A/N-I would like to address a few recent reviews that have been posted by guest reviewer Koolkat, since there have been a lot and you have finally reached the most recent chapters so I can respond in real time:

I would highly suggest registering for an actual account; since you are a guest reviewer authors cannot send you a direct reply in any manner and if you're reviewing on a tale that's already complete, we can't answer in any means without needlessly updating an entire tale for an author's note. Having an account and leaving official reviews means we can send you replies directly. That said: while I've mentioned DreamWorks being contacted for a series idea here, in reality if such a case were to exist that company could no longer hold legal rights over those characters as they actually exist, and with or without their permission the characters could produce a show on their own, with any contractor (DremWorks isn't a television network either, so they would be contacting someone else entirely for broadcast anyway). It's more of a formality for alerting the company that the game's about to change...

For your question about the portals: I'm afraid I won't be telling exactly how Malin arrived in Hiccup's world, but suffice to say that no, there is only one connection to our world, and only one person that controls it. And, I'm not sure if you can consider the addition of Pitch has a crossover, since I have also involved singular characters from several tales rather than really focusing on just one mixed with this universe (Reaches of Reality a partial exception, but there's more to that as well), but if it works, it works...

Anyway, onward!

Chapter 20

Counter Moves

Battle is a dance

One action, one reaction

One move, one response

One word, one scream

A ballet of bruises and tears

-0-

Dr. Makesey had not received the notice of evacuation, having been busy in the lab where no speakers were present and the walls were thick, both for protection of the contents inside and those who were outside.

Thus, as he came up the stairway into the main hall of the science building, the sheer stillness and lack of sound immediately struck him as concerning. It certainly wasn't so late in the day that people would already have left for home; heck, the sun was just nearing the middle of the sky outside, and there weren't any major events scheduled that would have encouraged students to skip class either.

Before Makesey could ponder further where everyone had gone however, the sound of something rough and sharp sliding and clicking across the tile floors drew his attention down the hallway.

A fiery haired young woman dressed in the oddest outfit the professor had ever seen at the school came sliding around the corner, wincing as she bent the wrong way and pulled the wound in her side. She was completely covered in a slick black material, jointed and plated in several locations with something more rigid underneath, and over her head was a unique form-fitting helmet that held her hair down along her back. Right behind her, a somewhat more familiar sight to Dr. Makesey came skidding around the corner across the tiles: a large, black-scaled dragon with deep teal-green eyes.

"Hawken!" Dr. Makesey called out, immediately making the assumption that, as this was a dragon, it must be the young man who could turn into such things (after all, up until that day the general public had been kept from knowing about the rest of Hawken's secrets). "I apologize if I'm interrupting something," he continued when the woman and dragon turned to face him with wide eyes, "but I wanted to let you know what we found out about the venom. It's incredible, a triple-recognition system and rapid cascade enzyme complexes"-

"I'm very sorry to interrupt you," the dragon spoke, a deeper voice that clearly did not belong to the dragon man, "but I am not Hawken. And you are in very serious danger being in here."

Dr. Makesey stopped, eyes widening in surprise. "You…you're a dragon, but you're not…you're not Hawken?"

"Yeah, secret's out, there are actual full dragons that exist," the woman said, moving forward with a wince and taking the professor's shoulder. "But that is something to discuss later. The campus is being evacuated, and it's not safe for you to be in here."

"What? Why, what happened?"

"The University center has been caved in all along the northern face, and Pitch is probably heading here. He has the intent to flatten the entire university, with as many people as he can still in the"-

SCREEEEEE!

Ember let go of the professor and spun, driving her blade through the nightmare creature as Orha roared and brought his tail blades down on a second; it was at this point that Makesey finally noticed both of them were heavily armed as well as armored, not something normally permitted on campus either.

"Move!" Ember yelled, urging Dr. Makesey toward the doors and wincing as her sudden exertion re-opened the gash, only for a wall of black to sweep across the exit. Then, Pitch stepped out of the blackened shadows that formed, holding in one hand a new, shorter blade of black than he had been using, and in the other hand he balanced a chemical container.

Dr. Makesey's eyes widened again as he recognized the label, a caustic poison restricted to use only in graduate lab experiments. He turned to run toward the other doors, only to find Orha and Ember being pushed back from them as well by another swirling wall of sand, this one morphing into a small army of the Bioraptors.

"Going somewhere already?" Pitch queried, feigning innocence. "Come now, the festivities have only just started, you don't want to miss out on the fun! Demolish a building, poison a professor and the fire girl, and then we'll see about rounding up the students still on campus and letting the nightmares have their way with them!" He reared back the arm that held the chemical bottle and taunted, "Batter up!"

Then, Pitch's feet were suddenly pulled out from under him, the jar falling from his hand only to be wrapped in shadow and vanish. Pitch hit the floor hard and rolled, brandishing his blade as black fire rolled through the air, clearing a path for Ember to take the professor outside even as the flames surrounded Pitch. A beam of energy followed the three heading outside, slamming into Ember and seeping into her wound, binding it up to nonexistence, and she gave a breath of relief as she hurried the professor away from the building.

When the red eyes appeared out of the flames, flickering to reveal even darker shades of scarlet than should be possible and emanating with fury, for the first time Pitch was the one to feel a tinge of fear.

"So, are you just afraid to look at me or have we actually managed to annoy you that badly already?"

Jake groaned and swung his head around, fiery eyes glaring at Astrid as she smirked, already knowing the answer. The warrioress was slowly becoming more than a match for the diamondback's level of patience, not that Jake would ever admit such a fact out loud for her to hear, and it was only made worse by the current set of circumstances he found himself stuck in.

Jake was the kind of personality that liked to deal with obstacles directly, promptly, and with finality, but unfortunately he couldn't very well just shoot Hiccup and Astrid, or simply throw them out of the plane, without not only losing the leverage the two had on Hawken and his friends but also having Malin come down on the rattler's head, hard.

Truthfully, the fear of what the man was capable of was about the only thing that was preventing Jake from taking him out as well, for all the secrets Malin was purposefully holding from him.

"I knew it," Astrid stated triumphantly, smirk growing wider as she saw the look in Jake's eyes. Most people would have been cowering under the reptile's gaze, but the blonde had never been one to shrink under a look. As best as she could when bound by the rattler's coils, she nudged Hiccup and drawled, "Too bad they didn't have Camicazi around to capture; she would've driven him to suicide by this point. I mean, if harmless banter gets to you this easily I can only imagine–hnnngg!"

"Shut yer damn mouth woman!" Jake snapped, squeezing down on the two captives hard enough to cut off their breathing. "I may not be allowed to kill you, but just about anything else is fair game, you understand?" A savage hiss left his throat as he bared his foot long fangs, eyes brightening in irritation.

The look in not only Astrid's but also Hiccup's eyes made him question his outburst however; neither of them showed any particular level of fear at the statement. As his coils loosened semi-involuntarily so that they could breathe again, Hiccup spoke, explaining the lack concern that they portrayed.

"I lost my leg once in a fight with a dragon the size of a mountain," he said quietly. "We've both watched as a demonic illusion of a sea serpent tried to destroy us and our friends, far away from any possible help we could have called on. I experienced the pain of nearly losing both my father and brother, and Astrid and I were both there, twice, when a centuries-old sorceress attempted to level our village."

The young man's gaze hardened then. "A hundred foot snake with a short temper is nothing to contend with compared to those experiences," he quipped.

Jake's jaw worked as he both tried to come up with a decent retaliation and resist the temptation to just eat the pair then and there and remove the headache entirely, unpalatable as that may have been. Finally, he settled with turning his head away with a growl, fixing his gaze on the side of the bay of the jet as it continued its journey, taking all of them to what would be Hiccup and Astrid's drop-off point.

After a couple more minutes Jake heard a sigh escape Astrid, and braced himself for another attempt at banter or conversation. Sure enough…

"With nothing else to do here you could at least tell us where we are headed," the young woman groused. "Or at least a hint. If we're stuck here until then"-

"Why would I feel obliged to tell you something like that?" Jake snapped, head twisting around again.

"Well, it's not like we currently have the capability of phoning Hawken and telling him 'we're headed to so-and-so'," Hiccup snarked. "After all, Malin ripped off the coms and my wing set." He started to continue, before he caught the look in Jake's eyes, a slip-up the rattler hadn't realized he'd made.

"You…you don't even know where we're headed, do you?" Hiccup asked.

"Of course I do!" Jake retorted, a little too quickly. "All it is is that there's no need fer me to tell you two so"-

"We've both been around Stormfly long enough to spot a flat lie," Astrid cut him off. "You don't know where we're headed."

A moment passed before Jake glanced at the door to the cockpit, and scowled even further. "No," he finally admitted, "Malin's the only one who knows everything." He muttered on, "Been at his side fer months now an' he still doesn't even bother te tell me what my actual part in all this is supposed to be."

Hiccup glanced at Astrid, who had caught the same tone, and nodded. "You feel betrayed, don't you?" Astrid asked quietly.

"That's none o' yer business," Jake snapped back, looking away.

Hiccup shook his head however. "No, it's actually entirely our business. It's kind of what we were put together as a team for. You feel out of place, betrayed. You know that as soon as Malin is done with you he may well view you as no more than a liability, and then he might get rid of you. You're afraid of him."

"So what if I might be?" Jake quipped. "I know better 'n the rest of you what he's capable of."

"But you know almost nothing about what we're capable of," Hiccup countered. "Do you really believe that you have to be permanently tied to Malin? What if you had the chance to change your path; would you?" He put on the upmost encouraging look that he could. "Would you take a different path, if you could?"

"It's far too late fer that in any case, whether I wanted to or not, which I don't," Jake replied, though it lacked the venom he'd been speaking with before and both Vikings could hear the sliver of doubt in his voice.

"It's never too late," Hiccup continued to press, albeit gently. "Another individual we know was forgiven for 900 years of wrongdoing in a day; a few months by comparison is nothing. Everyone has that choice, at any time, that capacity to change. And whatever you think ties you to Malin, I'm certain it can be broken."

Silence fell upon the jet, save the sounds of the engines outside, as Hiccup and Astrid watched Jake ponder their words. Both of them knew it was a long shot to get the rattlesnake to turn that quickly, but the seed had been planted.

It also told them both another important detail: whatever influence Malin seemed to possess now on those working for him, it was still more than able to be subject to outside influences as well.

Finally, Jake turned to his captives, coils loosening slightly as he did so, but when he opened his mouth to speak the jet suddenly rumbled and began to descend. Seconds later, the door to the cockpit swung open, and Malin stepped in, no longer dressed in the clean suit he'd been wearing before, but still adorned in an almost stylish military-brand tactical outfit. He crossed the space between them and came to stand in front of Jake.

"We're landing shortly," he announced. "Prepare to dump these two; we'll give them the weapons we brought with us but nothing else," Malin ordered, turning to the wall of the cargo bay and punching a sequence into the control box nearby. "This needs to happen quickly and without issues; we head to the bunker immediately following this."

Mechanical gears began whining and clanking, and the cargo doors began to creak open, blasting the four in the space with hot, humid air as they continued to descend. Hiccup and Astrid looked out to see the canopy of a tropical forest spreading out beneath the jet, low mountains ringing the valley they were descending into.

Malin marched over to the small pile of Mysteel weapons that lay in the corner of the bay, those that he had removed after they had boarded the plane, and scooped them up: two swords, a small dagger, and Inferno, Hiccup's fire blade.

When the plane came to hover no more than three feet above the overgrown runway below, Jake slithered forward and down the ramp, dragging the two Vikings with him. Hiccup and Astrid both struggled to extract their hands from the snake's grip, and Hiccup fixed his gaze on Jake's face.

"Jake, you have a choice!" he urged. "You don't have to do this!"

For a moment Jake faltered, slowing and glancing at Hiccup and Astrid, expression harboring conflict. Then just as quickly, his eyes hardened and glowed all the brighter. "Yes I do," he snarled as he twisted his tail around, coils loosening and flinging the captive pair off the edge of the ramp, both of them hitting the dirt hard and rolling. Seconds later, Malin flung their weapons to the ground haphazardly as well, and then slammed his hand down on the control, closing the doors as Jake backed up into the bay.

Astrid recovered faster than Hiccup did, rolling to her feet and leaping for her sword, kicking up dirt as she sped toward the ascending jet, yelling and trying to swing her sword into the craft. The jet had already begun to take off however, the backwash of the engines blowing her back and the sword missing by yards.

"Astrid, don't!" Hiccup yelled, stumbling to his feet and running toward her. "It won't do any good, not now! Save your energy!"

"They threw us out of a plane!" Astrid screamed back. "And left us in the middle of nowhere! We almost got through to Jake and he still did that, and you're saying I can't retaliate?!"

"I'm saying Jake really didn't have a choice; going against Malin now would have made sure he died even if he did agree with us," Hiccup responded. "And right now is not the time; we have bigger issues."

As if to prove his point, a flash emanated from the exiting jet, and a wave of energy washed over the land. "Yep, Malin just did something to this place," Hiccup continued. "I get the feeling it's not safe to stay put either. We need to conserve our energy, find water, find somewhere where we're at least moderately safe and Hawken can find us." He turned and walked over to grab his two swords, securing Inferno on his leg and the decorated blade on his back where it belonged.

Astrid closed her eyes and sighed, before reluctantly nodding. "You're right," she finally admitted. "You're right. But, where would Hawken find us? He could track us if we stayed here but if we move it will get harder for him to follow any sort of scent trail."

A rumble of thunder rolled in the distance, prompting both of them to actually look around them: they were standing in a bowl-like valley, low mountain ranges and ridges snaking around the perimeter and fading into the distance, everything covered in thick forest. To the west, a front of dark clouds was beginning to build ominously.

"If it rains a scent trail won't matter and he'll have to search the island anyway," Hiccup sighed. "I'd bet that we're on an island; Malin wouldn't drop us where there's any sort of access to a lot of people. If we head toward the coast we'll be able to stay more in the open and"-

CRASSSHHH!

Both of them jerked and spun toward the forest as something knocked a tree down, and the constant rhythmic noise of heavy footfalls moved parallel to them.

"We're not alone on this island then," Astrid said quietly, backing up toward the opposite treeline.

Hiccup nodded. "Keep your voice low, head for the undergrowth," he whispered. "Walk as quietly as you can. Whatever that was, I don't think we want to get its attention."

Jonathan Malin typically prided himself on being observant, or intuitive about how those around him worked and thought, so it wasn't long on their trip back toward the mainland that he noticed Jake's downtrodden expression, something he hadn't seen on the rattlesnake before. It immediately set him on edge, suspicious that something had occurred while he'd been in the cockpit.

"Got a lot on your mind all of a sudden, Jake?" Malin asked, causing the rattler to look up in surprise, before his eyes hardened again.

"That's what happens when ye leave me stuck with babysitting duty over a couple of bratty kids who won't shut up," he snapped. "They try te get into yer head and get you to look at everything differently, try te complicate things." The snake slithered over to the side of the hold and coiled up, hiding his eyes with his hat as he settled. "Next time, you can just chain them up to the wall and not make me deal with the headache."

Malin snorted. "Careful Jake. Remember that you work for me; I tell you to do something, you do it, otherwise it's the end of the road for you."

"And why is my suggestion so bad, care to explain? And concerning all this, what exactly is the point?"

Malin stopped for a moment, eyebrows rising as the question caught him off guard. "What are you trying to infer by that?" he asked guardedly.

Jake sighed, and looked up slightly. "As much fun as this is," he began, "if yer plan works in the end there is always gonna be do-gooders like Hawken and his friends who won't give up fer nothing, so you'll never have a free day. And forgive me if I am blind to the wonders of such things, but I don't see how ruling the world is any joyride." He shifted in his coils, avoiding Malin's gaze directly and resting his head on one of his bullet belts. "Personally, I think it'd be fine enough te just stake out a claim of yer own and hold it, rather 'n try and claim the whole planet."

"That was the deal I struck, and it will be done," Malin growled, "whether or not that is what I intend in the long run for myself. And I'd be careful how you run your mouth, Jacob. I made you for a purpose, and if you fail to meet your mark you might also fail to exist." He turned and marched through the cockpit door again, leaving Jake to mull over what had just transpired in silence.

Jake did not like the all-out war-for-the-world mindset. From the memories carried and implanted from the tale Malin had pulled him from, along with the recent experiences in reality, Jake was always more the hired hand, a mercenary, straddling the border between law and outlaw. The push and pull of all this was beginning to wear on him already, and while he didn't mind being called out for a random job or other (so long as he was able to just get it done and over with, not this drawn-out mess), Jake was also a creature who wanted –needed- the opportunity to hide away and relax, unmolested by the world and its inhabitants. If Malin got his way, that chance would probably be gone, and Jake knew that there would be no redeeming quality left. No truth, no honor in what he did anymore, no respect, admiration, not even proper fear of a worthy adversary.

That thought did it. Jake prided himself on being truthful in his words and actions, and at least honorable (he'd never shoot a foe that lacked any means of defending themselves, unless they fully and truly deserved it), and he faced his enemies head-on, never backing down. There would be nothing but wandering around wiping up little skirmishes if this went through, and truth be told Jake was even starting to get sick of receiving nothing but looks of hatred from anyone they had passed by; the sympathetic look of understanding Hiccup had given him earlier was sickening him, but it was still better.

Something needed to change, and if he ever had the opportunity to confront the dragon boy again then maybe…maybe he could take a different path. It wasn't necessarily where he wanted to go, but he felt like it was definitely less of a dead-end than where he was.

Until then, Jake would have to continue to stay under Malin's radar. Easier said than done, the rattler thought, when the man makes to keep tabs on everything.

I whipped my tail up and slammed it into Pitch's jaw, throwing him across the green and watching with the barest hints of amusement as he plowed through dirt and grass. I paid no attention to the screams of the nightmares around me as they were kept busy, targeted by the others who raced through the skies and across the commons; my focus was solely on the figure picking himself up in front of me and trying to get back into a defensive stance. I gave him no chance to gain his bearings properly however before I fired, black flames searing toward him.

Pitch swept up his arm, the black sand rising up and blocking my attack just before it hit, and he came around the side, throwing spears of anthracite glass my way.

In a flash I was a cloud, the shards contacting nothing but air, and I entered the shadows of the grass below, raising up tendrils of darkness edged in black fire. Pitch ducked the first attack, but wasn't fast enough to avoid the rope that came up around his feet, tightening with the speed and ferocity of a Viperwyrm and slamming him face-first into the ground. I swept forward and loomed above him in a vaporous rendition of myself, as more ropes whipped up around both of us, lashing out wildly.

"Far cry from the broken man that was your intent," I growled. "You just drove me further to fury." Fire erupted from my open mouth, and the shadow tendrils lanced forward.

Laughter echoed around me as the ground became scorched under the heat of the flames and torn up by the dark matter, my grip suddenly empty.

"I am a master of the shadows as well Hawken," Pitch's voice echoed as I submerged myself into that impossible-to-describe realm I inhabited in the Shadow Dragon form. The abomination appeared before me in the same "state" that I was, and leapt at me with his sand scythe.

"This is a level playing field, you and me," he cackled, as I met his blade with one of my own, shadow-formed Mysteel against black magic once again. We carved through the void around us, each blow revealing itself in the physical dimension as explosions of midnight sparks and blackened slices into the ground, stone, and brick as we fought. I had years of experience and draconic speed on my side, but Pitch was lithe, agile, born for this place, drawing from some wealth of experience I could only guess at, and whenever he felt too cornered another of the nightmare sand demons would appear nearby, drawn from battle in the physical world just long enough to get me to divide my focus so that Pitch could slip further away from me and gain his bearings.

"Have you ever wondered what would happen if you died in this state?" Pitch asked tauntingly, his blade suddenly appearing under my guard and catching the tip of my wing, sending a stab of pain through my body. "Connected to the 'real' world but separate all the same; if you don't escape here in time you will remain, trapped in a dying body for years before you fade to nothing."

Twin swords appeared in his hands and they spun in a blur as they clashed with mine, neither set of weapons truly able to be damaged.

My world became a singular focus, blades flying and fire leaping from my jaws as I sought to weaken Pitch's resolve. He'd pushed me far enough that I wouldn't slow, relent, I would stave off exhaustion for hours if need be, to finish him. But he was prone to tiring as well, and eventually slipping up; I was just waiting for the opportunity.

I could vaguely hear Ember yelling orders as the battle with Pitch's Bioraptors raged across the university grounds, occasional screams of cornered students who were still in the process of escaping the tall residence halls, but despite the fact that the nightmares were no serious match for armored dragons and Vikings, they came in an endless stream as well and gave no breaking point.

I had one special trick up my sleeve for Pitch though (well, more than one but I never showed all my hand at once), and as soon as he stalled for a moment, I took my chance. In the war against Jezebel I had learned one thing, one important detail rather painfully and in person from her: catch someone in this dark matter realm off guard, and you can rip them back into reality.

A tendril of dark matter whipped out from my reach and snagged Pitch's foot as I caught him off balance, and I acted immediately, dragging him with me as I returned to the real world, pulling him out of the shadows and slamming him into the ground. The tendril released for just a second before it formed into a sharpened blade, and I drove it down into his shoulder, Pitch screaming as he was pinned in place by a holdfast that he couldn't just dematerialize away from.

"Do you know how to kill a Shadow, Pitch?" I hissed menacingly, Mysteel blade vaporizing from my grip as I stored it away, and instead a blade of black nothing like the one in the figure's shoulder replaced the space in my left paw. "To kill a Shadow, you need another Shadow."

The anthracite blade rose, cutting through another Bioraptor that came to aid its master, and I adjusted my grip just slightly in preparation for bringing it down.

A sudden, loud beeping noise caught everyone in the vicinity, Pitch and I included, off guard, and my grip loosened just enough that, when realization dawned on my opponent, he was able to wrench his arm up and off the blade in his shoulder, screaming in pain as he did so, before slamming me in the gut with a block of sand.

I skidded back, winded and losing my grip on the dark matter sword, as Pitch wheezed out, "Malin calls. You're free to try and find your precious Hiccup and Astrid," before he vanished.

All around us, the nightmares did the same, each one fading into the shadows and leaving us off balance and surrounded by silence punctuated only by the sound of distant sirens ringing out across campus.

Ember and Orha glided down and landed nearby, followed soon by the others, glancing around as if they expected another sudden sneak attack, which none of us thought outside of possibility.

"Alright, what just happened?" Ember quipped, sword still in hand. "Where'd they all go?"

"Gone," I replied. "Completely gone. It was a stalling technique; Malin's dropped Hiccup and Astrid off wherever he was taking them."

"So the fight's over already?" Tuffnut asked, his voice half-disappointed. I nodded, demorphing slowly. "For now, and for here. The police and Air National Guard will be here in force and start asking questions soon; Embron, can you stay here? You know procedures, what to answer and what not to." I looked at him square in the eye when he nodded. "And you can tell them about Berk; this battle is involving both our worlds now."

Embron nodded a second time, as the gravity of the situation really sank into the rest of the gang; we had never been out in the open like this here. I turned my head, and looked to Amethyst and Feren.

"You two, take everyone else to Berk, get all of them prepared for real war. Ember, Zipeau, let Valka, Stoick, and Sigrid know where I'm heading."

"You might want this then," Zipeau interrupted, reaching into his tool strap before handing me a small screen. "I got the notification of the tracker prototype after you deployed it; the signal's weak, it was not ready for actual use, but you'll be able to head straight to where he stopped, as long as you follow the same path he did."

I took the device and turned on the screen, reading the output on the map. Malin had headed almost straight south, but the path grew dimmer as it moved further away from us. I'd have to stay right on it to ensure I didn't miss a change in direction, which meant I couldn't travel at full Lightning Blazer speed; this did not sit well, and I growled in frustration. Hiccup and Astrid would be on their own for at least another few hours.

"Best get moving," Embron spoke up, starting to amble toward the nearby road. "The police are here."

I turned my head and looked, seeing squad cars surrounding the commons that we stood on. I nodded to the others, who took off, and looked over at Toothless and Thorn, who had also stayed behind.

"I can't take you Thorn," I apologized. "This needs as few tagalongs as possible. But we will return with Astrid in one piece, I swear."

::I'll hold you to that,:: Thorn replied, reluctantly turning and spreading her wings. ::When she gets back I've got dibs on that snake.::

As she took off, my arms stretched out into Lightning Blazer wings, and I wrapped my tail around Toothless' torso, dematerializing both as we took off; we'd wasted enough time with this fight, and I wasn't losing any more.

A/N-Well, what do you think? Many things are brewing, and Hiccup and Astrid may be in more trouble than they realize...

Make sure to leave a review!