A/N-Gosh, what, 5 or 6 weeks? Yeah, I'm late. Blame final assignment due dates and the start of peak season for my job...but we're back!

For any who were curious (but did not give a guess), the translation of last chapter's title is roughly "Crossed Lines." For those just here to read, well...

Chapter 25

Long Way From Home

/

History dealt you horrid cards

And laughed at your attempts to thwart them

Tossed away from family dear

And buried under wicked shards

You tried to fight them even then

But you saw all hope as lost

For the poisoned current carried you

To be mired in deception's fen

The months dragged by

And then the years as well

There was a purpose for it all

But you could not see it as you cried

You're a long, long way from home

And nothing spoke of where you'd go

But time was nigh for your life to change

The cycle broken, soon free to roam

-0-

For purposes of arousing the least amount of suspicion possible should we run across the Coalition, it was eventually decided that it would be only me, Fenrir, and Tan Qiao as our guide who would return to the location that the guardsmen claimed they had found. Should any of the hunters show up while we were there come the next morning, a wolf and a local would be far less shocking or likely to raise alarms than unfamiliar dragon species or dragon riders would (I could disappear with ease unlike the rest of our group, so my presence would be of little concern no matter). Plus, a small number always traveled faster and got into more places than all of us together did.

The rest of the gang, meanwhile, would wait back in Láng Chéng, and Ember and Amethyst in particular had offered to help repair what had been destroyed in my temper-driven outburst.

A shot of regret ran through me again when we left at thinking about that event; I should have known better waited for the others at the Alagaesian village, especially knowing how I acted under anger at times. There was little point dwelling on it now though, as it had already happened and I'd at least returned what I could to Ashira, who had also in turn at least grudgingly accepted to look past it. We had all realized we'd been played, and we all knew we'd done stupid things in response; a giant mess was the only logical conclusion. Now was the time to move on, find those who were truly at the root of the problem, and sort this fiasco out with finality.

I shook off the feeling and focused forward, watching mountains and valleys lazily pass by beneath me as I sailed south. Turning my head, I caught some amusement at seeing the stamped-down edge of panic seeping into Qiao's face. It had taken a full fifteen minutes to convince him that it would be best to fly to save time, and then another five to assure him that I would not bite or buck him off when he rode with Fenrir on my back to our destination. The guy could walk amongst animals far more "wild" than any of our dragons and not flinch, could run head first into a fight as guns went off around him or swords swung at his neck, but once heights were added to the mix everything tough about him threw itself out the window.

"So, how far along is this place?" I asked casually, catching his attention.

Qiao swallowed and cleared his throat, pointing shakily toward the smattering of lights right on the coast that I knew to be the trading port. "There's the market," he stammered, "and…uh, j-just a league or t-two further south, past the next ridge and inland a ways. It-it's in the side of the valley, in a thicket." A sudden wind gust caused us to wobble slightly, and he clenched the strap I was wearing for him to hold onto violently. "Oooohhh…please tell me we don't have to fly much longer."

"Either I fly calmly, or I fly fast. If you hate this so much, I can guarantee you'd vomit on the latter. Neither would I enjoy Fenrir's claws in my back trying to hold on."

Qiao let out another groan as I banked inland slightly to aim for the location he'd roughly pointed out, and then he bent forward to close his eyes and press his forehead against the makeshift saddle.

A thick fog was rolling down the sides of the valley as we descended, blocking the early morning sun and helping cover our presence. I landed in a clearing near the most prominent thicket of trees that I could see in the area, bending down and letting Fenrir jump off first. Then we both watched Qiao slide awkwardly off and stumble onto his feet. I demorphed and stored the strap away as he regained his bearings, and then he gestured us to follow him, keeping silent and low to the ground as we moved through the trees. There was an actual path running along the valley floor, but following it would have been the best way to ensure us running into someone if the hunters were in fact nearby presently. Instead, we tracked it from the trees, letting it lead us to keep our heading in the undergrowth.

Halfway through the thicket Qiao held up his hand, slowing us to a halt, before turning and pointing slightly off to our right. Another path meandered by, this one stemming off the main road and so slight in appearance that most would miss it if they weren't looking for it, or standing right on top. It cut through the grove to our right, and seemed to run almost straight into the side of the slope before disappearing.

"Hideout's right in there," Qiao said with certainty, walking forward again. Fenrir and I followed, keeping our ears primed in case of any disturbances behind us should anyone be approaching. Once close enough to the face of the slope, the entrance became clear now that we knew where to look, and what to look for: the slanted door was covered by leaves and small plants, built up to look like the uneven ground itself but standing apart just enough to detect the outline.

"And how exactly did you find this?" Fenrir asked softly, looking the expertly hidden entrance over with perplexity.

"Sheer dumb luck, mostly," Qiao admitted. "We happened to find the path and followed it; luckily when no one else was around. Took one of my men actually tripping on the door to realize it was there after the wolves tracked a scent here."

"Okay," I said softly, "Qiao, stay out here and keep watch; if anyone or anything approaches give three hard raps against the door and we'll be ready to move out. Fenrir, stand by while I open the door."

Fenrir nodded and stepped back as I morphed to Shadow, melting into the ground around us and spreading out around the door. Opening it wasn't really the issue so much as I wanted to do so without risking making a lot of noise (and if you're going to ask why I didn't just transport Fenrir that way, unless it was necessary everyone had mentioned it was an unpleasant ride; plus, if there was anything inside we wanted to carry out I didn't want to risk the transport messing it up), so with as much care as I could I slipped coils of dark matter around the hinges and gears I found to muffle the noise they made, and lifted up.

The door swung up and outward, revealing a matching uneven, sloping path into the side of the hill, and within, at least a faint glimmer of light was visible either from a torch or perhaps a skylight within. Fenrir wasted no time and stepped inside quickly, sniffing out any trace of recent human habitation, and I closed the door behind him before materializing and demorphing again. Though, I kept strong my nocturnal vision and sense of smell to trace what was going on up ahead, otherwise I would have been walking almost blind. There was light, but barely enough for human eyes in the corridor.

As we moved deeper, following the path as it wound slightly off to one side, the first thing that I noticed was the smell: that odd, distinct chemical bite that had been present up at that abandoned fortress far to the north, only this time it was almost entirely bound together with floral scents: the fragrance of a sweet flower, nectar, and the touch of earthy, leafy undertones. Additionally, another scent was riding underneath all that: familiar and mammalian, almost identifiable but that I couldn't place. For a moment I chalked it up to perhaps Fenrir nearby in the cramped space, who hadn't bathed in a while as with many of us, but his scent was different and this one was permeated into the walls.

The area got lighter as we moved in deeper, oddly, but our confusion at that was fully dispelled when we turned a corner and entered into a larger carved room lined with lamps and additionally illuminated from above by narrow, carved passages filtering light from outside.

::This…certainly wasn't what I was expecting,:: Fenrir muttered in Dragonese, looking around with awe at the sight. Several tables lined the space in rows, each with a setup of a different sort: one covered in boxes full of what looked like herbal materials, the next a set of boilers hooked to metal cylinders no doubt designed to hold in high pressure, and the one after that covered in primitive glass and metal beakers and tubes, each capped in small pipes whose ends dripped into a wine-barrel style container of steel. The wall to the right of the tables held racks from which several types of clothing made of some sort of hard leather-like substance hung, and makeshift goggles dangled alongside them. None of them looked to be sized for an adult human though, furthering our confusion and increasing concern.

Ahead of us across the tables, the far wall possessed a pair of adjacent desks, similar to those in Hiccup's room or all over Fishlegs' house. They were covered in charcoal pencils, rice paper and parchments, and the far end of the wall beyond them had a single, doorless opening leading further into the bowels of the hill. At the angle we were standing it was darker within too, so that I could not make out what might have been beyond. Most odd within the room though was a system of metal tracks suspended above our heads, crisscrossing in a pattern that followed the spaces between the tables but not very far into the corridor Fenrir and I were standing in. They did, however, extend into the darkened back space beyond.

::It looks like a chemist's lab,:: I mused, cautiously stepping with extreme care over to inspect the table holding the distillation bats. Inside were stains of some sort of indigo-shaded liquid, and it was wafting upward once again with that same floral-chemical scent I had yet to identify. More evidence for which my suspicions were valid though.

Fenrir padded over to the other end of the room, peering into the herbal boxes. ::These look familiar somehow,:: he said. ::I must assume whatever this is may be toxic if they're hiding it way out here. Think it could be…::

I looked up as he trailed off, noting the wolf's focus turned underneath the table, toward the wall beyond him. ::Oh,:: he said shortly, worriedly. ::Uh, Hawken, we may have our answer.::

I stood up straight at that and made my way quickly around the tables over to see what he'd found. The room bent around a corner that wasn't visible from the entry corridor, concealing a space that looked less like a chemistry lab and more like an engineer's workshop and smithy, with molds and tools for building and crafting with metals and glass. What was being built, or at least the most obvious product, lay in dozens of rows on a shelf along the wall: hundreds, maybe thousands of small metal darts, each tipped with a needle and armed with a spring-loaded mechanism for injection upon impact.

The nearest column to us were darker than the rest, and as I picked one up to inspect it I realized why: the sides were semi-translucent, made out of a plastic-like substance rather than metal. Within these was the same deep hued liquid that had been staining the vats nearby. Once filled, this would be an army's worth of projectiles, and already there were a couple hundred filled and ready for their purpose.

::I'll bet my second favorite set of armor that this is directly connected to the feral dragon problems,:: Fenrir whispered, stepping forward as well to take a closer look at the dart I held. Unfortunately as he did so, he accidentally rubbed up against the nearest table, and a metal mug that had been sitting on the edge teetered and fell off, hitting the floor with a disturbingly loud clang. Both of us left the ground in shock and winced at the sudden noise, turning simultaneously toward the dark corridor further in with fear that we'd alerted someone. I hadn't smelled any people within, at least not recently, and neither had Fenrir or he'd have said something, but we didn't want to take any chances.

When nothing happened for another minute, the two of us let out sighs of relief and turned to regard the layout of the dart army in front of us again. ::Perhaps we can snag one of these and take it back to Xi'nai and Ashira, show them what we found,:: Fenrir suggested. ::If it's the cause, perhaps they have healers that can find an antid-::

He stopped speaking abruptly when both of our ears picked up on the sound that wafted out of the far corridor, something akin to a rolling wheel or a ball sliding down a chute. We froze again, heads whipping toward the opening, and our eyes widened as the noise unquestionably became clearer, indicating an approach of something in our direction.

::Back to the entry hall,:: I whispered, and Fenrir nodded agreement. Quickly we both dashed for the tunnel we'd come in through, backing up far enough so that we would not immediately be visible to whoever came out of that corner of the room, and waited in silence. Stupidly however, I failed to dematerialize, leaving one more object at risk of being spotted if we hadn't gone far enough.

Soon enough a voice spoke up, though in the Mandarin tongue rather than one I understood, and I was forced to look to Fenrir for a translation.

"Xīn tàozhuāng shàngwèi zhǔnbèi hǎo, duìbùqǐ (New set is not ready, I'm sorry)," it said in a tone that seemed eerily faimiliar, the source entering the room we had just been in. As it did, I saw a rope swing in attached to a rolling pulley that skittered along the maze of metal tracks overhead. Thankfully, Fenrir got my look and automatically translated in quiet Dragonese for me, so I did not remain in the dark. "Xiānhuā bǐ píngcháng gānzào, xìtǒng bù huì shēngwēn (Flowers were drier than usual, and the system would not heat up for)…"

The rope halted in the center of the room as the voice trailed off in confusion, but the owner of said voice was still hidden behind a table and the equipment upon it. Whoever it was, they were short.

"Ni hao?" they said again (that one not needing translation), stepping just a little further forward and finally revealing why they were short enough to have been hidden entirely behind a rather low table.

At my first good look at them too, I had to force myself to bite my tongue in order to avoid blurting out a shocked, "Nick?!"

It was not Nick, but the similarity was impossible to miss: a Narnian fox, a little over four feet tall with red-orange fur fading into burnt brown and black tones on his extremities. This fox however was a touch more heavyset and also had prominent silver color speckled in his fur from age or stress, or likely both. He wore little more than the rag version of an eastern robe outfit, pale tan and torn (and obviously washed by hand hundreds of times as threadbare as it was growing). The rope attached to the tracks above him was also tied to a harness cinched around his torso, and his eyes were a piercing deep green not dissimilar to either my own normal shade or Nick's, though darker. They were darkened further still by an emotional shade too, resignation to the position he was in.

Then, his eyes refocused and took on a distinctly confounded expression, which quickly turned to wary and defensive, and I realized too late in my own surprise that he'd turned our way. Foxes have better vision for dark places than people, and I was leaning out more than far enough for him to spot me.

"Crap."

"Nǐ shì shuí (Who are you)?!" he snapped, dropping into a defensive stance and grabbing a metal bar off the nearest table. Clearly, he knew he wasn't going to get far if he ran, tied up to the pulley as he was, though the underlying fear in his voice also spoke volumes of how little leverage he had with his makeshift weapon, and he knew it.

It was too late to hide myself, and seeing the condition of the fox I got the sense that this was not the place he wanted to be let alone defend, so I held up a placating hand both to the fox and to Fenrir who had stepped into view too and was beginning to raise his own hackles. Getting into a brawl would help no one here, least of us; we were in a place run by hunters after all, and there had been no sign of Tsefan.

"I…don't speak Mandarin," I said slowly, hoping he might understand and watching the fox's eyes widen as I did so. "Do you understand Common tongue?"

For a moment I couldn't read how he would react. Surprised, wary eyes flicked between us for several moments, from me to Fenrir and back (though he fixated more on Fenrir, apparent larger predator as he was), before he seemed to decide provoking a fight at least would not be beneficial and relaxed, if only slightly. He opened his mouth to speak again, but at first only a garbled mess of letters came out. A clearing of the throat, and he tried again.

"I…I h-have not h-heard this la-language for years," he rasped softly and with a twisted accent from disuse, looking over us with perplexion. "You were n-not sent by t-the hunters?" Focusing more intently on Fenrir again, he added, "You haf-have a wolf with you."

"We are not from Láng Chéng either, if you wonder," Fenrir said flatly, startling the fox again and making him raise the bar up in front of him once more. "We come from far west of here, friend of Vikings, dragons, and those of Narnia."

The fox's reaction to that last word was instantaneous and pervasive, his eyes flying open in shock and the bar in his grip clattering to the ground. Stumbling back against the desk behind him on weakened legs, he pointed a shaky finger at us failing words momentarily. "Y-you…" he breathed unsteadily, "you know of N-Narnia? No one here does!"

"And the apparent fact that you're from there, once," I added, stepping out further into the light. "Call me a casual friend of both Aslan and the current king, and Fenrir knew Aslan as a friend nearly a thousand years ago. He's been around a while." I paused speaking then, turning cautious myself once more; tied up as he was, it wasn't likely he was a voluntary helper of the hunters, but still. "I need to know though: what is a Narnian doing so far from there, in the Orient? Are you a willing aid to the hunters?"

The fox deflated, my suspicion taking what shock was still there away and replacing it with resignation again; more than that, defeat. "No," he said quietly, bitterly, "not at all. Safe to t-tell you, if you befriend dragons I think. It's been…well, I don't know how m-many years; I was kidnapped by Cal-Calormen traders and sold to the hunters as a…curio, is that the right word? But they brought me here as a slave, to make their weapons for them, stuck in this godforsaken hole. I have not even seen the sun in a d-decade, left in here. I can't even escape this blasted harness to bathe correctly; all they let me do is make their serum for them."

"So you don't willingly stay here," I said, relaxing. Then I winced at how redundant that statement was. "Right, literally what you just said. Add it to the list then, they're keeping slaves too."

"Slave, prisoner, whatever word suits you," the fox replied, his words starting to flow smoother as he practiced them again, and losing the accent. Once more too as his voice cleared, I was struck with a sense of déjà vu. "I only know what goes on outside of here because they like to talk in front of an 'animal in a cage' who won't tell anyone else, about the dragons they hunt or the wolf who leads an entire city somewhere nearby that they're making mad."

Suddenly he perked up, looking at us with what could only be called a cautious hope. "Wait…how did you find this place? Only the hunters ever knew its location."

"Somebody on a search party from that city, the queen's head soldier and his men," I told him. "They're plagued by feral dragons and we're looking for a dragon that the hunters kidnapped from us, and apparently we got lucky at least on one aspect but I assume not the other, otherwise there'd have been more guards."

The fox shrugged. "True; sorry to say there are no dragons here. But…you are the first people not of the hunters' ilk that I have seen since I was stuck here, so perhaps you can fix the problem I've regrettably helped them cause." He slowly turned and gestured around him. "I was not the only thing they've taken from Narnia; the hunters know of Wildwood, a plant that grows there. It has a poison in its flowers that causes animals, sometimes even people, to turn violent and primal if they eat it or are poisoned with it. All of this was built to concentrate the flower extract, make it stronger and turn it into a serum they can put into darts or other weapons." He sighed, deflating even further. "They wanted to turn the world against dragons and creatures like me, and I…I've been the one they used to make the tool to do so."

"Considering the circumstances of your being here I don't think you can really blame yourself," Fenrir said softly, pinning his ears down to try and look friendlier. "I for one won't."

The fox looked at him blankly, before perking up slightly and speedwalking over to where the shelves full of darts lay. Picking one up carefully, he turned back and held it out to me, not realizing of course that I'd already pilfered one. "You can take this," he said. "Maybe you can discover something to reverse the reaction, and tell others what the hunters are doing. I…" he looked down at the harness he was tied to, and his ears fell once more. "I can't leave; it takes a key to undo this harness and they don't leave it here for obvious reasons. But you've given me the first chance I've had to send something out to turn this around."

"Or we can do one better," I said, letting a sword materialize in my hand. "It's a risk that the hunters may retaliate against the dragon they kidnapped to hold against us, but I can't leave someone else prisoner for that; I know at least they won't kill him, but they might you. We'll take you with us."

The reynard watched with widening eyes again, taking a wary step back as he fell into his previous caution concerning us. "You…you're a magician?" he asked warily. "What are you planning?"

I laughed and shook my head. "Magician? Maybe in the sense of parlor tricks every now and again, but otherwise no. No, I'm gifted, a guardian, much like Fenrir here is gifted to understand various tongues, like Aslan is for whatever his abilities are, and so on. Would you rather a chance to actually be one to turn this on your captors?"

The fox snorted bitterly, and gestured at the harness and then the rope above him. "If you could actually cut through this, maybe," he quipped in empty words. "Stitched through with some sort of dragon scale that nothing in this prison can cut through, not even the weapons they've accidentally left behind before. Believe me, I've tried more times than I could ever count."

"Do me a favor and just trust me on this then," I urged. "Close your eyes, and stand as still as you can."

Without any other options at his disposal, the tod sighed and shrugged, closing his eyes and holding his arms out in a mockingly expectant gesture. "It's not like my situation gets any worse if you fail, so why not?" he huffed.

Half a second later, and he was stumbling forward out of the shreds that remained of the contraption with his arms flailing wildly in shock. I dematerialized the sword and caught him before he could face-plant at my feet, and he sucked in a couple hyperventilating breaths before turning around to stare in disbelief at the perfectly cleaved edges of his former entrapment. Slowly, he stood up (though still bracing a hand against my arm), reaching down to feel his chest and underarms, the open sensation of nothing there, and let out a choking noise.

"W-well, hallelujah," he wheezed, continuing to stare almost absently at the ruined harness, before turning slowly to face back up to me. "What…?"

"Like I said, there are those of us with gifts out there," I explained softly, smiling as I held out a hand to ensure he didn't collapse again. "A woman whom Fenrir calls family is rather adept at manipulating minerals and metals; our weapons can cut through just about anything. You're welcome."

The tod nodded vacantly. "And just when I thought I was the strangest thing I could encounter," he muttered, shaking his head. "A talking fox imprisoned in a hole in a hill making delirium poisons to help callous murderers overturn a city run by wolves, and yet you've overshadowed that." Suddenly shaking the shock off, he straightened up, and stuck out a paw in formal greeting, which I took. "I give my sincerest thanks. Perhaps we should have a proper introduction if we're going to be leaving together then, since I don't even know your name yet. Mine is…" He paused, looking down as if searching for a lost bracelet on the floor. "Oh dear. It's been so long since anyone's called me anything other than 'fox,' hasn't it? My own name has spaced me."

A moment of tapping his other paw against his chin followed, before his expression brightened again. "Ah! That's right: my name is John."

"Well, pleased to make your acquaintance John," I replied, shaking his paw firmly. "Mine is Hawken. You'll meet some of our other friends shortly enough and then perhaps we can get you some decent clothes and then back where you belong. I would wager Narnia's changed a fair bit since you were last there though."

"If you can manage to be friends with the current king and Aslan at the same time now, I'd say so as well," John agreed, clapping his paws together and looking around, before dashing over to a wall. "Oh, before we leave, I'd say ensuring they won't be able to continue their abhorrent project will be my last parting gift."

He ran round the room, hiding or pocketing what I had to assume were necessary tools for making the Wildwood serum that I now had as evidence in my grasp (or breaking pieces of equipment if they were too big to hide or steal away in such a manner that the damage wouldn't be noticeable until someone attempted use them and pulled the items apart). As he did though, a thought similar to the one I'd had when I first laid eyes on him wormed its way back into my head. It was a long shot, but I had to ask.

"Out of curiosity John, do you remember your last name, if you had one?"

The fox slowed as he pondered my question for a moment, before grinning and resuming his self-given task of cutting apart what looked like a plastic tube with the sharp end of a pin. "Actually yes; if it wasn't just 'fox' they'd refer to me by that name more often," he replied, his eyes remaining on his task. "Jonathan Wilde's my full name. Why do you ask?"

I couldn't help but lean against the wall as I laughed hard enough to start tearing up. There it was: that was why not just his appearance, but even his mannerisms seemed familiar. Naturally he slowed to stare at me with some concern (from the particular expression he wore, mostly for my own sanity),and looked to Fenrir.

"Is he okay?"

The wolf sighed. "We never really know. But, uh, as soon as he stops laughing I think you're going to get the real shock of your life."

I forced myself to swallow my laughter at that nodding as I did, and after making sure I wasn't going to devolve into giggles again I pushed myself back up and faced the fox.

"Well, heh, small world it is. Uh, John, perchance would you happen to know a one Nicholas Wilde then?"

Shattering glass echoed as John stumbled in his sideways reach, accidentally swiping a set of jars and dart shafts to the ground as he spun to face me fully, a thousand emotions rushing across his muzzle. "Wh-what did you say?" he asked slowly, softly, as if wanting for a repeat was to make my words prior vanish. The expression that finally fixed itself for the time being was what I could only call hope for something he thought too good to believe.

"Nicholas Piberius Wilde; I'll affirm you do know that name then."

Clearly he did. John immediately sat on the ground to avoid falling, eyes watering as he looked across the room unseeingly, nodding slowly. "That's…that's the name of my son," he whispered. Suddenly he refocused in the present, eyes burning into me. "That's my son!" he shouted. "You know him? Is he still alive? Is he here?!"

"More than alive, my friend," Fenrir interjected with a smile, redirecting John's attention on him as he popped up next to me with a reassuring expression. "He's an officer of the law in Narnia, works for King Caspian by what he and his partner said. They're actually helping out another group of our friends and family currently, trying to find the same missing dragon we're after closer to our home."

"An officer," John reiterated, as if it was a claim too good to be true. I saw tears fall, and felt my heart move for him. "My son…is an officer. T-that means the war's over, and Nick…Nick's been successful! And he's working with…you're friends with him now?"

At our nods, he scrambled to his feet and with a laugh that sounded like it had been chained up for decades (it probably had) grabbed both of us in a hug, surprisingly strong for the little mammal who'd been cooped up in a lab for years, and squeezed us as he sobbed and laughed in tandem.

"I…you have no idea just how much you've just done for me by telling me," he finally said after a few minutes of Fenrir and I standing still as stone, awkward and sharing glances before he let us go. "I haven't seen my family in a very, very long time, and, well, I hadn't a hope that I ever would again. But then you walk in, cut me free, and tell me you know my son!" Stepping back a touch, he looked between the two of us with a beaming expression that was so much the opposite of the broken expression we'd walked in to see him with that it was hard to claim he was even the same fox.

Then he suddenly began pushing us toward the hall, in a great hurry now to leave. "There's nothing left for any of us here," he said urgently. "You have an answer for one of your problems, the savage dragons that I know we can find a fix for, and I'm sorry to say your missing reptile was never brought here. Any dragon really, so you must move on and find where they did take them. And I have nothing to gather that I want to take with me, and the hunters will not be able to fix their equipment for months let alone figure out how to use it themselves, so let's leave this godforsaken hole and let them suffer their own payback."

"Well, I don't think I have an argument for that," I said lightly, gladly turning and walking down the corridor again with Fenrir beside me and John coming up to brush past and ahead of us as well in his hurry to leave. "We've just got to go collect Tan Qiao at the entrance and then we can head straight back to…"

I trailed off and slowed to a halt as something buzzed in one of my pockets inside the coat I always wore. Turning and reaching in, a sudden chill running down my back, I pulled out the long distance radio Zipeau had given to each of the search parties. The other two noticed my stopping of course, and slowed as well to look back at me in confusion, John more so than Fenrir. The radio was vibrating and flashing a red light, indicating someone attempting to contact me, so I pressed the speaker button immediately.

"Hello?"

"Hawken, thank God! We've got a big problem developing over here," Hiccup's voice rang through, breathless and slightly panicked. "We found Viggo's main base over here and…well, Tsefan wasn't there either, but wild dragons have been losing their minds and going feral all over the place up here, and the hunters are behind it. They're darting it with, uh…"

"Wildwood," I supplied, expression darkening and a churning sensation rising in my stomach. I reached into another pocket, feeling the pair of darts hiding within.

"Yes, that's it," Hiccup said, before pausing. "Wait, you know about this too?"

"There's been a similar problem along the coast of China, and we just found the source they were using to make the serum," I growled. "They had a Narnian captive here as a slave –we'll be bringing him with us by the way, big surprise for everyone- and they've been making the stuff for two and a half decades at least and causing a war over here with it."

"Two and a half…oh, God. Viggo said he'd had plans, but I didn't think it was going on that long. This is global, isn't it?"

"Yeah, have to assume so. If you're having issues too, it's a worldwide endeavor already with the stuff."

"Right. Anyway, we have another big problem," Hiccup refocused frantically. "Viggo knew we were there, expected us, and…Hawken, he's got weapons that use Aurianna's gems. He had a dart gun that could bypass our barriers and…Nick's been shot with a potentially fatal dose of the serum."

My blood ran cold, and I nearly dropped the radio. Viggo had weapons that could bypass the best defense the rest of my friends had, which meant I was the only one he couldn't get a certain shot at, and he was making Wildwood doses strong enough not only to cause madness, but possibly death, and we didn't yet have a cure.

And it was Nick who had been shot. My eyes slowly traveled over to meet John's; he'd heard the whole thing and his excited expression had suddenly turned terrified all over again. His eyes flicked in a panic to the radio and I followed, fear rising as I saw another light blinking: the power was already draining due to the distance of the signal. I had almost no time to talk, and we had to move.

"Do you know how long we have?"

"Couple of days at most if Viggo is to be believed," Hiccup replied, "and unfortunately I think this is one time he's not being deceptive. Nick's already dropped into savage state though, and we had to tie him down. We're headed back to Berk now to get him to a hospital. How soon can you be here to help?"

"I'll be there in a half hour, maybe less," I said, already calculating what needed to be taken care of in that time. "Radio's almost dead so I need to turn it off; just try to keep Nick calm in any way you can and we'll meet you there."

"We'll probably be back just after you then. See you there."

The transmission ended as Hiccup turned off his end of the call, and I did so mine before rushing back to the room behind us.

"What on earth are you doing?!" John cried frantically.

"Grabbing more darts," I growled, "and Tsefan forgive me for this, but I'm fully preventing this from escalating any further while I can." I spun around the corner, running to the shelves and swiping a few more darts to stuff in my pocket before charging up an electrical streamer around my hand and whipping it down across the rest of the little monstrosities. The liquid within each vaporized in an instant and they exploded simultaneously, showering the room in glass and metal shards and leaving the supply of darts destroyed. Wasting no more time I whirled back around again and rushed down the hall, taking John's place of before and ushering the two mammals ahead of me.

We burst out the door, startling Qiao in spectacular fashion as I let the metal and wood cover fall back into place, but he quickly composed himself again. However, he couldn't help a curious glance at John. "The heck did you find in there?" he asked as I began to morph, drawing John's shocked gaze again. "Coming out in quite a hurry. And with a guest."

"A final answer to the mystery of the savage dragons, more confirmation that it's the Coalition spearheading the problem, and this is a Narnian fox that they had imprisoned and were forcing to make their poison," I explained quickly as I crouched down, a fully grown Shadowracer. "Get on now; we need to get back to Láng Chéng and drop you off with the evidence because I also just got a call from our other friends with a message that we need to get back to Berk pronto."

Fenrir and Qiao did not hesitate did not hesitate to climb on (well, the latter maybe with slight reluctance, but he was at least somewhat used to me now and spurred on by my own urgency and my provision of the strap again), but John was slow to move.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes I know, I can turn into a dragon at will and it's very shocking, get used to it," I snapped. "Your son's life is in mortal danger and you need to get away from here now otherwise yours might be too, so get on!"

I don't know what spurred him more, but luckily this time John shook off his reservations and gingerly climbed on, grabbing hold of one of my vertebral spines tightly. I erected a barrier over them to protect them from the wind now that I had three relatively unsecured passengers and then yelled, "Brace yourselves!" before launching off the ground.

Everyone was congregating in Xi'nai's palace courtyard when we returned, likely to arrange further plans for rebuilding, and my friends alongside Peter, the head wolf, and Ashira jumped up immediately as I dove down to land.

"Find anything?" Teshra asked, before she and everyone else caught sight of John sliding shakily off my back with the other two before I demorphed. "Never mind, answered that question."

"A lot more too, actually," I said, "Teshra, Ember, everyone else, believe it or not meet John Wilde, Nick's father." I paused for just a moment to let that sink in (and sink in it did; had I not continued speaking I was sure jaws would have hit the ground) before turning to Peter, Xi'nai, and Ashira, pulling out one of the darts for each of them as evidence. "The Coalition has been drugging the dragons with a serum from a Narnian plant called Wildwood, so if you can find something that can counter this, do so immediately. Unfortunately we can't stick around to help, as I was just told that the hunters have attacked another of our group elsewhere with the same drug, so we have to leave for now and assist them."

"You're going right now?" Peter asked warily, glancing at the wolf and woman near him. "But you only just got this answer, and you promised to help them rebuild what was lost last night! What if your dragon is here somewhere still? Or you can find the cure before we do?"

"You can work with Xi'nai and Ashira to find answers," I said hurriedly. "They're not your enemies after all, just other victims played off each other by the same people. If we find a cure then I assure you I will personally come back here to give it to you, and I will bring helping hands to fix things or perhaps a payment for what was done if you've finished by the time I get back. But my friend is facing death right now and the head of the Coalition knows we've been meddling, plus John here has told us that no dragon was ever brought to the hideout the hunters had him at, let alone any Night Furies. Our lead for that here is dead, and if Tsefan is anywhere else in the area then as soon as they find out what we did to John's prison and the poison factory there the hunters will move him anyway. I have a crisis that needs my attention now though, and the search will have to follow after."

"Hawken, the trip home is going to take several hours at the least still," Ember reminded with caution. "Do we have that kind of time?"

"Hiccup said Viggo claims the poison will take a couple of days for full lethality to set in, so I hope so," I said. "And we're not traveling back the way we came; Odin said I control the portal to an extent, remember?" Not waiting for an answer, I turned away and focused on the air in an open portion of the courtyard ahead of us, lifting my hand and focusing. "We're taking the shortcut." The air rippled and split, a dappled glow appearing above the ground in front of my outstretched hand.

"Oh," Ember blurted dumbly. "Right."

"Okay, let's move!" I snapped. "Everyone through!"

One by one they obeyed, even John cautiously following the others without hesitating too long, and I gave one last glance around once I was the last of us present, nodding firmly toward Peter and Xi'nai. "I swear I will be back to help, whether with a cure or just to bring the hunters down if that's all I can manage," I promised. Then, I stepped through too. Behind me, the uncertain faces of the Alagaesian man and Asian wolf vanished behind the glow, and then I was standing in my yard with the others, the portal resetting itself behind me in a shift of light so slight only a watchful eye would have caught it.

"Alright, now everyone to Berk!"

"But… we just came through there, didn't we?" John asked in confusion. "What…?"

"Again, just trust me," I replied, offering my hand to him again. He paused a moment, before steeling himself and taking it, and we slipped through again with the others. This time, the forests of Berk erupted into view around us, the shocked expressions of Phil and his flock greeting us among the trees.

"Ow, this is going to give me a headache," the fox next to me grumbled, letting go of my hand and holding it to his forehead. "Please tell me we're done moving like that."

"Don't worry, no more portal jumps," I assured, kneeling down and morphing again. "And a headache is still better than getting stuck in China any longer. Get on."

This time he did not hesitate, climbing up alongside Fenrir as the others saddled up as well, and we took off toward Berk, praying that Nick would also reach the island before the fight for his life had progressed too far to be won.

Viggo, I thought to myself, after all this is over, I'm paying you a personal visit.

A/N-This had been a chapter I was planning since writing the first couple in this book, a tie-in of an old Zootopia character that was dropped for the actual film and here serving as a tie for the beginnings of the Coalition's grand scheme. John has certainly been away from home for a very long time...

Anyway, with a final test next week and only work to deal with for a month, I'll have a touch more time to write and such so the prior schedule will return with it. Additionally, make sure to keep a close watch on the Book of Dragons; two new entries, the Pirlopex and Mountainguard, will be showing up soon!

Until next time, HawkTooth out!