A tense silence followed as the Vikings and princess watched Dagur glare Oswald down.
"I would've been…" the boy stopped, feeling overwhelmed by rage and sadness. "You left me to get tortured."
The chief blinked. "You think I'm working with Alvin?"
Dagur scowled. "I know you did."
Oswald scoffed. "I would not be so sure if I were you. You 'know' very little."
The younger Berserker practically lunged at the chief and Mala stopped him. "You are not well enough," she reasoned.
Dagur seethed, though he did not attack. Heather stepped between her brother and father.
"Hold on!" she shouted. "Dagur, Dad would never do something like that. What's gotten into you?"
The boy frowned at her as well. "Alvin told me while I was there, but I didn't want to believe it. Oswald proved he was right just now by acting so worried." His furious expression turned more sad. "Really gave it away when you called me 'Son.' You've never done that."
"That's not tr–" Oswald paused for a moment. "Well, you've never given me a reason to. Excuse me for not having imagined that my firstborn would be insane. Heather is of sound mind like myself."
Blood in Dagur started to boil. "And that's why you decided to have me out of the picture entirely by being caught by Alvin?"
The chief chuckled. "Too short-sighted. By getting rid of you, I ensured that neither you nor anyone else would cause any harm to Berserker Island." His expression darkened. "I was protecting my Vikings and now that you have been freed, my end of the deal will not be kept and we'll have a war on our hands." Oswald's face changed to convey an idea forming. "Maybe, we won't have a war after all."
As his focus lessened, Dagur's became more narrow. "What war? Who's coming?"
The man shook his head slightly. "No one's coming. Not yet and not ever."
The ex-chief was not relenting so easily. "Apparently, you think someone's going to come after everybody here. We need to know, so we can either attack first or at least fend them off," Dagur stated, annoyed.
Both Berserkers glared at one another, each one with stern and focused expressions. The longer they stared the other down, the angrier Dagur felt and Mala as well as Strykie sensed it. The Triple Stryke readied his tail, causing his rider to reluctantly stop him.
"We can figure out who the Vikings are, but now," Mala suggested, "you should rest for a moment. Should there be a battle, we will need you at full capacity."
Grumbling, Dagur went to the village with the princess, leaving his confused sister with the others. Heather's eyes were wide at Oswald.
"Is he right? Did you set him up?" she asked.
Her father straightened his back and looked her in the eyes.
"What I did was protect you and all of Berserker Island. If there is something wrong with that, then perhaps I am the one who is insane."
Without waiting for an answer, the man walked away. He did not go to his hut, so as to avoid Dagur. Instead, Oswald went to the Hall, frowning all the way.
"Now that he's back, it's only a matter of time before Ryker and his Vikings bring their battleships this way." His frown turned into a confused expression. "Heather looked so shocked at what I did. All of them did." The chief turned ashen. "What if they're not the only ones who think that? The other Berserkers might change their minds on Dagur again and decide that they want him back as leader."
Hardly realizing it, the Berserker's breath turned fast and shallow as he began to panic.
"He'll run this island into the ground. Below the sea even!" Oswald thought aloud. When Vorg entered the Hall, Oswald brushed past him and ran into the village. "This is almost as crazy as Dagur, but I'm out of options." he mused once he reached a hut.
The man knocked heavily on the door and impatiently awaited an answer. Ansson opened the door and was met with a familiarly brisk greeting from the chief.
"Aye, Chief. What can I do ya for this time?" he asked, a bit of annoyance in his tone.
The Berserker's lackadaisical countenance changed when he looked at Oswald. The man was positively mad, pacing back and forth and muttering to himself with a wild look in his eyes. Abruptly, he turned to Ansson.
"I'm giving you one last chance. Fail this time and you're off the island."
During Oswald's meeting, Dagur was showing Mala his old hut. "I need to know who we're up against," he stated, upset.
The two sat down and Mala pursed her lips. "Well, we can make a list of people who might want to harm Berserker Island, though that could become too vague," she commented.
The boy sighed. "Whoever it is, it seems like it's somebody who's recently been around. No one on the island or anything, but I guess someone Oswald thinks I'll mess up by being around them."
A light dawned on his face.
"What?" Mala inquired, seeing the realization.
"Nothing happened until you and I fought off those hunters." He lowered his eyes slightly. "I'd been gone for a little while by that point and no one was after me, so it has to be that Oswald's made some agreement with the hunters." The boy shot up. "And if he's done that, he might try to give them Strykie and the other dragons too."
Dagur went to the door and Mala joined him. FD followed them and was thinking hard about the hunters.
"That dragon I was telling you about who's in the center of the island–if the hunters do come here, they'll be after it," he told pD.
The younger Dagur gave a subtle nod and kept going, seeing that neither the Berkians nor Heather had left the hill. Toothless was gently nudging Heather's hand, trying to comfort her.
"There has to be something that we're missing," the girl said, her brows furrowing deeply.
"Well, if someone might be a threat to the island," Hiccup started, "we should ask Oswald who he was talking to. Maybe we can rationalize with him."
Rather than respond, Heather just silently glared at the grass.
"You could ask him, but he won't tell you anything," Dagur said, approaching with Mala, "I'm pretty sure that the Vikings we're going after are dragon hunters."
A collective gasp was emitted from the riders.
"What makes you think that?" Hiccup asked.
"And more importantly, where do we find them?" Astrid chimed in.
Dagur patted Strykie's head and leaned against him. "Alvin came as soon as I stopped one of the hunts. I'm not entirely sure where they are right now, but I know they like to find different types of dragons. We'd have to go outside the archipelago to get them. There are more dragons out there and the hunters know it."
Fishlegs shuddered. "Outside the archipelago? We've never gone that far before."
His friend nodded. "But we'll have to if we want to stop them. Let's head back to Berk and let them know what we're doing," Hiccup stated. He pulled out a map. "Tomorrow morning, we can meet up here," he added, pointing to a spot. "It's the perfect halfway point between us. We can head from there to the other islands."
Everyone was in agreement and the Berkians got back on their dragons. Before they took off, Dagur called to them.
"Hey, thanks for coming to get me," he told them.
They smiled and left Berserker Island for their own home. Mala and the Berserkers watched them fly away. The Defender side-eyed Heather, noticing that the younger Viking was still frowning. Dagur wanted to say something to his sister, but she was visibly in deep thought and the annoying pain that he had been ignoring was relentlessly trying to get his attention. His hand brushed Mala's.
"We have extra guest huts that I'll show you, but I'll be right back," he told her, not particularly wanting her to see him limp to his hut.
She nodded and waited for him to leave prior to going over to Heather.
"While I am sure that it is difficult to learn of your father's actions, Dagur does deserve your belief in him to know that he would not fabricate this," she said.
Heather looked at her. "It's not that I think he's lying, but Dad wouldn't do that."
Seeing that Mala could not disagree more, the Berserker left. She did not go to her normal hut this time and went back to Axel and Mia's hut. They opened the door with welcoming arms.
"What's wrong?" Axel asked Heather.
She frowned. "Everyone thinks that my other dad set up Dagur to get captured by Alvin, but he wouldn't do that."
She went to her room faster than they could offer advice and closed the door. The girl paced back and forth.
"I won't accept this. There's no way that the biological father I've been dreaming of having since before I can even remember would do something like this. He cares about Dagur and me. He'd never try to hurt us or cause it to happen." A determined look was in her eyes. "And I know how to prove that."
That evening, Mala settled into one of the guest huts and Dagur took another for himself. The last thing he wanted was to stay in the same hut as Oswald.
"What's all this about some special dragon they need?" he asked his older self.
"The King of Dragons is what it's called," fD said. "The hunters want to control it so that they can control every other dragon through it."
The youthful Dagur grunted. "Dragons, dragon riders, and dragon hunters. And not to forget a sister who doesn't believe me about the last one." He sighed. "She looked like she'd do anything to prove me wrong."
FD gave a small nod of his head, then his eyes widened. "You might not be wrong and if she'd really do anything to prove that, then we need to stop her."
PD realized what fD meant and he rushed outside, going to Oswald's hut first and then the one belonging to Mia and Axel. When he found Heather at neither, the Berserker went up to the hill and jumped on the Triple Stryke's back.
The boy groaned, "What are you getting yourself into, Sis?"