As Alphas danced his way through hordes of attackers, leaving behind only memories and grieving family members, he found himself wondering.
As Omegas explained the difficulties that had arisen to the Berkians, he felt a sense of faraway thoughtfulness.
As Hiccup listened, he wanted more and more to lie down and panic.
As Caird heard of the reports of a brawl in the prison cells, he sighed and waved his informant away with instructions to let it sort itself out.
As Myre found out about the capture of not just one, but two Arcanums, with a sweetener of six Vikings, he smiled to himself.
And in several places in the middle of the ocean somewhere, things began grinding their long journey towards the end.
=0=
"Are you okay?" Omegas asked. Hiccup was walking around in circles in a single spot and trying to inhale the atmospheric equivalent of about three sheep.
"Nononononononono I'm fine," Hiccup said shakily as he continued orbiting a specific panel of wood.
"No time for that, man," Omegas said, and picked up the Berkian chief like he was handling an armful of kittens. Hiccup was slung over a shoulder and Omegas jogged off, with the rest of the Berkians following, just barely resisting the urge to do as Hiccup had done.
"Hey, Fishlegs, pick me up too," Tuffnut said, trying to maintain some form of ridiculousness as they ran down the corridors. What was a life, if not spent without every second only to honour Loki?
Fishlegs didn't waste time talking, and just picked Tuffnut up and went on like that.
Two minutes later, he wheezed and set him back down.
"Why'd you stop?" Tuffnut asked, who had sort of been enjoying the ride despite the situation.
"Can't… run… too… heavy," Fishlegs managed between gasps.
"I'm heavy?" Tuffnut asked, eyes sparkling. He pumped the air. "Yes! I've got to try falling on people next time!"
Omegas snorted ahead of them. Hiccup, a little more coherent now, was insisting on running on his own one foot.
"Nah."
"Why?"
"Someone else might ask to be carried."
"They won't! Put me down! Please!"
"No can do. Bear with it."
"But why?"
"Later."
And Omegas gave him a grin that immediately shut him up. He resigned to looking at the floor pass by before him.
=0=
"My word, man," Alphas said between slashes. "Who trained the lot of you?"
He got no reply apart from screams and the occasional gurgle when he felt like a little whisper of steel across the windpipe would be sufficient.
Bigger fish to fry, or bigger men to kill, and all that.
"Have you ever thought about how it works?" he said aloud as he stabbed another one through the torso. "The binding you're doing."
He skipped under a swung axe and slammed the offender's head into the sharp end of someone else's sword.
"It's like language. Put the words together and you have a sentence, right?"
The stricken sword-wielder got a good view of his heart before he died.
"The runes are like the words. Put them together properly, you have a function."
A scream of metal as Alphas pitted his sword against another soldier's mace was cut short as the blade passed through the unfortunate weapon and into its master.
"What's been done there, is you've somewhat said that 'if this, then that'. With us, well, we wear it and we can't use magic." A flurry of blows put down three more within the same second. "Cleverly enough, we can't take it off without using magic."
Alphas spun and one of his opponents flew away, landing rather painfully on top of a fallen mace.
"It would be a rather effective kind of restraint will you stop screaming if it were made with that intent in mind," he mused as he put the unfortunate man out of his misery. "On chains, perhaps. Hmm. An idea to put on the table at home."
Alphas looked around, and realized no one else was standing. Kolger was awake and too afraid to say anything, despite the vast amounts of alcohol sloshing about in his system. Alphas strode to his cell, stepping over prone bodies where necessary, and put his face to the iron.
"Would you like me to continue?"
Kolger trembled violently, and Alphas realized the confusion. Oh, like he was ever going to have survived.
"I mean the little magic lesson. Want to know more?" he smiled.
Kolger nodded so fast it was a wonder his head didn't fly off. Of course, that was the only reaction to be expected. Alphas crossed his arms and put them to the door, leaning against in a manner that could only be described as relaxed, because there really was no other word to give even a hint of that predatory stance.
"You completely cut us off from magic. The dragons though, the dragons are cut off from everything that makes them dragons. The sigils have been arranged so that at least one leg must touch some surface at all times. Fire doesn't travel further than the throat before turning into fish. Excellent strategy, I must say. They try to attack you and they get only satisfaction? Ingenious. Really, Kolger, you must tell me something."
To poor Kolger, it seemed as though the universe rapidly shrunk until there was nothing but him and Alphas and all his nightmares at once. Nothing except Alphas, who soaked those fears in and radiated them, casting him into darkness.
The eyes that looked at him held something that was usually confined to the eyes of unspeakable things. Kolger had never known them and never would, but Alphas knew, and if he knew what Kolger was seeing from behind the misty curtains of black terror that shrouded his vision, perhaps he could have compared that view to… them.
Alphas' hand slammed the criss-cross of metal that was the cell doors. Kolger would have given anything to be at the end of a lion's teeth or a dragon's fire or a scorpion's sting right now, because at least there you had a chance.
Here, there was nothing but the inevitable.
When Alphas spoke, the words themselves trembled at being spoken.
"Who is making these for you?"
The unfortunate Kolger could only babble.
"Please no I-I don't know w-what they are C-Caird knows Caird knows Caird knows please don't k-kill me no no ple-"
Alphas opened the door to retrieve his dagger, and with some effort, dislodged it from the bone.
"Good throw," he murmured to himself, and inspected the stormy gray blade before walking away.
=0=
When Omegas finally reached a closed door was when he set Hiccup down.
Hiccup stretched. That position had been uncomfortable in more than the mental sense.
"So we're here?" he asked as he tried to bend over backwards.
"Yes. Would you like me to help you with that?" Omegas asked.
"Uh, sure."
"'Kay."
Hiccup was picked up by the feet and shoulders.
A minute later, he felt like a condensed universe.
"Oh that was good. Thanks!"
"No problem," came the reply, accompanied as always by a cheerful gesture. In this case, it was a little laugh.
Astrid fidgeted. "Can we go in?"
Omegas nodded. "Absolutely. Just watch out for booby traps."
Astrid, who had had her hand to the door, whirled on him.
"Traps?"
He raised his hands before him. "Kidding. We already checked the room, don't worry. It's perfectly safe."
She gave him a perfunctory glare, then walked inside and the scowl was immediately replaced with cooing and murmurings of "my baby girl" as she petted Stormfly.
Everyone else followed suit and soon the room was filled with whispers of affection. Hiccup passed somewhat bashfully in front of Wreckage and the Omegas' dragon, who he had told them during their time in the cells was called Spiral. He nodded to them, and he could have sworn that Wreckage gave him an almost imperceptible nod back. He stared for a moment, then hurriedly turned away to face Toothless, and hugged his snout. He got a crooning warble in return.
"Right," Omegas said as he positioned his axe over the door. "Step back now everyone."
They all wisely stepped back, and the axe was brought down over the lock in a splinter of fractured, tortured metal. Hiccup gaped. Everyone gaped. He had cleaved through gods knew what kind of metal in an instant, without so much as a grunt.
And it had splintered.
Wood was supposed to splinter. Not metal. Metal should be unperturbed. At the very least, metal should be dented.
Metal should not be torn apart.
Hiccup raised his hand. He didn't know why, but after that show he felt he should raise his hand. Omegas glanced at him.
"Yes?" he asked hesitantly.
"Um. Is that an axe or a hammer?"
Omegas tilted his head in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"You tore the metal!" Hiccup exclaimed, going straight to the heart of the matter. All he got in return was a look of greater bewilderment.
"So?" Omegas asked, failing to see what was so fundamentally wrong.
"It's… it's metal!"
"Uh, yeah… it's metal… so?"
"But-" Hiccup flailed for words. A hand grasped his shoulder.
"Look, you can ask every kind of question later on. Right now, we need to get out. Okay? Questions are good, but this really is not the time to ask them. Okay?" Omegas asked.
Hiccup sagged. He was right. "Okay," he murmured.
"Cool."
One by one, the other locks were ripped to shreds. Everyone took great care to stand as far away as possible.
The dragons stepped out.
And Omegas smiled.
"Let's go."
=0=
Caird stepped out of his quarters and took the way to the lavatory. He turned a corner and then someone grabbed him and threw him along the length of the corridor.
Nature's call was ignored, and nature itself soon learned to shut up as Caird looked up at Alphas Arcanum.
=0=
'I should have gone to sleep then,' Hiccup thought desperately as he narrowly avoided an arrow and tumbled across the deck. All around him, people were fighting and struggling and sweating a bit too much for his liking.
'I shouldn't have stayed up to look for stuff about Red Ghosts,' he lamented as someone picked him up and dragged him out of the way of a leisurely hammer. Hiccup watched it dreamily as it arced down into the ground where he had been. It slammed into the deck and broke the wood.
Someone slapped him. The haze of sounds and blurred shapes sharpened and he saw a furious Astrid.
Uh oh.
"Don't just daydream!" she yelled, then whirled to kick someone in the head. Hiccup winced as he fell, clutching his skull.
She looked back at him, frowning. "Come on, Hiccup," she said, and pulled him along behind her.
Hiccup.
Why did the name sound so flavourful when she said it?
She pulled him along, and he would have been content to just be dragged onwards forever, as long as she was the one who had him by the hand, until she dumped him in front a great black shape which wrrred at him.
"Toothless, take care of him," she snapped, and strode off with her axe in hand. He looked up at the dragon and shrugged.
"She's too awesome," he smiled happily.
Toothless pointedly ignored him, opting instead to whack someone with his tail and scream into another's face. He circled his rider, growling.
The world sharpened to crystal clarity, and Hiccup scrambled up. He reached for his belt and there was a burst of flames as Inferno ignited.
Parry. Swipe. Duck. Lunge. Parry. Thrust. Swipe.
Toothless took care of the rest with a briskly snapped out wing.
The soldier hurtled back.
He looked around and then there he was, Omegas Arcanum, a whirlwind of death that ate up the opponents and spat out their corpses. Blood pooled at his feet and behind him was the path he'd taken to get here, decorated with carnage.
Not for the first time, Hiccup was impressed, and feeling rather sick.
A splintering crash ate up the rest of his thoughts as two people barrelled through a wall and kept going in a flurry of movement. Alphas and Caird had yet to reach for their swords, and were duking it out with physical blows.
Alphas flipped in the air and kicked Caird in the face, who fell sitting to the floor. Alphas made to land on him but his foot was caught in a platform made of hands which saw him slammed to the floor. Caird got up, still holding him by the boots, and whipped him over his head and introduced him to a new spot on the floor. Alphas recovered quickly with his hands to the ground, and spun his legs, effectively spinning Caird onto his head as well. Both men somersaulted to their feet and a new series of crashing blows commenced.
Every fighter was giving those two a wide berth by now.
Hiccup whirled madly just in time to block a sword, and Toothless whipped his assailant away.
Oh, how he hated this. How he hated the madness. This wasn't the place for him, He'd be much better suited at home, tinkering with that contraption he'd come up with for doors.
Toothless roared, and the sound startled him from his reverie. Right. Not the place to daydream. Focus, focus.
Snotlout hurtled through a wall of men, whooping with glee, and landed in front of him. He must have hardly noticed that Hiccup was here. The Jorgensen ran off to another tight group, which immediately scattered in the face of his hammer.
And then came the crowd which swallowed all the others, and Hiccup watched the huge tide of black and red as it came towards him, like an ever growing tsunami.
A roar.
A slam.
And the crowd dispersed into panic as Wreckage rammed himself into their midst.
Caird flew by in front of him and he reared back, snapping his teeth. Hiccup did not want to be around for anyone to get bitten by that monstrous mouth. It would be less of a bite and more of a rather large chunk suddenly and painfully missing.
Creaks wailed across the deck, and the entire ship rocked. Hiccup slid away down the now nearly vertical flooring, and was saved from falling a rather long way down into the ocean by the rails. Toothless crashed into the rails, just barely not splintering them under his weight.
And then the vessel rocked back into place, throwing up a huge spray as it did so. The droplets reached all the way up to the deck, and the foaming water was clearly visible even in the blinding sun.
"Wreckage!"
The roar came from nowhere, and it was an instant before Hiccup recognized Alphas' voice.
Wreckage answered the roar with one of his own. Everyone instinctively clapped their hands to their ears, and Hiccup thought it prudent to do so himself.
Even with those measures, that world-rending thing that could barely be called a growl and could more accurately be called a consternation of thunder was deafening. Hiccup took his hands from his head, the sound still echoing, and was immediately surprised when Toothless grabbed him, threw him onto his back, and galloped across to where Alphas was standing.
And jumped.
They landed in a much smaller kind of vessel, but that was compared to the hugeness of what they had been held on. That ship was a manmade island. This was just a regular ship, and for that Hiccup was glad. For some reason, there were no people on this one.
"No one here?" he managed to ask as Alphas walked towards him. He shook his head.
"This is sort of like an emergency ship. No emergency yet, so no people, and food and rations for days."
"Oh, good," Hiccup slumped.
"I'm glad you appreciate it," he responded, as the other dragons and their riders thumped on to the deck.
"Careful now," Alphas said without sparing a glance for any of them, his gaze focused solely on looking up. "Don't want to capsize the moment we get here."
Hiccup, wondering what he was looking at, made to turn his head, and saw nothing of note. He turned to Alphas, mouth opening to ask a question.
The arrow sliced through the sails, and fire spread.
"'Megas! Handle it!" Alphas shouted, and leaped off the side.
Hiccup just stared, and then his mind must have decided not to deal with it, because he blacked out.