acceptable? asked Proto as he reached Nestor's position.

"Very much so," said Nestor.

A bell began to ring and a general call-to-arms resounded across the ship as Nestor and Proto neared the elevated deck that housed the "guidance system." A group of five soldiers attempted to get in their way to prevent their access to the fortified deck. None of them had any myssteel weapons, and so none of them had a chance.

With subtlety no longer required, Nestor had Proto tear down the closest barricade for a quicker entrance. Beyond the barricade was a pair of crewmen, one manning a device that resembled a pair of shackle-like sheathes that you put your arms through, attached to the deck through metal poles. The wide-eyed helmsmen had his arms deep inside them and he struggled to get free of the device as Proto and Nestor approached.

The other crewman, a bearded fellow with a fancy feathered hat, wore a few insignias on his uniform that suggested he was high-ranking, most likely a captain. He had a silver-hued sword drawn, but he held it like he was afraid of it. The first real myssteel weapon Nestor had seen in a while, and it was in inexperienced hands.

"I order you to surrender," said the captain shakily. "The crew… is coming, and you are outnumbered."

"If most of your crew wasn't already off the ship, then I'd be slightly worried," said Nestor. He gestured with his head to the broken barricade. "Unless you want that to happen to you, I suggest you tell me how to work this thing."

"I will do no such thing," the captain stated, his shaking knees suggesting he was mostly hot air.

"This is a shame," said Nestor, stretching his arms as if preparing for some heavy action. "I haven't had to turn anybody inside-out in a long time."

The captain seemed disturbed by the threat, and his knees shook harder. The helmsman apparently had no fortitude whatsoever and abruptly fainted, falling forward and pushing the sheathes downward. The captain looked around in increasingly dismay as his ship's bow began to dip, the vessel picking up speed as it slowly descended toward the earth.

"You want to teach me what I want to know now?" demanded Nestor. "Or shall we all crash?"

Human Nestor…

"Shh, Proto," interrupted Nestor. "Remember our discussion about letting me talk?" Heading Proto off before he could speak was the only way to keep the machine from ruining the act. Proto didn't understand the nature of lying, and probably never will.

But Human Nestor, we have other concerns.

"Oh," said Nestor. "Well, that's differAHHHH!"

Something large and rocky grabbed Nestor's legs and yanked him backward, past the broken barricade. Nestor twisted around to greet his newest attacker, the headless stone form of a Berserker, its massive stone hand dangling him upside down in its grip.

"I wondered when I'd fight one of you guys," commented Nestor.

The sum total of the Alchemist's troops on the ground (the ones that could stand, at any rate) had gathered at the base of the hill, having regrouped from an inglorious retreat. Most of them had known that the Champions would be a tough group to take down, but the sudden appearance of the Dragon Rider and his allies had raised the difficulty curve to a whole new level.

And Sheen had gone incommunicado. What was an army of malcontents to do?

Someone did rally the troops after a few minutes of bickering and general confusion. He pointed out that they had over a hundred soldiers, a dozen of whom were archers, and they could still win the battle if they could just get to the trees and into cover. The dragons couldn't burn the forest without hurting their friends. They just had to make it back up the hill.

Best of all, there didn't appear to be any sign of the dragons. If they left now, they could make the copse before the dragons showed up again.

With numbers came strength and bravado, and the army did agree to try again. It certainly beat piling back into the Cauldron and reporting to the Alchemist how they let a handful of warriors and dragons best one of her supposedly invincible warships.

They huffed and puffed up the hillside, sending up a cloud of dust as they went. Individuals occasionally slipped and fell back down the slope, but the army held together. In less than thirty seconds, they'd crest the hill once more and descend on the Champions like a horde of barbarians, eager to satiate their humiliations with a double dose of cruelty to their would-be victims.

Then came the dragons… and the logs.

Hiccup's timing proved impeccable as usual, Toothless flying over the edge of the cliff while sporting a huge log between his paws. The dragon strained to gain altitude with such a heavy load, beating his wings hard and panting as he flew to the drop point. Barf-Belch was right behind him, the dragon managing a similar load.

"Everyone, drop!" yelled Hiccup. Toothless immediately let go of the log, which plummeted to the ground and starting rolling down the incline. Ruff and Tuff had their dragon do the same, placing their log off to the right in order to cover the expanse of the slope, so that none of the approaching soldiers could squeak by.

The logs moved slowly at first, then gradually picked up speed as they traveled down the hill, bumping over rocks and mounds and, eventually, unlucky soldiers who couldn't quite get out of the way in time.

The army's morale had been razor-thin before. This time, it broke so completely that Humpty Dumpty might've been impressed. The logs weren't quite heavy enough to flatten the fleeing soldiers, but the pain and panic they did cause was enough to convince the soldiers to just keep on running.

Toothless and Barf-Belch poured on the terror, opening fire at the more stubborn or hesitant troops and sending them scurrying down the hill, or even dive-bombing them and showing off their claws and teeth. To the frantic eyes of the gutless soldiers, the two dragons came off looking like two thousand.

Most of the men fled into the wilderness, abandoning the Alchemist's cause and taking their chances with the forest. Others would seek shelter around the battlefield after the Champions had left, waiting for the Alchemist to send a rescue party that would never come. But for a few stubborn souls allied to the Alchemist, the battle was still not over.

Hiccup tried not to feel too much satisfaction over routing the Alchemist's ground forces, but some slipped in anyway. He knew the going would be rough for a lot of these men, stuck alone in the wilds, but they pretty much deserved it. They had planned on killing Astrid and his friends, and that was the kind of thing that rubbed him in all the wrong ways.

Toothless flew a slow circle over the battlefield as the stragglers picked themselves up and stumbled away. The battle was starting to look pretty much over, but Hiccup needed to be sure. There were probably a few mooks hiding out in the trees, but he wasn't worried about them so much. Astrid, Saga, Linebreaker, Qiao – they could handle a few stragglers. He just didn't want any big surprises sneaking up on them.

The Twins flew their dragon close to him, whooping and laughing with glee over their victory. "This has to be one for the Dragon Manual," said Ruffnut. "I even have a title: How To Train Your Dragon To Flatten An Army."

"Guys, this isn't over," said Hiccup. "We're missing a Hunter and the flying warship."

"That flying warship?" Tuffnut pointed behind Hiccup, making Hiccup dread what he was about to see. With his luck, it'd be flying straight at him or preparing to open fire with its death-cannons or whatever they were called.

Sure enough, the big flying warship was there, but it wasn't doing anything hostile. It was actually speeding away and dropping altitude rapidly, like it was trying to make a landing. Except that it wasn't aimed at the distant sea, and there was no way it was going to make it to water before it collided with the earth. At the speed it was going, a crash would be extremely bad, which would normally be extremely good for Hiccup's side. But Nestor and Proto had not shown up yet, and there was a major commotion visible aboard the ship. Three guesses where Nestor and Proto probably were right now.

"Nestor's still on that ship," said Hiccup. He looked down at the copse, his heart beckoning him to go in there and find Astrid. He needed to go in there. It felt like hot pokers were pressing on his soul, torturing him more with every passing second. After all he'd been through, he was now so close to her that he thought he could hear her heart beating… though that was probably just Toothless's heartbeat, the dragon revved up from his bout of hard flying.

But he wasn't about to abandon Nestor, not after everything they'd been through.

"We have to help him," said Hiccup. "Ruff, Tuff, you're with me."

The Twins exchanged looks, as if wondering why Hiccup wasn't racing to find Astrid, but then they nodded in agreement. The battle wasn't over until they were all safe and sound.

They took off after the warship, leaving the copse and those underneath it for now. In their haste and distraction, they missed the half-hidden Hunter platform stuck in the trees… and missed the one final echoing explosion.

Despite her overwhelming elation, Astrid knew better than to run out waving and hollering at Hiccup and Toothless. She and Saga were still surrounded by armed mooks who were out to kill them without mercy. The worst time to lower your guard was when you thought you were safe and sound.

At least the good news was piling up for a change. Astrid had feared for Heather and the others after seeing them cut off from escape, and had almost run to help them until Qiao demonstrated her expert archery skill by blowing up a crossbow, and Linebreaker seemed to be easily disarming foes at a rapid pace. They had the matter well in hand, which took the pressure off her situation.

She and Saga held the line for many long minutes, preventing the disorganized soldiers from advancing further into the copse. Eventually the mooks got the idea and fled the other direction, and Saga and Astrid were finally able to catch their breath.

"You think it's over?" said Astrid, leaning on her axe and trying to not look as winded as she felt.

"Doubtful," said Saga, who had to be more winded than she looked because she lacked the slightest trace of windedness. "They may attempt a second offensive once they…"

That's when the logs came crashing down the hillside outside the copse, and two familiar-looking dragons swept by to roar and drop fireballs on the short-lived second offensive. Astrid recognized the second dragon as a Zippleback, and her thoughts went to Ruff and Tuff. But that couldn't be right, could it? They were all the way back at Berk. Hiccup must have cajoled another dragon to fight for him.

"And now?" said Astrid, once the fighting had died down again.

"Less doubtful." Saga allowed herself a little smile. She was as grateful for the reappearance of their friends as Astrid was, but she had too much Gunnarr in her to show it.

There was a horrendous series of cracks and breakage behind them, coming from a halfway point between them and Heather's group. A sudden downpour of branches and needles fell to the ground, and then there were a number of voices swearing in various languages from the upper parts of the trees. Then there was another chorus of breakage, another shorter rain of flora wreckage, and then a renewed barrage of angry ranting.

"I believe the third Hunter has been revealed," said Saga. "You should go assist the others in dealing with it. I will stay and watch our backs. Yell to me if you require my assistance."

Astrid did as asked, unworried that Saga would be left alone to fend off any ambitious mooks. She pitied anyone who tried to get past the Seer.

Saga's assessment of the source of the commotion was confirmed a minute later, Astrid rounding a tree and looking up at the dangling, useless crab legs of the third platform. The vehicle was wedged against the strong limbs of three thick evergreens, titling slightly but in no danger of falling out of its all-natural bindings. The crew was doing their best to chop through the branches, but they were having trouble moving through the bushy mounds of prickly needles and getting the leverage they needed to saw effectively.

Astrid stifled a laugh so to not alert the crew to her presence. The pilot must have tried to break through the tree cover, probably to hide from Hiccup and Toothless. Boy, did they pick the wrong spot.

Nearby, Linebreaker and Heather were crouched down behind a moss-covered log, having pulled a half-conscious Qiao with them. Heather saw Astrid and pointed at the platform above them. Heather started moving toward Astrid, but Astrid waved her to stop, then gestured to herself with one hand and the platform with another.

Forgoing further explanation, Astrid found that one of the trees currently holding the platform captive was full of hefty branches. A good climbing tree. She slung up her axe, took hold of the nearest branches, and began her ascension, keeping to the hidden side of the tree.

This was probably pointlessly dangerous, but it beat waiting for the platform to break free.

Saga waited for Astrid to leave her proximity, then sheathed her daggers and faced one of the thicker bushes flanking her. She stared at it. She didn't say a word, didn't make a preemptive attack or throw a rock or any of the usual tactics that people did when they knew someone was hiding behind something. No, she just stood there and stared, as patiently as a mother waiting for her child to eat their brussel sprouts.

She was in no hurry for this encounter, and she felt it was best if he made the first move. Then she would know his true intentions.

"How long did you know I was here?" spoke the bush.

"The moment you hid behind it," said Saga.

Once flash of silver later, the bush parted to make way for Cragfist. He walked free of the bramble but stepped no further, his two-handed sword in hand but not raised to attack. He still wore the same drab Alchemist uniform, but he seemed different than before. His appearance had taken a downgrade from last time, his hair now noticeably unruly and dirty, but that was just appearance. It was his eyes - something in them was different. The sealed-in rage he could barely contain in the past was gone, spent or deprived of adequate fuel. There was only emptiness in those eyes now, no passion or remorse or anything that might replace his anger.

Saga had known that the next meeting she had with her brother would go as unpleasantly as the last ones. But she had not expected this type of unpleasantness. To see her brother as all but a shell of what he once was – she didn't think her heart could feel anything for him, and yet it did.

"You sent away your friend," said Cragfist. "Best to leave family business in the family, I imagine."

"Was the Hunter crashing into the trees your idea?" said Saga. "Or your companion's?"

Cragfist smiled and leaned back towards the bushes. "I told you she'd sniff you out," he cried out behind him.

"YOU IDIOT!" came back an irate female voice, the speaker still choosing to remain hidden. "STOP TALKING AND GET ON WITH IT!"

"It was hers," explained Cragfist, switching back to Saga. "She actually wanted Astrid to stay behind, not you."

Saga sighed and pulled out her daggers, though she didn't raise them. "So does history repeat itself today?"

Much to Saga's surprise, Cragfist shook his head. "Do you know what Sheen plans for me? She wants me to charge you like a lummox and try to take your head. And while I'm doing that, she'll activate my medallion as soon as I'm close enough. The ensuing explosion would probably claim us both."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" cried out Sheen from her hiding spot.

"She didn't tell me that last part," said Cragfist. "I figured it out on my own. I'm not entirely stupid."

Saga was caught in a rare moment of indecision. Her brother had just given away everything, and quite freely. He still could easily traverse the distance between them and make himself a living bomb unless she cut him down right there. Yet… she couldn't. Her daggers hung at her side, her arms refusing to rise to her defense, for she could sense no malice from Cragfist… at least, not for her.

"Do you remember Loki's Peak, Saga?" said Cragfist, his voice melancholy all of a sudden.

Saga nodded. "We would sled down it as children, using our father's shields."

"It was the one good moment we had together, before Father separated us, before you became the Seer and I became… me. Do you think things would've been different if we had a few more winters sliding down Loki's Peak together?"

This was certainly not going the way Saga expected, and for once she was glad. "Things can be different now, brother. There is still time."

Then he shook his head, and all thought of reconciliation fled her mind. There was a growing determination in his eyes now. His path was set, and he knew it.

"I have done too much, sister. And even after witnessing the folly of my own ways, I find I cannot forgive you. All I can do now… is be Gunnarr one final time."

"Oh, you stupid, stupid man!" said Sheen, emerging from between the bushes at last. She held her myssteel chain in one hand, a strange cylindrical device in the other. Her face was livid, her teeth clinched. "This is how you waste your second chance? Talking it up with your sister? You have five seconds to start hacking up your precious sister, or you die right here!"

She stood behind Cragfist, using the Viking as cover against Saga's lethal daggers. But she wasn't all that far from Cragfist. In her anger-fueled haste, she had gotten too close.

With his left hand, he reached into his waist belt and under his shirt. He extracted an ivory-colored cylinder. Saga recognized it at once – it was what Qiao called a memory stick.

"This may help you, or it may not," said Cragfist, clearly referring to the memory stick. "You have your job cut out for you, sister. Cervantes now works with the Alchemist, and her armada is powerful. But if anyone can send the Alchemist back under the rock she crawled out of, it'll be you and your Champions."

The next few seconds would stay permanently etched in Saga's memory for all her life.

With his left hand, Cragfist tossed his coveted myssteel sword to the ground, as if it was no more important than a fleck of dandruff. With his right, he lobbed the memory stick to Saga, who instinctively caught it between the hilts of her daggers. But even before the memory stick had reached Saga, he was turning around and charging Sheen, like a bull that had seen one too many flapping capes. He let out a hideous roar, whether in rage or triumphant or just because.

Sheen's adept reflexives proved to be her downfall. Had she not been carrying the trigger, she might have deflected or entangled Cragfist with her mystical chain. But her first instinct was to do what she so dearly wanted to do – push the button. And she did, right before she realized the depth of her error.

Cragfist's medallion surged with a terrible green energy, summoning a lime-green orb of fiery power in the blink of an eye. It enveloped both Cragfist and Sheen, the two of them disappearing into the orb, along with the ground below them and most of the bush they had hidden behind.

The orb stood in place for maybe two seconds, long enough to do the job, and then it disappeared with a pop! The air stank of some otherworldly odor, a combination of bad eggs and burning tar, as short whiffs of smoke curdled up from the hole that remained where the orb had materialized. No fires, only black residue on the ground and on a severely disfigured bush.

Of Sheen and Cragfist, only a part of Sheen's chain had escaped the orb's power, lying in pieces on the edge of the hole.

Nestor struggled in the grip of the Berserker, unable to break free while it had him by the legs. He could see the pilot inside, floating in the center of a storm of stone, looking pretty proud of himself for having hooked someone on the Alchemist's enemies list.

Nestor hadn't seen any Berserkers on his way across the ship, so he assumed that one of the crewmembers boiling up from below deck had brought a harness with him. And a second Berserker was lumbering his way, along with a couple dozen crewmen. It was still a paltry number of soldiers to deal with, compared to the mob that had left the ship, but it did pose a new complication. You couldn't steer a ship while fighting off two Berserkers, much less two-dozen lowly mooks.

First things first, though. The Berserker holding his feet was the priority.

Nestor shunted power to his legs and kicked out with all his strength, breaking the hold enough to slip free. He fell to the deck on his back, feeling every bit of the impact thanks to having the barrier part of his field weakened.

The ship leveled out as he rolled through the pain, a heavy rock fist slamming the spot where he had landed. Their descent had been arrested, making combat simpler and less dizzying. Then he was up on his feet and dodging the next blow, sliding between the legs of the stone construct and punching upwards, into the thing's stomach region. He managed to grab hold of the pilot's leg, and now it was the pilot's turn to struggle in someone's grip.

The second Berserker came on, set on saving the first from Nestor, when Proto skittered out to greet it. There was a gasp from the pilot, alarmed by the alien appearance of Proto, and the pause gave the machine just enough analysis time to project a path to victory that followed its command structure.

The Berserker took a swing at Proto, which the Guardian easily avoided by swaying out of the way. The next two swings were also failures. Proto didn't take a single aggressive action until the Berserker took a step back and tried to rush the machine, hoping to shove it off the ship or smother it under a whole lot of rocks.

Proto sidestepped the charge and sent in a single tentacle. It snaked through the mass of floating stones and found the pilot, grabbing his harness right on the central gem. The pilot slapped at the tentacle, which caused the Berserker to slap at its own chest in a comical display of incompetence. The slapping did nothing, as Proto retracted its gripper and tore the gem, and much of the harness, free of the pilot.

The energy sparking from the pilot's chest immediately stopped. The second Berserker kept its shape for the blink of an eye, and then the stone construct fell apart into hundreds of separate parts. The pilot inside fell with them, pelted by the stones that once protected him. He might have suffered serious injury had Proto not sent a second tentacle his way, plucking him from the collapsing rock pile before it buried him.

Human organism should cease its aggression, scolded Proto, putting down the hapless pilot, who proceeded to run away screaming. This puzzled Proto briefly before he had to attend to the other attacking human organisms, who pounded and stabbed him with primitive, ineffectual weapons.

Nestor had a worse time of it, as he kept holding onto the pilot's leg while a pair of rock-hard hands kept pounding at him, his field blaring with each hit. He wasn't about to let go to defend himself, as he might not get this close to the pilot again. But the strength of the energy field creating the Berserker was enormous, and he couldn't wrestle the pilot down low enough to get at the gem.

Then a blast of hot air and acrid smoke filled the area, distracting the Berserker pilot for the second Nestor needed. Nestor channeled energy to his limbs and shoved himself further into the middle of the Berserker. He dragged himself upward with his left arm, stretched out his right arm, and grabbed the control gem on the pilot's chest.

One good yank later, the Berserker field was dead and Nestor was crawling out of an inert pile of rocks, dragging the dazed pilot with him and plopping him on the deck. He then saw the smoking blast mark where something hot and fiery had hit the ship, and he automatically knew who had come to his aid.

Hiccup waved a greeting as Toothless put on some speed and rushed over the soldiers on deck, stirring the panic pot vigorously. But while Hiccup's help was most welcome, it was Proto who caused the bigger stir. Men and women in full battle gear were fleeing from the machine as it diligently went from soldier to soldier, plucking off their weapons and squeezing them into warped pieces of scrap.

Another burst of fire came from the left, scorching the side of the ship. Barf-Belch did a flyby, the Twins waving as they veered off to set up a second pass. Nestor waved back, marveling at how quickly fortune could turn around, both for and against you. The Fates were fickle, that was for sure.

It was evident that the crew of the warship had not been adequately prepared for aerial attackers, for none of the ship's weapons were firing at all, and the third Hunter platform had disappeared during the fight. This battle was all but over, and Nestor could probably get back on Proto and call it a day. The ship would retreat back to the Alchemist with tales of woe from its crew. Wouldn't that put a crimp in morale?

But it occurred to Nestor that the ship was still largely intact. He couldn't let such a weapon escape back to the Alchemist. The original plan stayed the same.

He raced back to the elevated deck, and was surprised to see that Captain Featherhat hadn't flown the coop. He had gotten his light-headed subordinate out of the grip of the steering device, propping him up against a barricade, and was trying to keep the ship level by himself.

The captain saw Nestor and stepped away from the helm, pulling his sword out again, apparently thinking it would go better this time. "Do… do what you will, for I will not help in any way."

"That's okay,' said Nestor. "I know which direction I want to go." Then he grabbed the control-sheaths and yanked them toward him, as far as they would go.

The ship lurched downward, throwing most of the people on deck off their feet (and a few of them completely overboard). The captain took up impromptu flying lessons as he fell past Nestor, screeching in an undignified wail as he fell down the length of the ship, his precious sword sailing from his grasp. Nestor noticed that the captain and his soldiers had glowing belts around them that reduced the speed of their falls to something survivable. A wise move, though it wouldn't help cushion them from a crash.

Ahead, the world was rushing to meet them, a plentiful array of trees and mountainous hills skirting by as the ship continued its death-dive. Toothless and Barf-Belch had been caught unawares by the ship's dramatic change in direction and were trying to keep up. The ship was picking up speed and would be hitting the ground in seconds. It was certain to destroy the ship, but it would also likely kill everyone onboard, including him.

Nestor braced his feet to the inclining deck and leveraged the control sheaths backward. The ship's bow rose on command, turning the death-dive into a less hazardous but still ultimately final dive, the strain causing a rumble across the deck, men struggling to find their footing. Proto sunk his grippers into the deck and actually assisted a few other soldiers in close proximity, though this did not improve their opinion of him.

Nestor felt the ship shudder as the hull clipped a small grove of trees, breaking some, tearing off the tops of others. It passed over another hill and grazed a sizable rock outcropping, scrapping the hull fiercely. By Nestor's estimate, his move had given the ship fourteen seconds more to live before it hit the ground near sea level.

"IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, JUMP FOR IT!" he shouted. He repeated himself a few more times as a courtesy, but most of the soldiers got the idea the first time. They jumped for their lives, not even bothering to help their fallen. Proto did that job, finding the few soldiers unable to escape under their own power and dropping them toward safe landing spots, give them a chance to live.

"NESTOR!" rang out Hiccup's voice from above. Nestor looked up and saw Toothless flying inverted, Hiccup upside down and calling to him frantically.

"GET OFF THE SHIP!" shouted Hiccup. He reached a hand for him, another fine but unneeded gesture as Proto was already on it. Nestor yelped in surprise as a pair of grippers took him by the waist and hoisted him off the ship. Proto floated away and decelerated to a safe speed, gently placing Nestor on his back.

Toothless and Barf-Belch joined Proto as the group watched the ship clip another hill, veering from the impact and disappearing over said hill. That was the last time they saw the ship in flight. Much to Ruff and Tuff's disappointment, they didn't see the crash. Considering how ear-pounding the crash sounded, the horrendous orchestra composed of rent trees, cracking boulders, dug-up ground, and objects bending where they were never meant to bend, it had to have been a truly righteous crash.

The group exchanged happy and relieved expressions as they veered back toward the battlefield. The ship wreckage would need to be inspected, but that could wait for later. Right now, it was enough to know that they had saved the day.

Hiccup turned to Nestor and said, "So… you're okay and everything?"

"Right as rain," said Nestor.

"No heart problems or anything?" said Hiccup.

"I restrained myself, if that's what you're worried about." Nestor smiled. "But I thank you for coming for me."

Hiccup nodded. "Well, you're practically family at this point, and I can't have you…"

"Salo krebit, Hiccup!" blurted out Nestor. "Go to her!"

And that was all the permission he needed. Toothless didn't even wait for Hiccup to give the order before he zoomed off and left the others eating his wind.

"Sometimes, he's too nice for his own good," remarked Ruffnut.

The six men before Astrid were rather unpleased to see her occupying their platform, holding their melee weapons at the ready but not attacking. The bramble was too thick for the two archers in their midst to bring their weapons to bear, and the crew had been diligently hacking and sawing away to free their platform only to have Astrid come take possession of the one clear spot on their vessel.

"The way I see it, you got two choices," Astrid said, chatting like this was a friendly bit of bartering. "You can fight me and lose and then surrender all your gear, or you can skip the fighting and just surrender. All your pals are gone and no one's coming to save your rears. So giving up is the only sensible thing to do, don't you think?"

The men weren't in any rush to relinquish their weapons. They may have thought that Astrid would slay them on the spot if they did. Or perhaps they were really devoted to the Alchemist. Astrid's tactic of jumping from the tree right into their midst and surprising them all in the process had not earned her their trust. If need be, she could fight them all, but she was quite tired of the fighting, and her priorities were elsewhere.

"We've let the rest of your pals walk away," she said, attempting to sound reassuring. "Just throw down your weapons and I'll let you all go."

Something about her approach wasn't endearing her to them. The myssteel axe she kept at the ready had a lot of to with it. But right about the time Astrid started coming to terms with facing yet another brawl, a piercing crash resonated through the forest, suggesting a big object had just had a painful reunion with the ground. The men glanced at one another fearfully, afraid of the implications.

Astrid smiled confidently, not to allay the men's fears but to drive home who was in control of the situation. "Also, I'm pretty sure that was your warship going boom just now. Now will you take me up on my offer?"

They did. Clubs and swords were tossed over the platform's guardrail and the pilot's control harness was handed over to Astrid. She tossed it over as well.

She was about to order the men to climb or float down to the ground when she heard a voice echoing through the woods. It was a memorable voice, a very welcome voice. And it was the one voice she'd been waiting to hear from for far too long.

"You guys stay here," she ordered, running for the nearest tree and proceeding to descend it. "I'm in a good mood right now, so I suggest you don't do anything to put me in a bad one before I come back."

Toothless wouldn't even stop to let Hiccup dismount as they entered the copse. He simply hit the ground and kept on running, galloping on all fours toward the far side of the trees. Toothless raced past the fallen wreckage of a burning Hunter, past the detritus of battle in a dozen places. The dragon was almost as eager to find Astrid as Hiccup, mostly to make his rider happy again after all those long days of sadness.

Hiccup called out to Astrid as he searched the woods, but no answering cry came to his ears. A part of him feared that Astrid wasn't here any longer or that she had fallen during the fight, and that part of him grew stronger and stronger as Toothless took him further into the woods, making his voice sound more and more frantic. The horizon began to peek through the trees, signaling that the cliffs awaited him and that he was about to run out of woods.

After about the tenth frantic call, a voice responded. It was not Astrid, though he was still relieved to hear it. Toothless zeroed in on it and sprinted the two of them to the source.

It turned out to be Saga, standing solemnly, looking up at Hiccup with tired eyes as Toothless stopped before her. She gave him a slight smile and said, "It is good to see you again, Dragon Rider."

"Same here, Saga," he said. He sensed something was up with her, thought she appeared uninjured. There was a strangely tidy blast hole not far from her, too circular and neat to be a random fireball from Toothless. There had to be a story behind it.

A happy call from further ahead got Hiccup's attention. Three people were walking towards him, two of them propping up the third between their shoulders. Hiccup quickly recognized all three of them.

"Linebreaker… Qiao…" He started in shock when he recognized the third person, someone who shouldn't have been anywhere near the craziness. "Heather?"

"Hey," she said mildly, waving slightly while struggling to keep Qiao standing.

"What are you…? How are you…?" he stammered.

"We all have lots of stories to tell around the campfire tonight," said Linebreaker with a big smile.

""Ey, Burp buddy," said Qiao, clearly not her usual self. "Glad you're back. And I see you brought the flyin' kitty cat."

Toothless started at the odd reference, as did Hiccup. "Is she alright?"

"Nothing time won't cure," said Linebreaker, sitting Qiao down on a log.

Hiccup took another look around the area, his pulse picking up as he saw no sign of Astrid. Surely the group wouldn't be this happy if she was gone, but he couldn't stop from feeling like someone was playing a dirty trick on him.

"I'm glad you're all okay," said Hiccup. "But, seriously, where is (THUMP!)…"

Astrid fell right in front of him, right onto Toothless, right onto his saddle. Toothless was momentarily startled by the move, but he quickly settled down when he saw who it was, even managing a dragon version of a smile. Hiccup almost jumped out of his saddle from the shock, but his harness kept him in place.

Astrid had a wide, beaming smile on her face, and she might have had a snappy comment for the moment as well, but being right there, touching Hiccup after thinking him lost, drove any prepared remarks away.

Hiccup looked at her with shocked eyes initially, still having a little trouble believing she was really here and really alive… and then he hugged her as tightly as his skinny arms could manage. Astrid had her arms wrapped around him as well, and for a long while there was nothing but silence from everyone, save for Linebreaker's hearty laughter.

Hiccup felt like his eyes were flooding, so many tears were tumbling down his face. He heard Astrid sob once, and he knew the same was happening to her. They had made it through an impossible situation… and they were still together. If that wasn't something worth crying over, what was?

Then Astrid did a very Astrid thing and punched him once in the gut. His riding armor took the blow, so Hiccup didn't mind.

"Don't you ever do that to me again," she said.

He finally pushed her back and looked at her, easily confirming that her cheeks were as wet as his. "Me? Me? Astrid, do you have any idea what I've been hmmhmhmhmm…"

Astrid interrupted Hiccup by fiercely pushing her lips against his. Hiccup settled in for a long kiss, and suddenly all the sadness that had plagued him over the last two weeks evaporated like snow on a smelter.

When they finally broke off for a breather, their foreheads touching, Hiccup smiled and said, "Ah… I'll tell you about it later." Then they went in for another kiss.

This romantic moment might have lasted longer if not for Toothless. He was perfectly happy to let the couple reunite for a time, but as their second kiss started to match the length of the first, he began feeling left out of the moment. He narrowed his eyes and gently bucked the kissing couple until they were forced to disengage.

"Okay, okay, Toothless, we're getting off," said Hiccup. They did so, and Toothless immediately and enthusiastically gave Astrid a tongue bath, Astrid giggling and rubbing the happy dragon's face.

The others, patiently letting the couple have their way-overdue reunion, took that as their cue to close in and greet Hiccup and Toothless properly. There was laughter and hugs and handshaking and Qiao spouting a few more slurred statements about how happy she was.

But the reunion had hardly started before the latecomers finally arrived. First came Ruff and Tuff aboard Barf-Belch, landing rather awkwardly when their dragon tried going separate directions around a tree and wound up smacking it dead center, spilling the Twins to the ground. But then they were up and running to the others, Astrid staring at them with her jaw slack, blown away by their appearance.

"Ruff? Tuff?" she said as they collided with her, burying her in a joint hug. There were more tears to spill that time, and not all of them came from Astrid or Ruffnut, though Tuffnut would state for the record that he was just sweating from the eyes.

Saga had kept to her friendly-yet-remote approach through the reunion, but it was she who first asked of Nestor. Had she waited a few more seconds, the question would've been unnecessary, for the Guardian floating and weaving its way through the trees was hard to miss.

The ones not familiar with Proto were understandably unnerved by the machine's appearance, though watching Nestor step off its back did much to calm their nerves. Saga walked up to Nestor, a genuine smile on her face. Nestor smiled far more warmly, extremely relieved to see her.

"Did I miss all the gooey stuff between Hiccup and Astrid?" said Nestor, sounding disappointed.

"Yes," confirmed Saga. "But rest assured, there will be plenty of it to come." She took his hand in hers, gave it a squeeze. "I am glad you are here, Outlander."

"Titles again, Saga?" teased Nestor. "I'm gone for a couple of weeks and we're back to that already?"

Proto regarded all the new people in his life with his three-eyed sensor head, then settled on Saga, apparently finding something about her very interesting. This unit greets all human organisms present, said Proto.

"And it talks," said Qiao. "Of course it talks. Dragons talk, machines talk… heck, I bet this tree right here will have something to say pretty shortly."

"What's with her?" said Nestor.

"Long story," said Saga. "What is this Guardian?"

"Much longer story," said Nestor. Then he noticed the twinge of sadness around Saga's eyes. "Are you okay?"

Saga sighed and gestured toward the burnt hole off to the side, the one with a section of myssteel chain lying next to it. "My brother," she explained quietly.

There were a few gasps from the group as the news hit. She had not told a soul what had transpired. The news even sobered Qiao up. Nestor placed his free hand on her shoulder in a tender act of consolation. "Saga…"

She shook her head, denying whatever words of comfort he had planned. "He was my brother, but he was no longer family." The smile on her face was back, and wider than before. "My real family has returned."

Perhaps something more might have transpired between Nestor and Saga, but as Hiccup and Astrid had Toothless to reign in the romance, Nestor and Saga had a slightly jealous Ruffnut. She walked up to Nestor and said, "You were right behind us when we were flying in. Did you stop for an outhouse break?"

"Actually, I ran into someone," said Nestor. "And he should be here right about…"

Something crashed through the tree cover above, sending the companions into fight mode and grabbing for their weapons. But they immediately calmed, even began calling out greetings and cheers, when the thing gliding toward them wasn't another Hunter moving in for the kill, but an old and wizened green dragon.

"ARC!" cried out Qiao, shrugging off the last of her drug-fueled grogginess and racing for the dragon as he landed. Arc barely had time to react before she had her arms around his neck.

"You scared me, you big lummox," she said, a tear sliding down her cheek. "What, you couldn't figure out how to follow us?"

"I had a painful run-in with your foster mother," he replied, gently removing himself from Qiao's grip. "I was aided by my fellow Hyperions, who are currently sleeping off their efforts. They will join us before the day is over." As he folded his wings up, his left one acted stiffer than usual, and he grimaced with the effort.

"As for following you, it was frightfully easy," commented Arc. "The countryside is littered with fallen war machines."

"Why aren't you resting with the others?" asked Hiccup, who had managed to get back to Astrid's side at some point. The two of them stood with their arms around each other, reluctant to ever let go again.

"Well… I couldn't very well let you all go into battle without me," explained Arc. "But it appears I arrived too late to render assistance." He took a good look at the people around him, the assorted band of warrior misfits that had defeated the Alchemist's forces all by themselves. "It seems like our team grows bigger with each passing day."

"It's okay, Old Man," said Nestor, walking up to his dragon mentor and putting a hand to his neck. "We have it covered. You need more healing."

"I'll heal when I have time," said Arc. "Keep in mind, all of you, that while you struck a blow against the Alchemist this day, her army is on the move, and time is a luxury we do not have."

"I guess the happy moment's over," said Heather. "But then a Champion's job is never done."

"Champion?" said Linebreaker.

"It was what the Alchemist's mooks called you guys," explained Heather. "I think it's a fitting title."

"It is what they will call all of us," said Arc, smiling with pride at all his companions, and giving his biggest smile to Nestor. "And it is a title much deserved."

"I can still go by Captain, right?" remarked Linebreaker.