Chapter 281

Hiccups POV:

It's been six weeks since the repairs to the castle was done and five since I left to travel to the land which I now knew to be a place called Russia and it was a nice land which was mostly forest as far as I could tell. No large cities surrounded by walls as far as I could tell but there were large villages that reminded me of a bit of Berk and it is on the outskirts of one such village where I set up my camp. The reason for this is although I was offered a hut in the village, I preferred to enjoy the comforts of my own tent and I'm pretty sure Toothless would freak a lot of people out and that was not something I wanted when every family had either a weapon or a farming tool that could be used as one. It's because of this that the only time me and Toothless took to the skies is in the late evening when everyone aside from the guards are asleep.

Speaking of the people, their leader goes by the name Viktor who's married to a woman named Mila who have a thirteen-year-old son Lev and six-month-old daughter Alina. Viktor is a large man with black hair tied back in a pony tail, a bushy beard and is always wearing a long-sleeved, red shirt with a skewed collar that's got white lining, and is known as a Kosovorotka with black pants, personality wise he's a kind man who truly cares for his people and only wants the best. Mila has shoulder length chestnut hair and wears a red, loosely fitting long jumper dress with white patterns stitched into it, with the dress being called a sarafan. As for Mila, he wore the same outfit as his father except in white since their village traditions had their leaders wear red but the heir had to earn the right to wear red and until such a time, they'd only wear white. I had befriended a few other villagers but most were hesitant to come near me since I was a foreigner so their fear was understandable since for all they know, I could've been a bandit putting on a friendly face. There was one man who I avoided at all times though but to be fair, a lot of the villagers avoided him as well since he was the village grouch like Mildew was Berks grouch.

This man was named Fyodor and he wasn't so much a grouch but more like the village crazy since he would keep talking to himself while muttering about someone being taken but not knowing who it was. It also didn't help that he dressed in clothes that were full of holes with bad patch jobs done and covered in old ash but from what I was told he did used to be a blacksmith for the town. Now though, he was a man who seemed to have lost his mind and with it went his forging skill which was sad since I'd seen the villagers using some of the items he made and they were impressive.

Now I was sitting outside my campsite enjoying a little peace and quiet as I poured myself a drink from my waterskin while watching the flames of my campfire. It was then I sensed someone coming and looked towards where it was coming from while getting ready to fight. I lowered my guard when I saw it was just Lev and he didn't look the least bit happy about something. I sighed as he walked by while growling and muttering to himself. I knew this meant trouble at home and asked.

"Problems at home Lev?" He turned to me.

"You don't want to know." I gestured for him to sit down on a log on the other side of the fire.

"It helps to have someone to vent to, trust me and luckily for you, I'm a good listener." He sighed and smiled before he sat down across from me and began his rant.

Half-an-hour later

It's been half an hour since Lev began his rant and I could understand that his problem all revolved around Olga, a woman who was travelling to her home village and stopped by the village for a while. Viktor and Mila hired her as a nanny to watch over Alina while they were busy and Lev didn't trust her claiming she gave him a bad feeling and that she'd done something to his parents. When I asked him about this he explained that they've never hired anyone to watch over Alina if they weren't from the village and whenever they spoke with her they seemed to go off as if their minds were elsewhere and their eyes always went all glassy. To make things even weirder he claims that she looks at Alina like a wolf looks at prey when she thinks he's not looking and recently he's seen her sneaking out of the house late at night but he never followed her. Knowing he wasn't the type to lie or how he described his parents sounded like some sort of mind control, I decided I needed to check it out but first needed to ensure Lev didn't fall under the same spell as his parents. I took a breath and turned to him as I said.

"Sounds like you need a drink to calm your nerves." He nodded.

"That'd be nice." I stood up.

"I'll bring you some water." I walked into my tent and secretly pulled out my vase that prevents any form of mind control that's not caused by god level magic and filled it with some water before filling a wooden cup with it and then putting the vase down and returning to Lev, cup in hand. "I have to admit that what you've described is suspicious but you have no solid evidence to expose her." He growled and looked down.

"The others I've told said the same thing."

"But unlike the others, I'll keep an eye on things for anything out of the usual." He smiled at me and drank his water.

"Thanks Hiccup and you were right, I needed to vent my frustrations." I nodded.

"Can't tell you how many times it's happened to me kid." I then took his cup back. "Now you better head on home before your parents get worried." He nodded and left and as soon as he was out of sight I began checking out things in the village through the eyes of my scouter automatons that I'd placed around the village to keep an eye out for things.

3 days later

It's been three days since my talk with Lev about Olga and since then I've been keeping a close eye on Olga and have to say Lev was right about there being something off about her but I couldn't figure out what. Now however, I was sitting at my campsite, in front of a campfire while cooking myself some fish for breakfast and trying to figure out who Olga really was. It was then Lev rushed into my campsite and by the look on his face something bad had happened so I quickly stood up and took his shoulders as I asked.

"Lev, what's happened?" He looked up at me with fear and sadness in his eyes.

"Something's happened to Alina?"

"What is it?"

"She's gone with all her stuff and so is Olga but everyone's acting as if they don't know they ever existed including my parent." He took my arms. "Please tell me you remember them!" I took his hands off me.

"I do and by the sounds of things, we've got to hurry so take me to your home and we'll track them down from there but first I need to get a friend of mine in case we need to make a quick escape." He raised an eyebrow as I let out a whistle before Toothless walked out of the tent with his head tilted while Lev jumped back and let out a yelp of surprise. "Don't worry, he's a friend and before you ask, he's a dragon I trained and befriended a while back but that's a story for another time." I turned to Toothless. "We've got work to do bud so stay on guard when I bring you out." He growled and nodded before I pulled him into my shadow and turned to Lev. "I'll explain later, right now we need to find your sister." He nodded and we rushed into the village.

10 minutes later

It's been ten minutes since we began our search, starting at the house where fortunately Viktor and Mila were nowhere to be seen as I equipped my kitsune mask to see what had happened. It didn't take that long to see that Olga had taken Alina and had her belongings taken as well but it looked like Viktor and Mila were the ones who emptied the house of them. Following the trail through the village drew a couple of eyes since I was wearing an odd looking mask while sniffing the air but I was too focused on finding Alina to be bothered. This brings us to now with Lev and I at Fyodor's old forge which had been abandoned for years since Fyodor went crazy and is now covered in cobwebs and dust. I pushed the door open and saw the scent led straight into the forge that had a closed door, probably to keep the heat in and knew that there was something going on. Before we could investigate it though, a voice from behind us asked.

"What are you doing in my shop?" We both turned to see Fyodor standing there and I raised my hands to try and calm him down a bit.

"Easy there Fyodor, there's something off about your forge and I'm here to check it out." He glared and grabbed a knife and pointed it at us making Lev back up.

"I want you both out of here now."

I knew I needed to do something about him but I didn't want to hurt him so I quickly raised my prosthetic and blasted him in the face with my knockout gas. He dropped the knife and fell forward but I quickly caught him and put him down in a chair and turned to Lev as I said.

"He's not dead, just unconscious for now while we check out what's with that forge." He nodded until a voice from the door said.

"I'm afraid I can't let that happen Hiccup." I turned towards the door just in time to get a knife stabbed into my stomach by none other than Viktor. "She doesn't like others in her forest uninvited." I looked in his eyes and saw they were blank meaning he was being controlled so I turned on my leather chest plate, igniting it and making Ivan and Lev back up in shock as the knifes blade melted.

"Nice try but it's going to take a lot more than that to pierce my armour." I had my spiderpacks legs extend and form a web together. "Now why don't you stick around-" I launched the web at Viktor, pinning him to the wall. "and tell me who 'she' is." He stared at me with that same glassy look in his eyes but now he was just staring.

"The one who holds our lives and minds, within her chicken legged house!" I raised an eyebrow at the description of the house. "Baba Yaga!" I turned to Lev who had just gone as pale as a fog.

"I'm guessing you know what he's talking about."

"She's a witch who is said to ride on a mortar while wielding a large pestle to smash the heads of her victims."

"And the chicken legged house?"

"Her house is said to be standing on two large chicken legs, surrounded by a fence made from the bones of her victims." I raised an eyebrow but before I could ask more, Viktor began laughing, making me turn to him.

"What's so funny?"

"She knows you want to stop her from enjoying her meal."

As soon as the words left his mouth, one of the villagers charged in with a pitchfork in hand and charged at me, but I grabbed the pole of the fork and yanked it forward before I slammed the other end into his gut and then swung him into the wall, knocking him out cold. The sound of people marching from outside caught my attention and I looked out to see the entire village, armed and marching towards the shop with their eyes as glassy as Viktor's. I sighed and turned to Lev and said.

"It looks like this witch has a good grip on your people." I quickly summoned all of my ninja who looked at me for commands. "Take them down but not out and try to cause as little pain as possible to them since they're under some sort of mind control." They nodded and ran to meet the villagers in battle while I released Toothless who looked ready for a fight but I'm sad to say he was going to be disappointed. "Toothless, stay here and guard Lev." He huffed. "I know you don't like guard jobs but this witch has the people under her power except Lev and he'll need to be protected and if she comes out of the forge, you'll be needed to stop her." He growled and nodded making me smile and rub his head. "Thanks bud."

I turned back to the forge and opened the door before crawling in and when I was in, I kept crawling into what seemed like a narrow tunnel and kept crawling. When I finally reached the end I found myself crawling out of a hole in a tree and in a large forest made of trees with no leaves and a dense fog. I slowly stood up and looked around before releasing a scouter automaton to mark my location and then began making my way into the fog covered forest, with the eye of the dragon helping me see where I was going and kept my guard up.

15 minutes later

In the short time I've been in this forest I've seen no house but I've seen a few silhouettes of people that turned out to just be the fog messing with my mind. I also couldn't use my kitsune mask since it kept showing the images of Olga being everywhere so it was impossible to tell which way was which. I was really getting frustrated by all this but I took a breath to calm my nerves and continued to look around for any clue as to which way she went and muttered.

"Where are you Baba Yaga?" A voice from behind me answered.

"You are looking for the witch?" I jumped in fright and turned around to see a man dressed in clothes that were ripped in various places, covered in dirt and the man himself looked as if he hadn't bathed in months.

"Who are you?" He looked down sadly.

"A prisoner of this realm." I raised an eyebrow. "It amused Baba Yaga to imprison me in this forest after I tried to save my people from her, I don't know how long ago."

"Are there others?" He nodded.

"A few but most aren't fully there when it comes to the mind and some have been killed by Yaga when she flies by on her mortar, wielding her pestle."

"Do you know where I can find her now?" As soon as the words left my mouth, a cackle echoed through the woods and sent a shiver up my spine but the man looked as if he'd seen a ghost and dropped to the ground.

"She's coming!"

I turned towards the sound of the laugh and then quickly dropped to the ground to dodge the large end of a wooden pestle and looked up to see a large mortar flying away with someone inside it. Knowing this was Baba Yaga I quickly stood back up and chased after her but her mortar was faster so I quickly launched my prosthetic hand and grabbed onto the top of the mortar. I was quickly dragged across the ground but I quickly got to my feet and skied across the ground while doing my best to both keep my balance and avoid any debris, stones and trees. It was then as I finally got the hand of it that Yaga took notice of my prosthetic and forced it off making me slide across the ground, spinning before I regained my balance and looked around but saw the witch was nowhere to be seen. I growled in annoyance and punched a tree in frustration before the sound of wood creaking followed by a stomping sound echoed through the woods. I turned towards the sound and much to my shock, saw a large wooden house being carried on a pair of chicken legs approaching me and I knew it was Baba Yaga's house.

I switched out my prosthetic for my hook and rushed towards the house before I launched it up onto the edge of the house and got a good grip before reeling it in, pulling myself up in the process. I quickly reached the stairs leading up to the front door and immediately pressed myself against the wall before switching my hook out for my prosthetic hand and then pushing the door open and entering with the door slamming closed behind me. I got into my fighting stance, ready to bring out any one of my weapons which were needed for whatever Baba Yaga was ready to throw at me. I slowly walked into the room and looked around and saw the rooms walls were black as was the long carpet going down the middle to the end but the floor was white marble. There were four pillars on either side of the carpet made from black stone with metal strips wrapping around them and going down while above were four sets of candle chandeliers providing little light. The other light came from the windows that were covered in webs with even more cobwebs formed between the pillars and looking more like veils instead of webs.

It was then I noticed a familiar mortar with pestle leaning against its side in front of one of the windows and knew it was the same one I saw when I first encountered Baba Yaga. I walked up to it and inside but I didn't see anyone or anything hiding within it and turned away and looked around the room a bit more for any sign of the witch. It was then I sensed a presence behind me and quickly dropped to the ground in a tuck and roll, barely dodging the pestle coming down on the spot where I once was while bringing out my tetsubo for a fight as I turned around to see who it was that attacked me. I was greeted to the sight of Olga standing on the edges of the mortar with the pestle in hand and I smirked as I said.

"Hello Olga!" I then glared at her as I asked. "Or should I call you Baba Yaga?" She growled showing rows of black fangs.

"What are you Hiccup Haddock?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were able to resist my power and help protect that brat Lev from my control as well." She then squinted her eyes. "And I can sense some sort of power from you."

"The answer is I'm immune to any form of mind control thanks to a magic item I was given and used on Lev and as for what I am" I readied my weapon. "I'm the guy who's going to smash your head in if you don't free the people wondering this prison of a forest and give Alina to me." She chuckled and came down from her mortar.

"Do you really think I'd give up my entertainment or my meal." I smirked.

"No, but it's always polite to ask first." I readied my tetsubo. "So let's get this fight done with since I have things to do." She growled and picked up her pestle.

"Your arrogance will only make your carcass taste all the better." She lunged at me and our fight began.

Nobodies POV:

Baba Yaga lunged forward at Hiccup who quickly thrust the head of his tetsubo forward into her stomach, knocking the air out of her as he twisted it to hook her clothes. He then lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder into the pillar behind her before she landed face first on the ground and then onto her stomach. She growled as her hair turned grey and her legs that had become peg legs that went up to her knees, came forward and set down on either side of her head before she pulled herself back and stood up. Now however, the lovely young lady was gone and in her place was an ugly old hag covered in wrinkles, sagging skin, tangled grey hair, black teeth and her eyelids were stitched shut. Hiccup raised an eyebrow at the sight of her as he asked.

"Is this what you really look like?" She scowled at Hiccup.

"It is and it will be the last thing you shall ever see." Hiccup smiled.

"I don't know about that since I've faced a lot worse than old hags with pestles."

"You forget that this is my house and a which always has a few surprises in their home." She snapped her fingers before four spiders dropped from the webs and grew to the size of Hiccups torso. "KILL HIM!" The spiders pounced on Hiccup, pinning him to the ground as Baba Yaga laughed but her laughter died when from beneath the spiders came an orange glow before a fiery burst threw them off, exposing a blazing Hiccup.

"Nice try!" He noticed one of the spiders in front of him was still wiggling and slammed his tetsubo down on its body, crushing it. "It'll take a lot more than spiders to keep me down witch." She growled.

"Then how's about this?" She reached behind a pillar before quickly pulling out and throwing a spear at Hiccup who caught it in his free hand.

"I can't believe you tried that."

"And I can't believe you think that I would ever use a normal spear."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow before the spear turned into a large black snake that quickly coiled around Hiccup, pinning his arms to his sides and forcing his legs together. He growled and glared at the witch who cackled thinking she'd succeeded in beating her foe but her laughter was short lived as Hiccup released his prosthetics small rotating blade and quickly cut the snakes coils, raising his hand and freeing himself. The pieces fell to the ground and turned into pieces of the spear while Baba Yaga looked at him in shock and growled as she asked.

"Just how many tricks do you have?"

"More than you do witch and I'll be happy to make it loud and clear to you now!" She snarled like an animal.

"So do I!"

She raised her left hand and thrust it forward before Hiccup felt as if he'd been slammed into by something, throwing him back onto the ground and while he was down, the witch came at him with her pestle held high. He quickly activated his Noe mask and let out a sonic blast that threw Baba Yaga back the hall to the stairs on the other side of the room allowing Hiccup to throw his legs up and stand back up with a smirk under his mask as he said.

"I've got a lot more tricks up my sleeve to deal with anything you throw at me." Baba Yaga growled before she raised her pestle and raised her hands before hidden crossbows in the upper walls fell down and launched their arrows at Hiccup.

"Let's see you deal with these." Hiccup quickly did a backflip to avoid the arrows and immediately began to run to avoid more incoming arrows. "My bows won't stop firing until your body lays dead on the ground!"

Hiccup growled in annoyance and swept his coat around him forming a dome of nine flaming tails around him which the arrows flew right into it but they kept coming. He then stood up straight while raising his arms, causing the dome to burst out in a fiery blast that destroyed the coming arrows while Hiccup quickly released his sentient metal tail and had the lings go towards the bows, shattering them. They then returned to Hiccup who glared at Baba Yaga and knew things had to end soon but no matter what he did to this witch she seemed to almost immediately recover from it. It was then Hiccup remembered an item in his arsenal that no creature has ever recovered from and knew how to administer it without Baba Yaga, being able to block it. He had his spiderpack slide the item down his sleeve and into his real hand that he turned into his prosthetic to be safe since Baba Yaga had her eyes on his prosthetic that was reaching for his bag of Loki balls while he prepared the item. He quickly pulled out a hand full of black Loki balls and threw them at the witch, surrounding her in black smog as she coughed while Hiccup took the opportunity to rush at her with his ox flame boots speed mode active. He slammed his left fist into Baba Yaga's stomach, lodging what was in his fist into her stomach while throwing her back into a pillar where she slumped to the ground with her pestle in hand. Hiccup looked at her in disgust as he said.

"It's over witch!" Baba Yaga slowly stood up with her bones snapping as they did as she chuckled.

"Do you really think I'll be ended by just one punch?" Hiccup smirked and let out a small chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"You're already dead and you don't even realize it yet." He shrugged. "Then again, all you evil magic users think your immortal until it's too late." Before she could ask him what he meant, an immense pain coursed through her body making her body curl down in pain which is when she noticed the arrow head now lodged in her stomach.

"An arrow head?"

"Covered in hydra's blood, deadliest poison I've ever come across in all my travels and I can promise you this witch, it's not something that even you will survive." She screeched in pain as her veins blackened and her skin began to rot.

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" Hiccup sighed and shook his head.

"Just once I would a villain to come up with something original to say as they die."

She dropped her pestle and in one final attempt to kill him but Hiccup just delivered a strong kick to her stomach, pushing the arrow head in deeper as a flaming bull burst from her back and dragged her back into the wall. Her body shattered as it hit the wall and she fell to the ground as nothing more than a dried up husk of a body that was slowly turning into nothing but dust and bones. Hiccup pulled out his dragon pipe and took a few puffs before letting out a puff of gas as he looked around, hoping that with its owner dead the house wouldn't be able to do anything. With this in mind, he began looking for Alina but kept his guard up since there's no telling what was still active in this house of horrors that could kill him.

Outside Baba Yaga's realm

Every one of the villagers were now sat down on the ground with their arms tied behind their backs with a few of them still conscious and struggling with the ninja surrounding them. At the front of the house though was Lev who was standing next to Toothless with the lead ninja standing guard by them as Lev looked around at his people in sadness. It was then Viktor's eye's cleared and he looked down while letting out a groan of pain and then looked around in surprise as the other conscious people did the same. It was then his eyes landed on Lev and he immediately asked.

"Lev, what's going on?"

"Are you in your right mind now dad, do you want to kill me?" He struggled a little.

"No but if you don't give a good explanation as to who these people are, why me and everyone else is tied up and how I got here to begin with then I do have a good mind to put you on manure duty till your kids have kids of their own." Lev was a little convinced by this but it was then he asked something that showed he was truly back. "Wait a minute, where's your sister because if anything has happened to her than I won't be able to live with myself." Lev literally jumped in joy and tackled his bound father as he yelled.

"YES, YOU'RE BACK!" He pulled back and looked at his father who looked back confused.

"Where did I go?" Lev smiled.

"It's a long story dad." He then turned to the lead ninja. "They're all free from whatever was controlling them so could you guys untie them?" They shook their heads. "Wait till Hiccup gets back?" They nodded making Lev sigh and turn to his father. "Sorry dad but you'll have to wait until Hiccup gets back." Viktor nodded.

"If that is the case then you can begin explaining what is going on, starting with why I'm tied up and who these men are." Lev sat down and began his explanation.

1 hour later

Hiccups POV:

It's been an hour since I defeated Baba Yaga and since then I've found Alina who was locked in a cage built into the wall and got her out of that horror house before I used my boom bugs to destroy it from the inside and outside but took Baba Yaga's mortar and pestle into my spiderpack as trophies. Once that was done I took off into the forest to find as many people as I could to free them from this prison they'd all been kept in for so long. Fortunately, it didn't take too long since the fog had been lifted, showing the forest wasn't as big or dense as I originally thought which proved that the fog was used to mess with our minds. It's sad really since there were actually a large number of people trapped in it from children to elders who'd been imprisoned here for who knows how long.

This brings us to now with me supervising the people crawl into the same hole in the tree that I came through when I first came into this forest of horrors with Alina cradled in my arms. I smiled as the last of the people crawled into the hole that would take them back to the village where we could hopefully find their loved ones or at least begin searching for their own villages. I looked around at the forest one last time through the eyes of my various scouter automatons and let out a sigh of relief when I saw nobody else within them before summoning all my automatons back to me and looking down at Alina with a smile as I asked.

"Ready to go home to your family?" She just let out a gurgle making me smile as my automatons arrived. "I'll take that as a yes." With that said I collected my automatons and then entered the hole in the tree.

Nightfall

The day was over and I could not be happier since after returning with Alina I had to do a lot of explaining to the people of the village with some being greatful and moved to tears when they were reunited with some of the people I rescued who they thought dead. This included Fyodor who was now free of Baba Yaga's magic and with it gone he regained his sanity and could now remember who he lost which turned out to be his fifteen year old daughter who had spent years trapped in the forest and was glad to be free of it as were the others. This did lead to an hour long explanation though followed by a two hour question and answer session and then another hour long check-up of all the people who had been imprisoned by the witch to make sure they were all alright after being trapped for so long. When that was done I had to talk with Viktor about getting a few of the people back to their own villages and he assured me that he'd have his men send out messages, asking the villages to send guards to pick them up the first chance they got but for now his people needed him. Now I was in nothing but my pants and walking up to my bed before collapsing onto it face first with a groan as I said.

"This day is finally over." I turned over so I was facing the roof. "And tomorrow I have to help find out where some of the rescued people come from, go through another question and answer session about my adventures, how I met Toothless and more." I sighed. "Just once I would like to come to some new land without needing to deal with some form of evil and then needing to go through the whole hero worship sessions." I closed my eyes. "Well it isn't all bad, at least Alina and all those people are safe and nobody else will go missing." With this in mind I drifted off to sleep.

AN: And that is another chapter done and posted for you all to enjoy and yeah I know it's late but I'm still on holiday so bear with it as holiday time is family time, not writing time. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and will review kindly to it as I did work hard on it when I could and good news for you all is my holiday ends on Sunday and I'm back to work on Monday so things will slowly get back to normal but it'll still take time to get back into the groove. Have a nice day guys and remember to review please.