The four had a plan. Deciding that Pitch's despising of Jack was greater than of the others, Jack would be the bait. Tonight, Jack would go to sleep while the others acted preoccupied with other tasks. When Pitch would come to attack, they would attack and tie him up in Rapunzel's hair. They'd wake Jack as soon as the moment presented itself and interrogate Pitch. If he didn't cooperate, they'd kill him.
"So, until then, what do you want to do?" Hiccup asked curiously. Jack -whose head was now free of a bloody smear and scabbed along the nightmare sand cut- shrugged, playing with his staff between his toes aimlessly, Rapunzel bit her lip, not able to think of anything, and Merida folded her arms, thinking.
"We need to be ready for Pitch. We can train in the forest," Merida said fiercely. Jack grinned and stood up. Rapunzel smiled, holding a frying pan to her chest and Hiccup nodded. They group left into the valley, farther from the castle than normal so that they could be sure they wouldn't hurt anyone. Merida took an extra quiver of arrows with her as they headed into the gorge.
They met in a large clearing where Toothless and Hiccup landed. Hiccup tossed a fish to his dragon after unhooking himself from the saddle. Angus and Max grazed quietly in wait, unconcerned with whatever the teenagers were up to. Only then did they wonder how exactly they were all going to train at the same time.
"Jack could play pitcher for a while," Rapunzel suggested. She meant that he could chuck frozen snowballs everywhere as target practice for the others.
"Well then what am I gonna do to practice?" he countered inquisitively.
They all thought silently for a moment. "Oh, you could try out your whole ice-lightning bolt thing on the trees!" she suggested excitedly. Jack shrugged; it worked well enough for him.
"Jack, aim for the sky," Hiccup said before he turned back to Toothless. He and the dragon were soon soaring through the air. It wasn't much longer before snowballs were being hurdled in every direction. Some were blasted into water vapor by Toothless in the air, some were smashed against trees as arrows zoomed through their centers, and some were sliced in half with golden strands of her now unbraided hair like whips.
Jack grinned as an idea came to mind. Forming another snowball, he blew heavily on it, infusing it with ice. He laughed as he chucked it at Hiccup. Toothless got ready to incinerate it, but he came up to close and it hit the dragon on the side of his face and his ear. He shook off the cold ice, stunned, then growled and dived down to Jack. Jack was whistling nonchalantly, throwing a handful of small snowballs towards Punz when Toothless's nose pushed into his side, knocking him over. The Night Fury was glaring at him. He said with mocking innocence, "What? I'm only doing my job, how was I supposed to know you would fly into your target?" Hiccup sighed, shaking his head before they leapt into the sky again. Meanwhile Merida retrieved the arrows she could reach from the trees around her. She bounced up, trying to reach one just above her arm's reach. Jack laughed and glided over, plucking it from the trunk and twirling it between his fingers. "Lose something, princess?"
"Aye, Frost, give it back!" she said irritably. He looked at her and over the arrow for a moment before deciding.
"Nah, I think I'll keep it. Think of it as a gift… from me, to me," he laughed before he glided away, tossing a few more snowballs towards Toothless and Rapunzel. As he formed another, a silver glint caught his eye just before an arrow stole the snowball from his hand. "Hey!" he yelled crossly.
Merida giggled, "Think of it as payback." Then she stuck her tongue out at him. Jack returned the gesture, but after a moment he smirked at her.
"Alright, that one was good, I've gotta admit." He landed on the soft grass of the clearing littered with scattered melting snowflakes. "Mind if I take a few minutes?" he asked no one in particular. Hiccup, who was hovering low near the other three with Toothless nodded with Merida while Rapunzel shrugged.
Jack smiled and floated up above the ground just around six feet. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As he opened his eyes, he jabbed his staff forward and grunted loudly, willing his inner strength to pour into its power. Shimmering bolts of snowy crystals and frost emitted from the crook, plating the trees in ice as loud cracks implied trunks snapping before toppling over backwards. He looked from his staff to the trees to the others standing below and behind him in the clearing. "Did you guys see that?!" he asked elatedly.
"No, not at all," Hiccup replied sarcastically with a smirk, his arms folded.
Merida threw her hands up. "Jack, that was amazing!" she insisted. Rapunzel laughed excitedly, bouncing on her toes. Jack drifted towards the ground, staring at the hand holding his staff in surprise. He looked back up to the fallen trunks before him.
"I think we're ready," Hiccup stated confidently. He looked up at the sun. "And it's barely lunch time." The four friends smiled at each other, finally having the upper hand. They went through the plan again for a few times while eating the lunch they'd brought with them in Toothless's saddle pack, solving little bugs and errors here and there. They went over strategies to attack as a team, as well. Deciding on a choice few they wanted to rehearse, they finished lunch and stood in formation.
Jack lay on the ground behind them as he would be asleep at that time. The others sat somewhat close, but sat idly, waiting for a moment before striking. They pretended to wake Jack and he got up as they took their stances. Hiccup stood with Toothless behind him, growling. Merida had her thin bow raised and loaded. Rapunzel clung to two thin locks of her hair. Jack was hunching over his staff as teal frost patterns coated it. All four stood in a diamond shape around the dummy. Their "dummy" was just the lunch sacks filled with leaves piled on top of each other. Rapunzel flicked her hair out towards it, tightening around its "throat" while Merida unloaded an arrow into its belly. Hiccup signaled Toothless to spit a fire ball at it, leaving it in a smoldering pile of ashes. Jack finished up the job by freezing the remains. They went over this again a few times, using just a pile of leaves and the growing glacier of ashes as the dummy from then on, until the sky began blossoming with pink, gold, and violet clouds.
"Let's go," Rapunzel said determinedly. Since Pitch had first appeared to them in a glade in the valley, they thought it would be poetic justice to defeat him in the same space. They wandered east towards the clearing Rapunzel had first been attacked by him, ready for his attack this time. Once they arrived, they had purposeless conversation for a while, passing time for about an hour before Jack waved to them and said he was going to go to sleep. They waved off to him and got in formation. The sound of little ice crystals moving against each other emitted from Jack, probably because when he was in such a relaxed state his body could focus much more on his power. The other three snuck glances at each other as they went about their tasks. Hiccup was tending to the artificial half of Toothless's tail while Merida examined a small cloth tapestry she had made with her mother for her to always keep with her. Rapunzel, as expected, read a delightful book about a clan of ancient people who worshipped animals and a young girl who was very different who came and changed everything for their society. Dark laughter resonated between the trees.
"Right on time, bad guy," Hiccup muttered to himself as he looked around. He barely had time to duck as a galloping, roaring nightmare soared towards his face. All three took their positions swiftly. Merida bent over to wake Jack, only to see that he was gone.
"Jack's gone!" she exclaimed.
"What?!" Hiccup asked rhetorically in shock.
Pitch's voice called from all around them. "That's right; he is, in fact, gone. Oh, this is just like what happened to you, Rapunzel!" He sounded like he was grinning. Merida's bow darted this way and that as she tried to pinpoint the source. "I'm over here, my lady." The sound stopped echoing around them and came from one spot, directly behind her. Just as she whirled around, he grabbed her slim bow and snapped it in half over his knee like he'd done before with Jack's weapon. Merida screamed at him and threw a punch at his chest, hitting him near his seemingly nonexistent heart. He pushed her away, shoving the broken bow with her. A golden switch of hair wrapped around his wrist and yanked fiercely. He stumbled, but didn't fall. Rapunzel kept tugging until her face was barely an inch from Pitch's.
"What did you do with Jack?" she growled through her teeth. Toothless and Hiccup shared similar expressions while standing behind him.
It took him a moment, but soon enough Pitch Black had a calm and yet agitating response, "Nothing… yet." He chuckled and grabbed her hair with his free hand and pulled hard. Wincing, she knelt as her head got drawn farther down towards the grass. As her back and shoulders heaved with a silent sob of pain, Hiccup charged. He swung a sword from the DunBroch castle en route for Pitch's spine. He turned just in time for Hiccup only to end up cutting the small cluster of strands still clinging to Pitch's wrist, completely freeing him. He swung again and again furiously. Pitch only glided back, forth, right and left, dodging his unfocused assault. They neared the edge of the clearing. Behind Hiccup, Merida was comforting Rapunzel and helping ease her pain. It wasn't long before the guys reached the double-trunked aspen tree and Pitch faded into the shadows.
The blade of Hiccup's sword dropped to the ground and he cursed very loudly.