A/N-And so begins the last adventure of Book 1! Two chapters left after this, and then we move on. Here we also get some clues as to just how the morphing power works, and remember those clues; they come to play a very large part in the rest of the series.

As always, please let me know what you think!

Chapter 34

Kidnapped

Ever been to Yellowstone? It's an amazing place, a natural wonder. It's especially amazing from an aerial point of view. Hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, and just simply the layout of the land itself, it's beautiful! I was still stuck staying near my family, just to make sure I didn't lose track of where they were. The park is a big, big place, and no matter how powerful you are, parents still worry about your safety. Oh well, I saw plenty of really cool things.

Once it was time to go, though, it was a long trip back home. We stopped a few places, and ended getting back well past midnight. We all fell asleep very quickly, not even bothering to get undressed like usual. Turns out, that was a very good decision that night, at least for me. I was expecting to sleep for a long, long time. At least I was right about one thing…. I slept very, very deeply….

Until I was woken up in the early morning by a sharp, stinging pain in the back of my neck.

"AAAHHHOOWWWWWW!" I shrieked, reaching up and gingerly feeling the spot where the pain was. I also felt a long, cold metal shaft sticking out. I pulled it out, looked at the dart, and turned to see four large, darkly dressed people standing over me in my room. The dim light from my radio began to swirl around me, what little color began to fade to grays and blacks. As I fell back against my pillow, I heard one of the people whisper, "Grab him already and let's go!"

As everything blacked out, only two thoughts went through my head. The first was, How on earth did they get past the dogs? The second was, Gee, I'm glad I went to sleep with clothes on.

"Hawken! Get up already, it's eleven o' clock!" Denise opened the door to her son's room. "We all were up late last night, but we still need to take Grandpa home! You can't just…" her voice trailed off as she saw Hawken's bed, cleanly made and empty. "He never makes his bed that well," she said, and left the room. "Holly!" Her daughter looked out of her room, where she was still unpacking. "What!" she yelled. "Have you seen your brother anywhere?" Holly shrugged and looked toward the back of the house. "Maybe he went to go see Hiccup. Or maybe they needed him for something." Denise sighed and rubbed her forehead, and went back to unpacking herself. "Well, we need to take Grandpa home, and we're not going to find him in time to do so. We'll find him when we come back." She looked out toward the portal. "I swear, I need to find a way to limit him. He's spending way too much time over there."

Faint noise surrounded me, my head pounding. I groaned quietly, and tried to open my eyes. The light blinded me, and I closed them again. That's when I realized I didn't recognize the sounds at all. There were whirring sounds, computer beeps, and what sounded like someone rapidly typing somewhere. Barely squinting, at first, I slowly let my eyes adjust, and opened them a little more. I immediately knew I was nowhere near home anymore.

I was lying on a thin, metal, semi-erect table, covered in sensors and needles and missing my shirt, and strapped down with thick metal restraints. To one side of the room, there was a door and numerous steel cabinets with who knows what in them. Along another wall was a row of computer monitors, with what looked like pulses, heart rates, and things like that running across the screens, along with numerous instruments I didn't recognize at all. On the other side of the room, more monitors, scales, test tubes etc., and….. a young, blondish man in a white lab coat.

I grinned mischievously, gathering in a breath and modifying my throat a little. Whoever these people were, they weren't going to EVER mess with me again. I opened my mouth.

"HEY!"

The power of a Thunderdrum mixed with my own angered voice, my yell reverberated around the room. A stand of test tubes bounced across the nearby table and smashed to the floor, and to my satisfaction, the sound waves caused a thin crack to crawl across the thick window on the other side of the room. The man in the lab coat shot three feet straight up out of his chair and landed very ungracefully, splaying out across the floor and falling backwards. As he picked himself up and looked at me, I fixed him with a glowing red glare.

"Y-you're you're awake!" he stammered. "The last time I checked, yes," I growled. "But the tranquilizer shouldn't have worn off for at least another day!" he wailed, scrambling to his monitor and typing away again, looking for something. "You're systems are all still normal, the effects should still be working!" I smirked. "Yeah, well, I'm not completely human," I drawled, "but you certainly already know that, considering that's the only reason I've got all these wires all over me."

I heard voices outside the room, and saw another man run past the window, slowing a bit to look with surprise at the crack that now adorned the glass from my scream. He stepped over to the door and opened it, stepping in and walking over to the lab-coated man. "What on earth was that noise?" the man asked, none too quietly and none too nicely. "And what cracked the glass? That was tempered!" The scientist pointed carefully at me, while I snarled, showing off some slightly sharper-than-normal teeth. "The boy did that." The new man, dressed in a mostly black, very expensive looking suit, looked directly at me. He had dark, nearly black hair and a relatively strong build, contrasting the thin, dirty blond lab coated man. "So, you're awake already," the man said. "Funny, since the tranquilizer should still have you out. You should have been unconscious for quite a while yet." "So I've been told," I deadpanned, narrowing my eyes further. "What exactly do you want with me?"

This time, I wasn't the one to don a wild grin. "I am John Malin," the man said, "and I am a scientist and visionary." I groaned. "Oh, great, here we go." Malin gave me a fisheye, then continued. "I've been working for a very long time on a plan to revolutionize the world. Your abilities, if we can manage to somehow tap into them, could give me and my colleagues an unlimited number of possibilities." "Yeah, like what?" I said, giving him a venomous look, and taking note of the scientist trying hard to just focus on the computer instead of getting in Malin's way. "The governing bodies in this world have gone way south," Malin continued. "They have the wrong ideas, and need to be straightened out. It's time for a new ruling around the world." I sighed, already starting to see where this was going. "With the abilities you have, even a small number of men would be all it takes to overthrow just about every country on earth!" Malin said, sounding more insane by the minute. "Even the smallest person would be able to defeat the strongest, with barely the lift of a finger. People would have to listen to us, they wouldn't have a choice! We could do anything we pleased, run things however we wanted to!" I shook my head. "Changing the world doesn't work like that," I snapped. "You have to get the approval of the people you lead." "And look where that got us," Malin said. I shrugged, or at least as best as I could while strapped in. "Doesn't matter anyways. I'm not helping you." Malin snorted. "At this point it doesn't really matter either to me," he said. "We've taken enough samples already, that we're bound to find something. It's just a matter of time." At this point, I realized why I had so many needles in me. Luckily I could deaden the nerves in my skin, another trick of the reptile trade.

I tried to move so that I could take the needles out, but my hands, chest and feet were all strapped down tight, and as I moved, the restraints tightened. "There's really no use struggling," Malin chuckled. "They contract if you change shape, and they're too hard to cut through, or break with any amount of strength you might have. We made sure of it." I stopped and sighed. "You still won't get any answers from me." I wasn't about to tell him that extra strength was the only thing I got from the dragon side of me, or the shape shifting. I gave Malin another venomous glare, and began to heat up the restraints. "You will pay for this, sooner or later."

"Have you seen Hawken anywhere?"

Denise had finally had enough, and had gone through the portal and over to the village of Berk to find her son, who had now been gone over a day. While that in itself wasn't too strange, Hawken knew he had things to do still, and had never left before without at least letting her or his dad know in some way that he was leaving.

Astrid shrugged. "He hasn't been seen on the island recently, if that's what you mean." Astrid had happened to be the first person Denise had run across, on the path to the village. Astrid was out working on her aim with her weaponry, and hadn't recalled seeing Hawken since they had left for Yellowstone. "Do you at least have any idea where he may be?" Denise asked. Astrid shook her head. "But, he's likely with Hiccup. And Hiccup is either at his house or at the forge at this time of day. Come on, we can go find him." They headed down the path toward the village.

About 15 minutes later, they finally found Hiccup working in the forge on some unknown project, Toothless lying nearby. "Hiccup!" Astrid yelled. Hiccup jerked and looked up. "Hi Astrid. Please don't scare me when-oh!" He stuttered, seeing Hawken's mother next to the teen Viking. "Uh, hi Mrs. Carlton. Can I, uh, ask why you're here?" He set down his tool and walked over to the window.

"Hawken's missing," Denise said. "What?!" ::What?!:: Both Hiccup and Toothless jerked up at this. Toothless came running over to the window. "Calm, Toothless, panicking won't help," Hiccup said, and turned to Denise. "What exactly do you mean, he's missing?" "I haven't seen him since we got back two nights ago. He didn't tell me he was going anywhere either." Hiccup stood there, thinking for a minute. "Well, I haven't seen him either, but if he came through the portal, I know who will have." He turned to Toothless. "Can you go see if any of the Terrors have seen him?" Toothless nodded, and bolted out the door, taking off in the direction of the cove.

Denise turned to Hiccup questioningly. "The Terrors?" Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "You mean you haven't….. oh, that's right, it's been a long while since you were around here last. A group of Terrible Terrors took it upon themselves for some reason to watch the portal for anyone coming or going, and let us know if it was someone we didn't know, or if there was a problem." Denise nodded, still working on the idea of the dragons being that good at problem solving.

About ten minutes later, Toothless glided down and landed outside the forge. He looked at Denise, and just shook his head. No translation was needed: Hawken hadn't come through the portal since their trip. At this point, suffice to say his mother was starting to feel very anxious. Hiccup looked back at Toothless. "Think you could find him?" he asked. "What?" Denise asked, missing what was going on that the moment. Toothless nodded, and turned to let Hiccup climb on. Hiccup looked back at Denise. "We may be able to find where he went from your house. Come on, get on, it's faster to fly."

Denise hesitated, but the fact that her son was missing spurred her on. She climbed carefully up behind Hiccup. "Hiccup, wait up!" The three turned to see Astrid on Thorn. "If Hawken's in trouble, I'm helping." Hiccup just nodded, and took off, gliding over the forests toward the portal.

The view was amazing, but after that day, Denise tried to keep to using the paths around the island.

A few hours had gone by, and I had kept the heating process to a minimum so that nothing would be immediately noticeable, as I wanted to catch these lunatics by surprise. Not to mention I doubted it, but I wanted to see if they actually would find anything genetic or otherwise that connected to my abilities. Even I had no clue how they worked. Eventually I heard something that made me smile a little.

"Dr. Malin?" the scientist, who I had discovered was named Arthur, called out. Malin came back into the room. "Have you found something yet?" he asked excitedly. "It's been hours since we started these test. I thought you were one of the best sequencers." Arthur shook his head worriedly. "That's just it, there's nothing abnormal. His gene sequence is perfectly normal for a human being, absolutely no sign of any other species sequences. There's nothing in skin, blood, bone, hair….. everything is perfectly normal!" He looked at me, absolutely perplexed. "There is nothing there that should cause what he can do!" I chuckled, and the two men turned to look at me. "I told you, you wouldn't get any answers from me. That includes any samples you get from me." John walked over to me, and looked me over, frowning. Then he looked at my head. "Have we tried the brainwave sensors yet?" Arthur shook his head. "That's the last thing we have to try." I sighed again as he went over to the computer and pressed another button. I felt vibrations and other odd sensations from the sensors they had placed on my head, and glared at the two, my eyes flashing bright red again.

There was a beep from the computer, and Arthur turned to it. "We have a reading!" he said. He typed for a minute, then gasped and slumped. "What?" Malin pressed. "What is it?" Arthur gestured with his hands. "It-it's impossible!" he said. "What?" "Well, you-you see, people use only about, uh, maybe 15% of their brain capacity normally. Neurons grow and lose connections, and there are usually only so many. But him-" he gestured to me, "-hi-his brain is on overload! There are connections that shouldn't be there! His brainwaves are off the charts!" Malin raised an eyebrow. "And so, what does that mean?" Arthur spread his hands out. "He's an anomaly. No human should be able to even survive that amount of neurological capacity! A-and I don't have a clue where the energy to run that amount of power is coming from!" He waved his hands at me again. "A human body cannot physically generate the power it would take for that amount of connection. His power, his abilities are not stemming from him, they're coming from another source." He scratched his head. "The only guess I have is from when I learned about metaphysics, the so-called dark matter and dark energy in the universe." "The what?" Malin groused. I snorted. "I thought you were a scientist too," I shot at him. He ignored me and looked back at the blonde, who stuttered again for a moment. "We-well, supposedly most of our universe is composed of sources of matter and energy we can't see or touch at the moment," he said. "If my guess is correct, something has connected that boy to that source of power. There is literally no physical way to do that!" Malin snarled and grabbed Arthur by the coat. "Then how in the world did the boy end up with such abilities?!" Arthur trembled and shook his head. "I-I don't know!"

"It's because where I got the ability, science is not necessarily the only thing that governs life," I said. Malin dropped Arthur again and walked over to me. "And where, pray tell, did you get your abilities?" he asked quietly, the way someone does right before they blow. I smiled and shook my head. "Well, that's just the thing. I can't tell you. One, you wouldn't believe me, and two, there's no way even in Hell that I would risk telling a lunatic like you a secret like that."

And that's what did it. At the bottom of the barrel, with no answers and his plans basically faulty at the root, Malin lost it. "AAAUUUGGGH!" He slammed his hands down on the restraints holding me, ready to punch me in the face with the next move. His next move, however, was courtesy of me.

"ARRRGGGHHHH!" he screamed, leaping back and falling on his rear, clutching both of his now bright red, semi-blistered hands. "What on earth?" he cried, looking back at me in shock. I smiled. "I decided not to mention, shape-shifting isn't the only ability I managed to gain," sneered, and sent my arms and legs into overdrive heating. The metal began to glow like my body, first dull, the bright red, then orange, to nearly white, and immense heat began to radiate out. At the same time, the sensors on my head began to cause the monitors around the room to beep like crazy from the energy readings they were picking up. The heat caused Malin and Arthur to be forced to back up, slowly, toward the door. "Impossible," Arthur whispered. "Yes, but as you stated everything else I can do is impossible as well," I said. "Apparently, not for me though." With a quick flick of the wrists, I snapped the now greatly weakened restraints on my arms, and then did the same for the ones on my legs.

Toothless walked into Hawken's room and began sniffing around. Almost instantly, he bristled and began snarling menacingly. "Well, he appears to know what happened," Hiccup said, walking up. Toothless exited the room again and headed out to the garage door. When Denise opened it he leapt out into the garage and went out the open back door, accidentally knocking over a couple of empty water jugs in the process. "Sorry, I'll get those," Hiccup said, picking them back up. Then they followed Toothless back into the back yard, where he was following a scent trail toward the back gate. Denise walked up to the gate, and held her hand, opening it and looking out around the car parked up front. "Okay, there's no one out there," she said, then stepped back to let Toothless pass. He continued to follow the trail out to the edge of the street, and then looked to the west, growling before he turned and ran back to the back yard. "Okay, so what was that?" Denise asked. "Hold on," Hiccup replied.

They followed the dragon back toward Hawken's garden area, where Toothless cleared out a spot in the dirt, and started writing with one of his claws. Yes, writing. A few months before Hawken had shown up, Hiccup had taught Toothless how to write in runes to communicate more easily, before they had a translator.

Astrid walked up behind Hiccup and looked over his shoulder. "What's it say?" she asked. Hiccup knelt down and started reading what Toothless had written, and shook his head. "He was…. He was kidnapped." "What?!" Denise exclaimed. Hiccup grimaced. "That's what Toothless says happened." "Is… is there any way to find him?" Hiccup looked at Toothless, who shook his head and wrote something else in the dirt. "He says, not with how fast your, uh, cars go. With how long ago he was taken, he could be hundreds of miles from here." Hiccup's eyes widened. "And-and if he was put on one of those 'airplanes' you have, he could be a lot further away than that!"

At this point, everyone just ran out of words, and sat down, exhausted. No one could speak, or would speak, about whether or not Hawken could make it back on his own from wherever he was, or if that was it.

Suddenly, Toothless perked up and started writing again. Hiccup noticed and sat up to see. "Uh, Denise, we don't have any way to find him, but we don't know everything about your world," he said. "Is there anyone around here who would be able to help us, you know, like a search party or something?" Denise sat up as well, then turned and ran toward the house. "I need to call the police!"

Astrid looked over at Hiccup. "Police?" "Law enforcement. Hawken explained it to me once." "Oh."

The second the restraints snapped the two men bolted out the room and locked the door. I extended a set of razor claws and with a loud screech, tore through the strap across my chest and broke it open. Once I slid down to the floor, I looked around, and found my missing shirt on a nearby shelf. Once dressed, I looked toward the window, where Arthur and Malin were still standing, looks of surprise painted on their faces. A smart, but futile maneuver on their part to be on the other side of the glass. I smiled, looked around the room at all the computers and files and instruments full of information on me, and let loose a stream of fire around the room, watching wild mild enjoyment as everything melted and flames swirled around the room. Once I was sure everything was sufficiently ruined, I turned to face Malin again.

He was shaking with fury, and turned and yelled something down the hallway. Suddenly, two walls of thick, tempered steel came sliding down over the glass on both sides. My view was blocked from the men outside, but not my hearing. I heard feet running off in some unknown direction. They thought I was sufficiently caged in.

I smiled and shook my head. "When will you people ever learn?" I muttered, a smirk growing across my face. I focused on an image of a Timberjack, and quickly filled the room, brimming with spines and razor edges. I could have easily escaped another, more subtle way, but I felt like proving a point. I looked at the steel wall, and whipped my tail fast enough to make the air whistle. The blades lining it drove into the metal and sliced with an ear-splitting scream through, revealing glass behind it. I grabbed with my claws and pulled on the steel, ripping it away, and then rammed the edges of my wings into the glass, shattering it and gouging into the thicker metal wall past that. One more slam, and it began to tear and buckle. I reared back, and slammed my full weight into the wall.

SCREEEEEEEE!

The wall screamed as it ripped apart, and took down part of the wall surrounding what was the window, and I slid out casually, reverting back to my own self. Looking around, I was faced with three hallways to choose from as to where I should go. I peered down each one, and to my disappointment, there was no one to be seen, so the choice was up to me. Unfortunately, there were also no signs telling me which way was out, either. I sighed, and turned left, walking down the direction I had first seen Malin come up from. Eventually it had to go somewhere, and if worse came to worse, I could always go Shadow and take the easy way out. But what fun is that?

The hallway continued for a little ways, then split in two directions again. The hallway to my left was dark and empty, all the lights off. The hallway to my right…

"FREEZE!"

A wall of men in dark clothing and standard bulletproof gear was standing across the path, blocking my exit. Each one had a semi-automatic rifle aimed at me. I smirked. "Freeze? I can do that," I replied. I pulled in a breath, and let out a cloud of thick, billowing mist that blocked their view of me, and forced them to slowly move backward. As the mist rolled outward, the walls, floor and ceiling all began to crackle as they froze, and ice crystals grew outward. As the men continued to back up, I casually walked through the freezing mist, growing rough pads on my feet to keep from slipping, and my skin becoming coated in a layer of frozen armor, clinking and thickening as I moved forward. I spread out a pair of ice blue wings into the cloud, coating them in sharp ice crystals as well.

"Tell me the way out of this place, and I'll leave you alone here," I snapped. "Absolutely not," one of the men said. "Our orders are to keep you contained in here." I shrugged, and looked up at a pipeline that ran along the corner of the ceiling. I could hear water rushing through it. I reached up with ice-coated claws, and sliced it. The water came rushing out, and as it did, I iced it again. The now super-cooled water rushed past the men, surrounding their feet and freezing as it hit anything solid, building into a thick layer around their legs and continuing to build all the way to the walls. I froze the hole in the pipe and the water stopped rushing out, then turned to the men again. My claws clacked as I stepped onto the still-thickening layer of ice, somewhat enjoying the look of growing fear in their eye as my skin shifted in color again and I changed shape, turning anthracite black with glowing red eyes, and an overall nightmarish appearance.

At this point it wasn't surprising that the man at the front of the group lost it. He swung his rifle up at me, aimed the barrel right at my head and pulled the trigger…. and promptly dropping the whole gun when the bullet ripped through the ceiling behind me while I stood there unfazed, still glaring at him like he was a pest I was about to squish.

"Wha-what are you?" he stammered. I leaned in close to his face, causing him to flinch and lean away as far as the ice would let him. "Depends on your actions really," I hissed. "I can be your worst nightmare, a dream come true, a lifesaver, a messenger, so on, so forth. I tend to try and be nice, but you just tried to kill me, all you people kidnapped me and took me away from my family and friends, and as far as I know, my friend's and family's lives could be on the line right now and I have no clue where I am, so I'm really feeling like being that worst nightmare I just mentioned." I stood back and vaporized myself, melting into the shadows around the edges of the ice and the pipes in the hall. "You can't kill me in this form anyways," I hissed. "After all, how do you kill a Shadow?" I reformed behind the popsicles before they had a chance to figure out what had just happened. "Now," I said sharply, causing them all to jerk and try and spin around, "you will tell me how I can find the way out of this building and I'll let you go, or I will set fire to the hallway here and leave you just as you are if you refuse."

This time, they were far more compliant. After all, when you think your life hangs in the balance, you'll say anything to stay alive. The man nearest me pointed behind me. "J-j-just take the elevator up," he stammered. "Six floors! Take the right hallway, it'll go right to the exit!" I nodded. "Thank you for being so agreeable this time," I said lightly. "In return…" the smile on my face morphed into a more mischievous look, and I raised my bladed tail above my head. "Wait!" the man who had spoken last yelled. "We told you how to get out! Please don't kill…!"

CRACK!

My tail whipped down and slammed into the ice, causing it to crack and break open, freeing the men. I sat back for a moment as they looked at me, dumbfounded. "I am not a killer, or at least I try not to be when I can help it," I said. "You are free to leave, and I suggest you do so quickly, but you have been warned." I turned and in an instant raced down the hallway to the elevator doors. I melted through the cracks and raced up the shaft to the 6th door up, and slithered back out into the corridor on the other side.

Just as the men had said, there were a few choices, but I turned and started down the farthest right hall. As I did so, I stayed halfway in shadow form, as I half-expected someone else to jump out somewhere and shoot at me again. The hallway ran on, turning and twisting here and there, but no new branches showed up. I began to wonder if I had been lied to again, but I came to one last corner and walked around-

BANG!
"Well, at least I did find the right direction," I drawled, staring at John Malin again, who was standing right in front of heavy glass doors with a few more armed men. Thinking he had missed, Malin raised the gun again, took aim, and fired a second bullet. Once again, nothing happened to me, though the wall behind me became a mess, and just like the man downstairs, Malin dropped his gun in shock. The other men looked at their weapons and decided that standing right there was a bad idea, and turned and ran out the glass doors, leaving Malin alone with me. I smiled and stepped forward. "Like I told some of your friends, you can't kill a Shadow," I teased, walking right up to him. Malin dropped to the ground, cowering now. "Don't make it painful, please!" he wailed. I raised an eyebrow, the smiled and thrust my black snout right into his face. "I'm not a killer. Besides, the best way to teach a person a lesson is to let them live anyways. You'll live, but if you ever come near me or my family again, I will make sure you wish you were dead!" I backed up, then spun and smacked him upside the head with the flat of my tail blades. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

I dragged him out the doors, and took him away from the building, dropping him underneath a pine tree about a hundred yards away. Then, I flew back to the building, which was a relatively discreet, white and plain structure surrounded on all sides by forest and a wide bank of concrete. I went to the back of the structure, and ignited a small fire, setting off alarms and watching as a large number of people raced out of doors on nearly all sides, waiting until nobody else came out. All in all, I would say there were about 150 people in that building, and they all raced toward the trucks and other vehicles on the other side from where I was fanning the anthracite flames. After about another ten minutes, I rose up into the air and changed to Night Fury, glided right over the top of the building, and fired downward in a thick stream, causing an explosion and leaving a gaping hole through at least 4 floors about 20 feet wide. Once that was over I turned and rose up higher.

As I cleared the short hills surrounding the building, I changed once again, turning the bright white of a Wind Fury and rising up higher. But as I began to move over the landscape, I stalled and nearly fell out of the sky. The view I had of the land surrounding me was not a welcome sight, though it was beautiful.

Off to the southwest, there was a series of mountains, multiple chains split by wide valleys covered in thick pine forest. Everywhere I looked, there was more forest, or an occasional small lake breaking the monotony. But what made me stop for a moment was one mountain, set a little off from the rest, and rising high above it all. Oh, dear Lord, help me, I thought. I'm a lot further from home than I thought.

The high mountain was easily recognizable, with steep, snow-covered slopes and a tall, prominent sharp peak. If I was correct, it also rose to over 20,000 feet high. At this point the terrain was unmistakable: thick taiga forest stretching in every direction untouched, massive snowcapped mountains, and besides the people I had just left behind, not a human soul in sight for miles around. I was stuck in the one state where the square miles outnumbered the people living in it: the massive peak was known as Denali, and it was located in the heart of one of the largest parks in the largest state in the United States: Alaska.