Chapter 36

One for Many

The greatest sacrifice

Is the most painful vice

The servant's soul

For the thousand-fold

The mourners cry

When the willing die

Yet the fallen give

So their loved will live

/

"That was the day the world seemed about to end, and when all was done, at least ours felt like it did with what passed afterward. I've known many close friends now over the years, felt like I would lose one or another several times in the past, but this was new, and so much worse, because we were all feeling this loss equally and there was no one left to help pick us back up."

~Hiccup

-0-

Their eyes had been locked on the beam of light that had been pulsing out of the black cloud roiling in front of them, and then on the second great fountain of ash that tore through the sky beyond it shortly after. When the ground had opened, they had nearly been thrown off their feet by the great shockwave that ripped outward, and had been lucky to not have to move to avoid the pyroclastic flow that surged from the caldera, sweeping over the earth in a deadly blanket. Looks turned upward again as the beam flickered for a moment, but something drew their gaze away about two minutes after the volcano began to erupt, a faint premonition. As they did, Hiccup and Toothless saw the others suddenly jerk back in shock, almost like something had physically hit them.

"Wha-are you okay? What's happening?" Hiccup asked anxiously.

::He…he said goodbye,:: Amethyst whispered, eyes wide in a blank, dead stare. ::He has a link and he…oh God, it's gone!:: She whirled around, staring at Hiccup now in unfiltered panic. ::We need to go; we need to get him out of-!::

She didn't get to finish as the sky suddenly exploded, something within the violent ash plume searing through the darkness like it didn't exist. Hiccup closed his eyes instinctively and turned away alongside the others, but even then, the intensity was beyond anything he'd ever experienced; he was seeing through his eyelids and picking out individual details on the mountains twenty miles away as the light wave ripped past them, roiling onward to the horizon in all directions.

Several days later, they would come to find that most of the globe had seen the energy aurora as it rippled through the sky, setting the turbulent atmosphere straight as it passed little by little, like a great bedsheet being smoothed out. But right then, a different concern filled each and every one of them as the light finally died away and they were able to turn their attention back toward the great plume from the volcano.

The ash clouds from the two great plumes had half-vaporized in the event, and what was left was no longer rising into the sky but falling to the ground in a gentle curtain, leaving the air to slowly clear, and reveal what was left. Toothless spotted him first, the small, frail figure beginning to drop from the sky in the midst of the cloud.

::There he is!:: he roared, opening his wings to take off as Hiccup braced himself, but Amethyst beat him to it, rocketing off the ground and surging toward her half-brother, buffeting the others in the backwash of her wings.

::HAWKEN!:: she roared, pumping her wings as fast as she could. Hawken was falling rapidly, nearing the ground at an alarming rate. The female Night Fury dove when she realized just how quickly he was dropping, stretching out her paws as far as she could ahead of her; either way, she knew, this was not going to be an okay landing.

Twenty feet above the ground, Amethyst finally caught hold of Hawken's limp arm. She yanked him hard into her grasp and tightly coiled her head, wings, and tail around him as she too plummeted, letting gravity take over as it inevitably would. She felt herself skip over what was left of the boiling water in the lake as it rushed to fill the great smoking chasm left behind, and slam hard into the fuming, rocky shore, rolling and bouncing as she dug a trench through the shattered ground, finally slowing only when she rolled into the now-flattened tree line, the edges of her wings and tail splaying limply out over shards of stone and splintered trees. No longer moving, the dragon let out a heavy groan from the injuries that now made themselves known from the impact, but she refused to let go of the grip she had on her brother.

"Amethyst! Oh my God, Amethyst are you okay?" Hiccup yelled as he and Toothless came skidding in over the gravel and broken branches left in her wake. The rider leapt from his dragon's back before they'd come to a full stop, tripping over a stray rock and almost flying face-first into the ground but ignoring his blunder in favor of stumbling forward as he rushed to Amethyst's side, Toothless right next to him.

"Oh geez, you've got cuts all over you," he exclaimed, gingerly placing a hand on her side. "Please tell me nothing's broken-!"

"Check…urgh…Hawken," Amethyst wheezed, carefully unwrapping her wings to show the young man she held there. Hiccup nodded, glancing behind him as Embron and the two snakes caught up to them, before kneeling down and looking over Hawken, taking him carefully from Amethyst's paws and supporting his head.

Hawken was in a state none of them had ever seen him, also covered in a myriad of cuts and bruises like Amethyst was from the hundreds of rocks and splinters that had assaulted him in the air, the fabric portions of his coat and clothes battered and ripped wherever Myscale didn't hold them together. But, something else scared Hiccup far more: Hawken was freezing cold to the touch, a worrying sign after being in the middle of a volcanic eruption (and he knew that Hawken had never liked being cold), and he was striped and scarred with burns across his hands and face. They weren't serious in their own right, but Hiccup had never known a time where Hawken had ever turned off the common flame resistance nearly all dragons shared. Something very, very drastic had occurred up there if he had done so now.

"This isn't good," he muttered gravely.

::What? What's not good?:: Toothless queried, looking worriedly over Hiccup's shoulder. ::Is he…oh, Yah preserve us, he's got burns.::

"He's burned, yes, but he's also freezing cold, and his heartbeat's really shallow," Hiccup replied, standing up carefully. "Toothless, bend down; we need to get him to a hospital, now!"

Toothless nodded, lowering his wings and lying flat on the ground as Hiccup lifted Hawken onto his back.

"Jake! Kingsley! Help me keep him in place!" Hiccup ordered. "We can't waste any time at all here!" The two snakes nodded and unwrapped themselves from Embron's spines, racing over to Toothless.

::W-wait,:: Amethyst groaned, slowly rolling over. ::I can…I can help-owww!::

She yelped and collapsed again, nursing her back-right leg and her left wing. Embron stepped in immediately, lowering his snout to scan the Night Fury and frowning as he did so.

::Sprained leg, maybe worse, and I'm guessing a fractured radial wing bone,:: he said. ::Amethyst, you're not flying anywhere. Hiccup, Toothless, go; get Hawken to a hospital now!::

Jake and Kingsley were busy wrapping themselves tight around both Hawken and Toothless, Kingsley around Hawken's chest and arms and Jake over his legs, so Hiccup nodded, climbing into the saddle in front of their injured brother.

"Alright, catch up when you can Embron," he said. "No good having you go down either, got it?" Then, he looked down and nodded to Toothless. "We're secure bud; let's go!" Toothless nodded back, and took to the sky, soaring south.

Embron turned his gaze downward then to Amethyst. ::Shrink down a bit, that way I can safely carry you,:: he ordered.

Amethyst shook her head again, and tried a second time to stand up. ::No, I can do it I'm sure,:: she stated adamantly. ::Toothless has had more accidents-::

::Toothless is also leagues more experienced than you are and doesn't barge through stone and volcano fumes in a blind rush, nor does he attempt flying with broken wings,:: Embron bit back, towering up over her. ::I know you want to go and help; believe me, I do too, considering Hawken is as close to me as he is you, but it's not going to do any good if you strain that wing any further, or any of the other injuries I can see either and end up killing yourself on the way back. Now shrink down as I told you so we can both get back, get Freyja to heal you and hopefully Hawken if she hasn't by the time we get there before things deteriorate any further.::

Amethyst scowled, before allowing herself to decrease in size, wincing as the act dragged her wings across the jagged ground, upsetting the break. Embron nodded, before lifting off the ground and carefully grabbing her around the middle with his talons.

::Now hold still,:: he said more softly. ::We're getting out of here. And pray, that things do not get any worse before we return.::

Toothless could have sworn that the air itself around him was breaking at the speed he was moving. He'd exceeded the sound barrier before and was no stranger to the sonic waves that followed, though usually it occurred in dives, and then only in short bursts. Now though, the adrenaline fueling his system from the thought of losing his other "adopted" brother kept him and his passengers at and occasionally above that great speed for several minutes at a time during his hastened travel homeward.

Hiccup was flattened against the saddle, knowing that if he gave the wind screaming around him any purchase he would rip before any part of his suit would, and the two snakes behind him held a similarly low profile as they grabbed on to the dragon they rode with all their strength to keep themselves and Hawken from falling off in the wind. Toothless would never admit it, but they managed to bruise him heavily in their exertions. None of them even considered the notion of slowing down at all however, knowing that time was of the essence at the moment.

As they approached the outskirts of Hawken's home town and Toothless began to slow down so that he wouldn't crash upon landing, Hiccup finally remembered the radio in his pocket. While it had gone off several times in the desperate attempts of the Descendants back home and those around them to make contact after they felt Hawken's relay, it had gone unnoticed in their great hurry. Whipping it out, Hiccup turned it on.

"Zipeau! This is urgent: get Freyja Asgard to the medical center as fast as you possibly can! Hawken's really beat up and it doesn't look good at all!"

"You finally answer!" a semi-hysterical response came back. "What happened up there?! We've been trying to get through for nearly an hour!"

"He did something that managed to shut down the volcano, the whole thing, and maybe the storm as well, but now he's unconscious, freezing cold, and covered in cuts and first-degree burns, maybe worse in some places!"

"Oh Lord please help us. We're going now, we'll meet you there!"

Toothless was already angling himself down toward the building, banking swiftly and landing carefully in front of the emergency entrance. As the doors swept open, he did not wait for Hiccup to get off before bounding through.

"Get a doctor down here now!" the dragon barked, shocking the attendant at the desk nearby. "My brother is in critical condition!"

The commotion naturally attracted several nurses nearby immediately, and they ran up to him save for one who disappeared for a minute before returning with a gurney, pulling it up alongside Toothless.

"Can you tell us his name, what happened?" another asked gently, looking at Hiccup as they picked Hawken up and either tried to ignore or simply not caring about Kingsley and Jake as they unwrapped themselves to let the attendants take the unconscious young man.

"His name is Hawken, guy who turns into the dragons," Hiccup said hurriedly, forcing himself to avoid sarcastic comments; surely, they could have put two and two together what with the Night Fury and sapient snakes present? "I don't know what exactly happened, but he just averted a global disaster doing whatever it was and now he's covered in burns, cold, and completely unresponsive. He's got a really weak pulse, barely breathing…"

Hiccup rushed right alongside them as they began wheeling Hawken through the building. "And, this is really serious, because since he's got dragon abilities burns should be nearly impossible, and he should never feel that cold!" He turned his head for a moment as they began to round a corner. "Kingsley! Wait here for the others and show them where to go when they get here!"

The cobra nodded simply if with clear conflict over the order, turning and waiting with a stoic expression near the doors as the rest followed the gurney deeper into the hospital.

"Get a monitor ready; patient is suffering severe physical trauma, unresponsive," the head nurse ordered as they pushed into the emergency room. "I want readings on him now and IV's ready; check his temperature and heart rate and get a respirator ready!"

Several machines were wheeled in immediately if they weren't already present, forcing Toothless to back up to give them space as patched and IV catheters came out. Several doctors now present, the room continued to grow more crowded and frantic

"Body temperature dropping, below 82°F," one of the nurses called out. "He's going into critical hypothermic shock; we need to get his core warmed up now!" He skirted around to the head of the gurney, pulling tubes along with him. "Hook up the IVs now, and check his heart rate!"

Several minutes of rushing around ensued following this, with Hiccup, Toothless, and Jake all watching from nearby with growing worry and listening to the painfully slow, but still rhythmic sound of Hawken's heart monitor tracing his pulse. Worse still, they could do nothing but stand by helplessly with their brother's life in someone else's hands. Then, Holly and Nara showed up, bursting through the doors with Astrid, Thorn, and the two big cats in tow.

"Please tell me he's okay!" Holly pleaded, rushing toward the room only to be slowed by the others who recognized the seriousness of the situation, and that Holly posed a considerable risk of getting in the way and risking her brother if she ran any further.

"Slow down Holly, he's still alive," Hiccup assured, grabbing her by the shoulders. "He's…he's not in a good way, but he's alive, and until Freyja gets here there's not much that we can do, so we need to stay out of the doctors' ways, okay?"

The teen clearly did not approve of this though, and Astrid inched closer just in case the teen went off (few things were scarier than Holly in a bad mood or a panic, other than her brother when he lost his temper), but she reluctantly nodded acquiescence, tears starting to fall already from worry as she backed away and fell against Feren, who curled around her protectively.

"I really hope Freyja gets here soon," Hiccup muttered, standing next to Astrid. "I know Zipeau left immediately to go find her, probably with Twintail in tow for transportation, but he's taking a while already."

The blonde put her arms around him. "I'm…I'm sure that everything will be okay," she tried to reassure, though the expression on her face betrayed her true thoughts on the matter. Her words were working as much to assure herself as Hiccup. "Hawken's managed to pull through everything else that's been leveled at him, so why would this be any different?"

"Because this time he did something that shut down the entire supervolcano within seconds," Hiccup replied wearily, "and the air cleared for as far as I could see, so I think that whatever it was set everything else straight too. That much power…Astrid, we found him freezing cold and covered with burns after Amethyst caught him falling from the sky. You know how hard it is to burn a dragon, and Hawken's never turned that ability off before, even when he was unconscious during that explosion in New York. You can't tell me that something's not very wrong, very different here."

A high-pitched beeping noise suddenly drew everyone's attention to the emergency room again, those who had looked away, as the nurses and doctors began entering another state of rushed panic. Having been in hospitals before, and having seen plenty of movies with scenes featuring dying patients, Hiccup and Astrid knew what that sound was, and it chilled them to the bone.

"His heartbeat's turning erratic!" one of the nurses shouted. "Get the defibrillator ready, it's stopping quick! Temperature up, now!"

"Oh, God please no," Hiccup whispered, eyes widening, before he immediately turned to grab onto Holly, who'd leapt up to run to her brother. "Holly, Holly no! We can't -ow!"

The teen had landed a hard punch to Hiccup's stomach in her growing panic, making him double over and instinctively let go of her. She immediately ran again, right into Astrid who was better able to pin the chaotic girl's swinging arms.

"Let me go! Hawken! Let go of me!" Holly screamed, eyes frantically flittering around the room.

"I can't, Holly!" Astrid yelled back, forcing the teen to look at her. "We all want to run to him right now, okay, but it will only make things worse, and I know we don't want to lose him alright? None of us would be alright if that happened, but we can't do anything but wait, so wait with me!"

The words slowly got through to Holly, her thrashing slowing, but that didn't stop her entirely from trying to move forward, tears streaming down her face as she watched the doctors rush around Hawken, desperately trying to halt his deteriorating condition. Hiccup, now recovered from Holly's hit, stood up and joined Astrid in holding Holly tight, trying to console her as much as themselves.

But both Astrid and Hiccup almost lost their own self-control though, stopped only by Feren and Sasha planting themselves in front of them, when the beeping sound of the heart monitor suddenly flatlined.

"No heartbeat!" one of the doctors exclaimed. "Remove his shirt, charge the defibrillator and begin resuscitation now!"

"No, no, come on Hawken fight this!" both Hiccup and Toothless whispered in unison, eyes widening as they watched the doctors tear away what was left of Hawken's shirt as they grabbed the paddles of the machine that now held the young man's remaining chances at life. "You can't leave, not now, not after all this!"

"Everyone ready," the doctor with the paddles called out. "3…2…1…clear!"

The 'THUMP!' of the defibrillator made everyone in the room wince, watching Hawken's body jerk violently off the table before coming to rest again, unmoving. They held their breath, praying fervently.

"No pulse! Keep pumping!" the doctor ordered, holding up the defibrillator pads and rubbing them together again. "3…2…1…clear!"

THUMP!

Silence.

"No pulse. Keep pumping!"

"No, no, NO!" Hiccup and Holly now yelled, the latter renewing her fight to get to Hawken, and the former thoroughly blocked and held back by Feren and Jake. "No! We can't lose him! Hawken!"

"3…2…1…clear!"

THUMP!

"No pulse!"

"HAWKEN!"

A/N-Like I said, things were going to get darker...

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