Anna's POV
"Elsa, of course the water ripples, there are ships everywhere," Astrid countered back. However, the horror on her face remained.
"No, you don't understand, I feel it! It came from the island! Right after the dragon breached through that hole!" Elsa pointed ahead.
"Ladies, we have a quota to fill!" Eret called for us from afar. "Let's go!"
We exchanged a look. Elsa remained as worried as ever, but I honestly couldn't share whatever anxiety that she felt. And Eret was right, not to mention that we're so close to the end by now. "Elsa, let's go, we're nearly finished," I reminded her.
With that, Astrid commanded her dragon to dash off into the direction of the last ship. I looked behind to see my sister watching our move not to share her worry in disbelief. Despite knowing the fact that neither Hiccup nor Toothless was anywhere to be seen, I suppressed my worry by having some faith. Hiccup was the first Viking to fly on a dragon, so he could've simply flown to somewhere else to which I was sure I was going to stumble upon later on.
We finally reached the last ship. Astrid directed Stormfly to circle the ship on the sky to scan the ship thoroughly, and the other dragons followed our movement. The ship itself was swarmed by other smaller ones, all for the sake of reinforcing defense. The deck was crowded by Therondians, ready than ever to welcome us with their weapons. However, the caged dragons were anxious to welcome us as well, judging from their nonstop roaring and crying. Cannonball after cannonball were shot toward the sky to take us out, not to mention the bolas, arrows, and bullets, but Berkians were so agile in performing evasive maneuvers with their dragons. At one time, Astrid's Stormfly did a barrel roll to catch, not to evade, a giant wooden arrow specifically made to take out dragons, and threw it back to the ship with her momentum. Fortunately, I had a good grip on Astrid.
"You okay?" Astrid asked, chuckling slightly.
"I'm okay," I replied. I was actually taken aback by the dragon's sudden barrel roll, but I sugarcoated it. "About time for all of us to jump in there."
"We always go in together," Astrid smiled. "But on a cue."
"A cue?" I raised a brow.
Out of nowhere, a dragon flew past us in a blinding speed towards the ship. Only after a few seconds did I realize that it was Valka.
"That's our cue!" Astrid said. With that, Stormfly dived into the ship along with the others. With giant dragons landing onboard, it was inevitable for the ship to wobble from one side to another. I managed to spot Fishleg actually making a hole with his dragon's hard landing on the deck.
Once again, swords were drawn and shields were raised. I hopped off Stormfly and drew my sword out.
Despite fighting with mother nature on our side, I could tell that the Therondians really well knew that this was their last intact shipment, since the Berkians had raided the others. Hence, they invested every man, every sweat, every sword, and every firepower there was. It almost seemed that all Therondians were present. Put it simply, the current fight was fiercer than the previous ones we've done.
"Gah!"
My back landed against a mast after being bashed with a shield. Forcing myself to recover my composure as quickly as possible, I spotted my foe about to swing his sword right at me. I closed my eyes and shielded myself with my own hands.
Fwoosh!
The distinct sound of ice magic made me open my eyes. And I was correct, it was Elsa, who had apparently impaled my opponent with an icicle.
"You okay?" She helped me stand up.
"Just a sore back, but then I'm in my twenties, so…" I rubbed my back.
Splash!
The ship wobbled into the direction away from the island. Having ourselves near the railing of the ship, Elsa and I caught the sight of the wave on the water that made the ship wobble. Its sheer size caught me curious. What could've possibly caused this?
"I told you the water just rippled! Something must've been triggered after that giant dragon hit the island and went through it!" Elsa said.
"Okay, okay! But what could've possibly caused the water to move?" I asked.
"The volcano?" Elsa raised her brow. "Anna, have you forgotten?"
My jaw dropped instantly. She was right. Probably. I shook my head in disagreement.
"Come on, the island's size is nothing compared to the dragon," I took her hand and dragged her to the busy part of the deck. However, I stopped something vibrated on the deck. To be fair, the deck was crowded with men and dragons wrestling. But this one felt particularly big, big enough to freeze everybody.
"Whoa! What is it doing?!"
"Where's that dragon man? It will listen to him!"
More and more hectic shouting sounded. Along with that, woods shattering was heard from the same direction. After a few seconds, white dorsal fins emerged from the water that were nearly as tall as the ship's masts. A face revealed itself, a gray dragon with two tusks in which one was shattered. The only lighting in the middle of the torrential rain was the fire the dragons had caused either onboard or on the ships nearby. And with the dragon's towering height, it got darker soon.
"The Bewilderbeast… I thought… Hiccup said that he'd taken care of it?" Elsa said, gripping my hand tighter while stepping backwards.
"The Bewilder what?" I asked.
Everyone spectated the Bewilderbeast, either in awe or fear, as it opened its jaw and let out an ear-bleeding roar onto the air.
"GROAAARRR!"
I immediately knelt down and arched my back while sealing my ears as tight as I could. I found my sister doing the same next to me, and so were the other Berkians and Therondians. The roaring lasted for at least ten seconds, and our eardrums were barely keeping up with the roar.
Once the Bewilderbeast stopped, we could finally open our eyes and ears. Right away, we were taken aback by yet another surprise. The dragons were reacting by shaking violently, as if they're fighting something inside their heads.
"We need to break the focus!" Eret exclaimed. "Someone give the Bewilderbeast a good hit with a cannon or something!"
One by one, the dragons took off to the sky, leaving their fights unfinished. Right away, without our strongest allies, we inevitably had to pull back. I looked around for such object that Eret requested. There was actually a good selection of options, but all of them were surrounded by Therondians. And with the dragons not being on our side at the moment, there was zero chance of us breaking through their defense.
"Elsa, let's look around for something—" I took her hand but she pulled it away.
"No need," she lifted her hands, flurry of ice forming on them. Out of the water, giant ice pillars shot up and smacked the dragon by the chin. The hit was so hard, the dragon splashed into the water on its back. The ships that were on its way inevitably faced a bitter fate. Elsa broke down right away, collecting her energy by breathing in and out heavily, but it paid dividend as the dragons regained themselves and helped the Vikings fight against the Therondians once again.
"Get her! She's a witch!"
I turned to three men, all three charging in the same time with their swords out. I raised my sword to welcome whichever to reach me first, in which I thought all three were going to do so simultaneously, but under my knowledge, Elsa turned the floor beneath the men into ice. Two slipped on their way, leaving me with one who was still running and maintaining his balance; a perfect window for me.
I aimed my blade to cut the man from the side, particularly on the area that was not covered in armor. Taking a step forward as the man neared, I ducked and slashed my blade on my target. The man collapsed right away as more blood stained my blade.
"Hyahh!"
I turned around to a sword swinging at me from above. With a reflex I could barely believe was performed by myself, I blocked the incoming sword with my own. Once making contact, the man tried to outperform my muscles by applying more force on his sword. Learning from the past, my foot swept his to get rid of his balance. The Therondian lost it, almost taking me with his fall in the process. Once grounded, I finished my opponent with the quick stab by the heart.
Remembering the fact that there were three of them, I turned around once again to see the final one, who was still regaining his composure after slipping on Elsa's ice. His looks screamed absolutely nothing close to confidence, meaning a relatively easy fight ahead of me. I charged for the man when the giant Bewilderbeast showed up again.
"Whoa!"
It opened its mouth, and in the bottom, I saw a torrent of water forming up. It could only mean one thing. I jumped to my sister and used my body to protect her from whatever the dragon was going to spit out. Out of the beast's mouth came out a giant blast of ice that hit the ship so hard; I rolled to the railing of the ship and hit it with my sister in my arms.
I opened my arms to check her. "You okay?"
"Yeah… never been better. You?" She let go of me.
"I-I'm fine. Though if I could just finish the night with no more hitting, that would be great," I checked our surroundings briefly. It was a mess. The ice spat remained stuck on the portside of the ship. The dragons had apparently gone airborne to avoid the Bewilderbeast' frost breath. Only some remained on the deck, but they're still recovering from the huge impact. The same went to the humans; either Therondian or Berkian, everyone was still recollecting themselves. The cages onboard were no longer lined in the order they were previously in. All were scattered around on the deck. I was about to stand up when Elsa stopped me from doing so.
"Stay put."
She 'grasped' the air while looking at the big chunk of ice on the portside, but nothing happened. Slightly annoyed, she used her other hand this time and the ice began to crumble. That's when I realized that she was using her bandaged hand in the first attempt.
As the ice was crumbling, Elsa danced her hands around in a motion that made the pieces of the ice into one big ball of ice. Judging from her messy breathing and shaking arms, I could tell that Elsa was struggling. As it was forming, I could see the Bewilderbeast swimming its way to our ship from afar, about to ram it blindly. To make sure the process would be finished, I stood my ground with my sword raised to any Therondian that wanted to interfere. It didn't take long until I clashed into another duel with another Therondian.
"Anytime now sis…" I spoke as I endured the sword of my opponent with my own.
Suddenly, my opponent pulled his sword back. I was expecting him to land another swing, but instead, he punched me on the cheek hard. I kissed the floor hard for the countless times, but for the countless times as well, I knew that I had to evade whatever attack was coming to me. So, I rolled away once landing on the floor, which turned out to be a crucial move as my foe planted his sword on the floor rather than my spine. I took my window and impaled the man on the heart. His body collapsed on top of mine.
I pushed the body away from mine and my sword out of his heart. I spotted Elsa still forming the ice and suddenly stopping. She broke down once again, panting.
"Elsa?" I called for her, scooching over to her side. "Get up! Please!"
I wrapped her left arm around my neck and made her stand, but only to be welcomed by another group of Therondians. Seeing that it was not a fight I could win in a million years, I simply pointed my blade with my free arm to them.
STUMP!
From above, landed a familiar dragon; Cloudjumper. The dragon immediately countered the incoming men with a sweep of his tail. As if the men were weightless feathers, they were sent flying by the whip. Having cleared the threat, the dragon turned his neck around by 180 degrees, almost like an owl, with a look that said 'you're okay?'
"Thank you, Cloudjumper!" I expressed. "Could you please cover me while—"
BOOM!
A large explosion took place from afar, lighting the whole atmosphere so brightly, it looked like noon. After adjusting to the amount of light there was, I spotted the Bewilderbeast still swimming its way towards us, but only to be pelted by a flying rock from the sky that was nearly as large as the dragon itself.
"WHOA—WHAT THE—" I yelled.
When I looked up to the source of the flying rock, that's when I realized that the island was crumbling. From the cracks formed by the great force underneath the island, a line of blinding red light emitted, an obvious sign of fresh magma spewing out. Pieces of the island began to either crumble or fly off to a random direction.
"Oh no… oh no… this is bad…" I spoke to myself. "Have we freed all the dragons yet?!" I yelled.
"Last cage is opened!" A feminine voice replied, which sounded like Astrid. "Go! The floor is lava!"
"No need! Everyone, abandon ship!" Eret exclaimed from the other side of the deck as he hopped on his dragon. "The volcano has been triggered! We can't stay here!"
"Volcano?" A Therondian soldier asked. "You sure, man?"
With that command, every Berkian hopped onto their dragons for the final time and abandoned the ship. Astrid showed up with her Nadder right on time by landing behind us. "Need a ride?"
"Take my sister, I will take Nokk," I gave my sister's arm to Astrid and helped her sit behind the Viking.
"W-wait, are you serious?" Elsa asked.
I turned to Astrid and gave her a nod. Right away, the Nadder shot up to the sky to join the others. The dragons that had no riders simply flew away to the east, to the direction of the Hidden World. The Berkians, on the other hand, flew to the north side of the island to reach the base, which I dearly hoped was still in one piece with eruption going on.
I went over to the railing of the ship and looked down to the water. There were the debris of the battle, but no sign of the water spirit. "Nokk?" I called.
BOOM!
I turned to the island, where more explosion took place. More rocks were spewed out into the open air, some making their way to my ship, wrecking anything in the path. Due to the impact, the ship wobbled uncontrollably. My heart began to race even more. Time was running out for me.
"Nokk!—Oomf!"
My mouth was suddenly muffled by a hand, and another pulled me by the waist from behind. To free myself, I gave the hand a reckless bite.
"YEOUCH!"
When I turned around after breaking free, that's when I realized that the man was not alone. Many other Therondians seemed to be interested in the idea of capturing a woman who was alone all by herself. That's what's inscribed on the looks of their faces.
There was no other option left for me except a leap of faith. I took the leap by jumping off the ship. To no one's surprise, my bottom landed on something soft and probably convenient; Nokk!
"Nokk! You're here!" I fixed my sitting position. The water horse replied with a small neigh.
"Come on, let's go back to the base."
Giving the horse a slight kick, Nokk set off to gallop on the water. He took a circling route around the island, not a straight shot to the north side of the island. This choice of route gave me an opportunity to really take in what's going on with the island. The bottom part of the island was spewing out fresh magma into the water and thick black smokes into the air. The result of that was the upper part of the island began to crumble due to no longer having a strong base to sit on.
The sight was so terrifying, my brain forgot about the coldness of the pouring rain.
"Hiccup… you'd better be on the ship already…" I spoke softly. The man hasn't shown up since he set off to distract the Red Death, and the faith I've put in him had decayed. My last hope was that he would already be on the ship we were about to use to bail out of here.
Finally, the sight of the waterfall was in sight. Nokk turned to the waterfall to make a straight shot entrance. My hands tightened their grip on the harnesses Elsa made specifically for the water horse as I prepared to be washed away by the torrential waterfall.
"Here goes nothing…Bwahh!"
I nearly lost grip of Nokk, but we managed to break through the fall in one piece. The water spirit took me to a ladder set on the portside of the ship. I grabbed the ladder and smiled to the spirit gratefully.
"Thank you, Nokk. Go to the back of the ship and wait for the signal, okay?"
The horse nodded and disintegrated into the water.
I climbed the ladder and reached the top to see the Vikings bonding with their dragons. Cassandra and Gideon were there as well, admiring the dragons from up close from a safe distance. It didn't take an expert to tell that this was a farewell to their loved ones. It was a sweet moment, but a wild vibration spread through the walls of the cave, reminding us that time was running out. The ceiling of the cave soon started pelting pieces of rocks onto our heads.
If anything was to be considered as a cue for the Vikings to let go of their dragons and to depart, this was it. One by one, they let go of their dragons, and one by one as well, the dragons started taking off, breaching through the waterfall seamlessly. I noticed something off right away; there was no Night Fury.
"Is Hiccup not here?" I asked loudly.
Everybody turned to me. They seemed to be hiding something, judging from the sorry looks on their faces. On the corner of my vision, I spotted his mother, sitting on a barrel and looking stressed than ever.
"Valka," I approached her. "Where's Hiccup?"
She didn't reply. Only after kneeling down to see her face did I realize that she was weeping.
"I don't think he made it…"
I turned around to see Elsa, who was pressing a bandage on her side. "Anna, when I saw the Red Death flew past us, Hiccup was leading it to ram into the island. It was hard to make out, but Hiccup didn't take an evasive maneuver when the dragon rammed its head into the wall. I'm afraid it might've taken both Hiccup and Toothless along…"
My eyes widened in shock. "… No, there's no way! We have to search for him!"
Once again, a violent tremor shook the earth. The beach inside the cave visibly started to break apart, fresh magma finding its way through the gaps.
"Anna, I saw it, too," Fishleg said. "The Red Death rammed both Hiccup and Toothless… I'm really sorry, but there's no surviving in that."
"Queen Elsa," Eret called. "Please tell Nokk to get the ship out of the cave."
"NO! ELSA! DON'T YOU DARE DO THAT—" I went over to grab her hand, but a pair of hands caught me from behind to prevent it from happening. Giving an expression that conveyed sorry, to which I was nowhere near to accepting, Elsa dashed off to the poop deck and looked over the railing.
"No!" Tears began to block my vision. "Elsa!"
"Nokk, take us out of here!" Elsa commanded.
A loud neighing replied. After that, the water beneath us moved, taking the ship out of the cave slowly as more and more rocks pelted from above.
"No!" I broke free of the arms by wiggling recklessly and ran to reach my sister. Suddenly, on my way, a big wave hit the rear of the ship, immediately accelerating the ship out of the cave. All of us lost our balance due to the hit, but we were already out on the open sea, leaving the fiery chaos behind.
"Everybody okay?" Eret asked. I looked up to my sister, who was in the middle of getting herself up. I crawled my way to her and pulled her arm down.
"E-Elsa, why?" I asked through my gritted teeth.
"Anna…"
"Hey, where's that Therondian?"
"Yeah, where is she?"
I turned around as the raised question caught my attention. Apparently, there was everybody but Cassandra and her child.
"Did she fall, by any chance?" Eret asked. Nobody seemed to be able to reply. Not because they were clueless, but merely because there couldn't have been a more obvious answer.
I stood up and saw the cave collapsing by the second.
"She must be still inside the cave!" I exclaimed. I walked to the railing and readied myself to jump when my sister grabbed my shoulder.
"What are you going to do?!" She asked.
"Something idiotic," I replied and gave her a sharp glare. "Do NOT try to stop me."
I pulled my shoulder off of her grasp and jumped off the moving ship. I breached through the water with my feet first. It didn't take long for Nokk to put me on his back and resurfaced back.
"Take me back to the cave, we have a mother and a boy to rescue," I told the water spirit. Luckily, he was the obedient kind of living being. With one strong push, the horse dashed off to the cave in a neck-breaking speed. As we progressed, the state of the island worsened. However, our speed was fast enough to breach through the waterfall and enter the cave before it could collapse entirely.
I thought I would've spotted the duo right away, but I didn't. So I looked around swiftly. "Cassandra? Gideon?"
"Bwah!"
Nokk and I turned around simultaneously to the voice and spotted two hands desperately on the water. Nokk immediately 'dipped' himself into the water by half and approached the mother and the son. Then, he brought the duo out of the water on his back.
I turned around to check. "You okay?"
The mother and the son in her arms coughed off seawater. "Y-yeah…"
"Okay, we need to—"
Smack!
Out of nowhere, a rock in the size of a fist hit my head from above. I was on the verge of losing my consciousness and my balance when Cassandra grabbed me. She called my name multiple times, which sounded muffled initially until she shook me violently enough to collect every bit of consciousness there was inside me.
"Oh no, you're bleeding!" She said. I didn't understand what she meant as I felt no part of myself bleeding. That is, until a stream of blood reached my lips from my head, making me taste it for a brief moment.
"We have to get out of here. Horsey, get us out of here, quickly!" The Therondian replied, giving the horse a kick. Nokk understood the command and galloped towards the entrance of the cave. However, as if the universe despised our very existences, large boulders fell right on the entrance, blocking our only way out of here! To worsen the situation, the entirety of the entrance itself collapsed before our eyes. It all turned dark soon, as the entrance was the only source of light there was.
"No, no, NO!"
I gritted my teeth in despair. But then an idea popped out. "Nokk, you summoned that previous wave, right? Do the same thing, try to make an opening!"
The water spirit neighed in hesitance. With his front legs, the water spirit 'stomped' the water, sending a large wave of torrential water into the blocked entrance. Judging from the sound and the darkness that was still present, the wave didn't seem to even budge the boulders.
"Do it again!" I commanded.
Once again, Nokk stomped the water and sent a wave towards the boulders. But the same result took place.
"NOO!"
A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. I turned around, despite knowing that I wouldn't be able to see anything.
"Anna, it's okay… Thank you, for a making a run to rescue us," Cassandra said. "You can't see me, but believe me, I'm smiling right now."
"Mom?" Gideon called in a worried tone.
"I'm sorry my child…" she replied.
"No! We are getting out of here," I assured. "I just need to…"
I was going to say that I needed some time to think, but there was none. More and more rocks splashed into the water, and it was only a matter of minutes, maximum, until one would land on either of our heads. I clicked my tongue in defeat. This was it.
I placed my hand on Cassandra's. "… You're welcome."
"You're a good woman, Anna. I can tell that—"
Suddenly, something broke through the boulders that were blocking the entrance. After enough light came through, it was clear that it was a pair of tusks that broke in, with one being broken. A familiar face of a Bewilderbeast appeared from the waterfall. Its sharp eyes gazed upon us right away by the time they spotted us. We were frozen on our ground, consumed of fear of yet another possible death that might welcome us; being eaten by the giant Bewilderbeast. However, what it did next was anything but that. The dragon cleared the path even more with its tusks until a straight gap of water was available for us.
Once done, the dragon simply left. Its nonchalant act of kindness left us speechless for a few seconds.
"All right… let's go, Nokk!" I commanded.
With that, we escaped the cave in the same neck-breaking speed. On our way, I saw the dragon's dorsal fins heading off to the east, most likely heading to the Hidden World. In no time, we reached the ship again. Using the same ladder I climbed previously, I let Cassandra climb first before I did.
Once reaching the deck, I spotted everybody simply crossing their arms while staring blankly at the floor under the rain. They turned to me only after I snapped a finger to bring them back into reality.
"Anna, you're back!" Elsa called. She gasped once she saw a clear sight of the bleeding on my head. "You're bleeding!"
"It's fine… I've had worse—oof!"
A large shock wave collided against the ship from the rear, boosting it for a brief moment. That's when we learned that the island had fully collapsed, exposing the volcano entirely. The ships nearby the island were all flipped by the destructive explosion of the volcano.
Once we regained our balance, my skin sensed a different feeling from the rain. When I looked at the raindrops, I saw not the usual clear water, but one filled with small minerals. I saw my sister stained in ashes all over, and so were the others, making us look even more miserable than ever.
"It's raining ash… everybody, get inside," I commanded. Everyone agreed by bobbing their heads once and entered the cabin. Inside, Valka was sitting alone by herself, weeping in silence. The sight of the sonless mother quickly reminded me of Hiccup, who was somewhere inside the blazing havoc we had left behind.
With no other word spoken, I approached the mother and knelt before her. She soon noticed my presence once she removed a finger that blocked her eyes. Valka pulled me into a hug right away, which I returned in the same manner.
I shut my eyes and buried my face in her shoulder. Slowly, I began to sob.
"I s-saw…" Valka softly spoke.
I didn't bother asking what she saw in particular because the answer was too obvious and too painful, and I was not interested in getting to know the details.
Soon, I sensed more arms joining the moment.
