Eret and the others were running as quickly as they could back to the Night Fury, and Fishlegs and his group began explaining everything that had happened to them.

"You set this thing is bigger than a giant," said Eret. "What is it, some kind of monster?"

"Yeah, that huge crash you heard earlier and that crazy yelling were from the same creature," said Fishlegs. "In other words, Hiccup's zombie is going on a rampage."

"Hey, look!" Snotlout pointed as he saw the master of their ship poking over the walls of the harbour. "I can see the Night Fury!"

"Good, it looks like what that skeleton guy told us is right," said Eret.

"Indeed," Heather agreed.

They eventually climbed up the staircase to the harbour gate. From there, they could see the Night Fury still trapped in a joint spiderweb.

"I see, so that's the way this works, huh?" said Eret. "You land right here on the island, take a little stroll through this gate and up the stairs and before you know it, you walk straight into the boss's room. Serving your shadow on a silver platter."

"Somebody lowered the stairs on the Night Fury," Snotlout noticed. "I wonder why they would do that?"

They climbed down towards the dock, and Snotlout screamed as he climbed aboard the Night Fury.

"I don't know what happened while we were gone, but they totally wrecked the place!" he yelled.

Heather looked down on the dock and saw a number of dirty footprints, most barefooted. "This is the zombies' work; their footprints are everywhere."

"Then you think they're still here?" Chopper whimpered.

"No, I think they're long gone," said Fishlegs.

"Along with everything on our ship," said Tuffnut as they boarded the Night Fury.

Sure enough, they saw that the entire ship had been ransacked. There were a number of empty crates and barrels on the lawn.

"I wonder what they were trying to do?" Ruffnut wondered.

"They tore through all that stuff," said Eret. "Jokes on them; we don't have anything worth taking."

"Guess they were looking to steal whatever treasure we have," said Fishlegs. "Good thing we don't have any."

"Looks like they took all of our food, though," said Tuffnut.

Chopper then sniffed the air. "I don't smell any zombies."

"So you think the others are really here?" Snotlout asked.

"Won't know until we look," said Eret.

"Hey! Hiccup! Toothless! Ragnar!" Chopper cried.

"Are you here or not? Answer us!" Snotlout yelled.

"They could still be out cold," said Fishlegs.

"They probably placed them inside a cabin, right?" said Heather.

"Why would they do something like that?" Chopper asked.

"They have to protect Hiccup and the others; if they die, then their zombies will die as well," Heather explained.

"I see," said Fishlegs. "Okay, Eret… you, Chopper and the twins check out the first floor; Heather, Snotlout, and I will check upstairs. There could still be some zombies roaming around here, so everyone be careful, okay."

"Hey, who put you in charge!" Snotlout complained.

"Save it; we need to find our bros," said Eret.

With that, they all scattered and began searching the ship from top to bottom. They discovered that the ship had indeed been ransacked of anything of value, not that they had much, to begin with. Fishlegs then entered the dining room and found them, though he was a little shocked by what he saw.

"Hey! They're right in the dining room, all three of them!" he yelled.

Everyone immediately rushed to the dining room, and they, too, were rather shocked by what they witnessed.

"Hiccup!" Chopper cried.

"What the hell is this?" Eret stared.

Heather just stared in silence while Snotlout and the twins were fighting the urge to snigger.

"Those only really had a field day with them while they were knocked out, huh?" said Fishlegs.

The zombies had placed all three of them on chairs and positioned them so they were resting on the back of the chairs. They had also placed close pegs on their cheeks, stuck sticks up their noses, tied bows in Hiccup and Ragnar's hair and stuck the boot on top of Toothless' head.

"It's hard to look at," said Heather.

"Those only sure have a sense of humour," Tuffnut snickered.

"They look ridiculous!" Ruffnut laughed.

"I have to get my camera!" said Snotlout.

Fishlegs quickly approached Hiccup and shook him violently. "Come on, wake up. This is in the time to take a nap!"

"Leave this one to me," said Eret as he cracked his knuckles.

Then before anyone could stop him, he slammed his hands down upon the three of them. In fairness, it did do the trick. They woke up with a start, though it left them with some terrible headaches.

"Ow, my head!" Hiccup groaned.

"What happened?" Ragnar moaned.

Toothless glared at Eret. "What did you do that for?"

"That's one way to wake them up," Heather sighed.

Meanwhile, the zombie fitter was now looking for a wedding dress for Astrid after taking her measurements.

"Did you hear the news?" a zombie portraits asked.

"Indeed," said a second portrait. "It looks like she's a 95… 55… 85… those three sizes are…"

"…nothing short of a miracle!" they said in unison.

The fitter then opened the closet, which was filled with wedding dresses; he then began looking through all of them until he found the right one.

"Ah… this is the one," he said once he found the perfect wedding dress.

He then took the wedding dress and placed it next to Astrid's unconscious body and then jumped onto the table.

"Perfect match," he said. "Dearie, I'm going to make you shine."

He then reached out and prepared to remove her clothes and the zombie portraits and looked on with excitement.

"Oh, almost forgot," he said and then quickly struck the zombie portraits' eyes with his take measure.

"What the heck are you trying to pull here, you old coot?"

The threat of them pulled back his take measure and chuckled. "I'm saving and neck, boys. If Master Absalom finds out you're picking at his bride, you'd be even better than you are now…" He then turned towards the corner of the room. "…isn't that right, Master Absalom?"

They then suddenly heard someone standing up and walking away; the portrait then quickly realised that it was Absalom, who had rendered himself invisible.

"Wait, don't tell me…"

"…he was still here?"

They continued to watch and then saw the door close, confirming their worst fears.

"Help! Save me!"

Once outside, Absalom made himself visible, and his cheeks bright pink.

"Damnit, I didn't think you would find me," he grumbled.

It was then that he saw a zombie priest standing beside him, much to his shock.

"What are you waiting for?" he yelled. "Go and get the Zombie Generals to the wedding! Move! Get out of here!"

"Yes, sir!" said the priest and quickly ran off.

Meanwhile, back on the Night Fury, Hiccup and the others had finally recovered from the sharp headache that Eret had given them.

"What happened?" Hiccup groaned. "The last thing I remember was my shadow being stolen."

"I'm afraid that was a while ago," said Eret.

Hiccup then took note of their surroundings. "Wait, this is the—"

"Yeah, it's the Night Fury," Eret nodded.

"We can see that, but what are we doing back here all of a sudden?" Toothless asked, and then he looked at his feet and noted his lacking of a shadow. "Oh crap, it wasn't a dream after all, was it? I really lost my shadow! This feels weird!"

"It also looks like they took those of everything but the dry food," said Ragnar as he took note of the inventories.

"I screwed up," said Toothless facepalming himself. "How can I let this happen? I really let my guard down."

"You're not the only one who got blindsided," said Hiccup.

Ragnar looked around, noting that they were one crewmember short. "Hang on, where's Astrid? Is she waiting outside or something?"

"About that…" said Fishlegs awkwardly.

Fishlegs looked at Snotlout and Chopper, and all three of them gave each other nervous looks.

Hiccup immediately sat upright and stared at them. "Don't tell me she's been kidnapped as well?"

"That's what pretty much happened," said Fishlegs looking ashamed. "There was nothing we could do to stop him."

"Yeah, that guy was tough to catch on a good day," said Snotlout. "Somehow, the guy is able to make himself invisible as was anything he touches."

"If they have Astrid, then they could be taking her shadow as we speak," said Ragnar.

"Oh, I don't think there's a good chance of that; it's a long story," said Fishlegs.

Hiccup sat up. "No matter which way you put it, we have two important things to get back no matter what. And that's Astrid, and get back our shadows."

Everyone made their way outside, and they began to explain everything that had happened to one another.

"You're saying he's going to marry her?" Hiccup yelled, looking appalled. "Is that even legal?"

"The guy must be pretty brave if he wants to marry Astrid," said Ragnar.

"I'm a little more concerned with those zombies that hold our shadows," said Toothless as he looked at Fishlegs and his group. "Fishlegs, you already said that you saw who or what had Ragnar's and Hiccup's shadows, right?"

Fishlegs and his group were still rather shocked to discover that Moria was one of the Seven Warlords.

"No one ever told me that we were fighting one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea," Fishlegs cried.

"Viggo was bad enough, but this guy has an entire army of the undead," Snotlout moaned.

"Can I just roll over and cry myself to sleep?" Chopper asked.

"You guys were all business just a second ago," said Eret.

"We didn't know any better!" they snapped.

"And on that note, I've got something to whip up," said Ragnar.

Hiccup frowned. "So you're saying if you put someone else's shadow in a zombie, they act like that person. If that's the case, then I think I saw your zombie Toothless."

"Oh yeah, what kind of guy was he?" Toothless asked curiously.

"He was definitely a drake, but he had a patchwork of different scales around his body," said Hiccup.

"I see, so if we find this drake, the dog penguin, the one that has Ragnar's shadow, and the giant monster zombie, all we have to do is throw some salt in their mouths, and we get our shadows back is that it?"

"Yeah, that's what it looks like," Eret nodded.

"I get the feeling it's not going to be that simple, though," said Fishlegs.

Ragnar then returned and looked as if he was grinding something up.

"Either way, nice job finding out their weaknesses; how did you pull that one off?" Toothless asked.

"Save your thanks for the drake skeleton; not only did he know how to beat the zombies, but he also told us you will be waiting back here on the Night Fury," said Eret.

"So you ran into Skull again?" said Hiccup.

"Yeah, but I do feel a little bad since I asked him a pretty cool question," said Eret shamefully. "When I met the guy, I didn't give him a fair shake; truth be told, I barely even thought of him as human."

"But he's not human. He's a drake," said Tuffnut.

"You know what I mean!" Eret snapped. "Anyway, what? I finally took the time to talk to him for a second, and I found out that he has a real backbone."

"Of course, he has a backbone. He's a skeleton," said Ruffnut.

"Will you two shut up and let me finish the story!" Eret snapped angrily. "What I'm saying is, I was wrong. That skeleton is a real man. I shouldn't have said it, but—"

Eret then began to think back before they parted ways with Skull to rescue their crew.

"I'm in a hurry, so please excuse me," said Skull and began to walk off. "I'll be on my way now."

"Hold on a second!" said Eret, and he stopped in his tracks. "While your still in a mood to talk, there's one more burning question I still need an answer to. If you go out in public looking like that, you know how people are going to react, don't you? I mean, your talking skeleton; there's no way someone as creepy as you is going to make friends with anyone. People are going to run away in terror."

"Eret, why are you telling him that?" Heather asked.

Eret, however, didn't stop and continued. "Even if you see the sun and make it out of these accursed waters, your life will still be filled with suffering. You've had it rough for a long time already. Are you sure you can handle that? After all, you said you were so lonely that you wanted to die, right?

"If I were you, I would have given up living a long time ago and yet you still act as a gentleman. You laugh, you sing, and you pretend like you don't have a care in the world. What is it that keeps you in the world alive? You said that you made a promise to a friend, but what is it, and how could it be so important?"

Skull gave a quiet chuckle. "Interested in me, are you? The story is quite simple. At a certain point in the past, before we came to these waters, my crew left behind a good friend of ours. It was a troubling situation, but we did it out of necessity.

"The only consolation we could offer this friend was a promise that we would return one day, no matter the cost. But then the crew was annihilated, and the promise that we made was left unfulfilled. Since I'm the only survivor, it is my duty to return to our friend, even if I must bear sad news. How long has it been since the day we died? I've lost count, but it's been more than 50 years now."

Eret's eyes widened in shock. "50 years? We're talking ages ago here! Hell, I wasn't even born yet. I hate to break it to you, buddy, but there's no way your friend is still waiting for—"

"You don't know that!" Skull snapped viciously.

Eret was taken aback.

Skull then calmed himself. "But it is true that he would have every right to leave by now. I realised that it may be foolish to believe he's still there. However, if by some chance he still believes in our promise and has been waiting for us even all these years in loneliness that he is suffering would be far worse than my own. How sad he must be, wondering if we had betrayed him, wondering if our promise was a lie and yet still waiting for us in the same place."

Eret didn't know quite what to say. "Your rights, but—"

"The name of that friend that we left the Capes swearing we would meet again is… Laboon," said Skull and looked up towards the night sky. "He was just a child; we simply couldn't take such a young whale on a dangerous journey like that."

"A whale?" Eret blinked.

"Yes," he nodded.

He then fought back to 50 years ago when his crew left Laboon at Reverse Mountain.

"I can only imagine how big he's grown since then," said Skull with a small smile.

"You think that whale understood your promise?" Eret asked almost sceptically.

"In his own way. I can't help but think that he's still waiting for us at that Cape, staring longingly at the Grand Line. He probably wants to hear us play our cheerful music again, dancing and singing. Although I suppose it's a bit late for that now, even if I am able to return, I don't think you will forgive us for running away and dying like that. But no matter how much he resents me for forcing him to suffer all of these years…" He then gritted his teeth and gripped his cane as hard as he could. "…death is never an apology! Because when a man makes a promise, he doesn't stop fighting until he fulfils it!"

Hiccup and the others just stared openmouthed at Eret once he was finished.

"So there you have it, that's it for all story," said Eret.

"Laboon…" Hiccup gasped.

Everyone apart from Heather and Chopper looked at Eret, stunned.

"This is crazy; what are the chances?" Fishlegs gaped.

"I'll be damned," said Ragnar.

Snotlout looked at the twins. "You two heard the story; how come you didn't tell them?"

"We, uh, weren't listening," Tuffnut admitted.

"We were playing around," said Ruffnut.

Eret, Heather and Chopper looked at them, confused, and it suddenly occurred to the rest of the Dragon Riders that they hadn't been part of the crew when they met Laboon.

"Oh right, Chopper and Heather weren't with us then," said Fishlegs.

Hiccup looked at Eret, Heather and Chopper. "We met that whale before… and we know that promise."