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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Falling Into the Jaws of Death

WARNING: The following story is certainly rated PG-13 or worse due to intense scenes of action and violence, disturbing images, and a sequence of torture. I don't glorify violence nor do I like it, but be warned that this chronicle is more intense than any of the others.

Well, now that I got the warning out for you, here is my longest and most climactic Chronicle. If you haven't read all the previous Chronicles, this will not be all that big of a deal to you, so I suggest you read them first. This thing is really dark and really intense, but there is no way around that. Any Hiccup or Toothless fans best get ready for some horrible heart-wrenches. I worked very hard on this one, and the extended scenes of fighting are not easy to handle. It is meant to be one of the most significant and climactic plots that will ever happen in the story, so I hope it delivers.

Feel free to comment with thoughts or questions. The Chronicles are a bit milder after this. It is seventeen pages long, and pretty much none of those pages are happy.






Dimension Splash Chronicles
Event: Falling Into the Jaws of Death
Pov: Hiccup, Link, Toothless, Skari
Time: Year 10.12 of Hiccup and Link’s existence in the game


     Hiccup flinched in his sleep. His dreams had turned from pleasant to pained very suddenly, and his sleeping body twitched in fear and discomfort. His mind’s eye watched as swirls of black, blood, violence, death, and betrayal filled his sleeping thoughts. He saw lurid visions of Toothless stooping over something, someone, with his mouth stained red. Hiccup’s vision then turned down as something stirred at his feet in the blackness. It was Toothless again, but now the dragon had a hideous gash in his chest, and to Hiccup’s horror he saw a knife in his own blood soaked hand. He tried to drop the blade, but could not. The dragon beneath him moaned in pain, and then Hiccup heard screaming, horrified screaming. It was Astrid, and she was hurt. Hiccup couldn’t see her, and blackness swirled around him as the scream grew louder and more desperate. He tried to move, tried to run towards the shrill cries of pain, but suddenly found that his arms and legs were splayed apart and held down by terrible pressure. He tried to see what was holding him, but found himself lying flat on his back and unable to stand. Something black was over top of him, a shape even darker than the surrounding pitch. Green eyes stared down from the face of the shape, and then its mouth opened, and retracted teeth shot out and gleamed white and sharp. There was a sound, an all too familiar noise added to the screams of Astrid--Toothless’s gurgle, and it was coming from the shape above him. The mouth dropped lower towards Hiccup’s chest, and he begged desperately, “No, bud. No, Toothless. No, please NO!”

     Hiccup lurched out of sleep. He was lying next to Toothless on the mossy ground in the small grove near the river. Toothless was still asleep, but the dragon stirred a claw and flapped an ear. Hiccup took in a deep breath and wanted very badly to scoot away from the Night Fury, but he knew that would not be the right way to handle the nightmares. Toothless would never do that in reality, it was the poison of the Gemnode’s mind that had created that image, and Hiccup wanted desperately to erase it. He had been doing much better of late, the flashbacks had lessened, but why had this one come so suddenly and without provocation? Just as Hiccup sat up pondering the question an electrical, resonating, reptilian voice cut through the air. “Sleep well?”

     Hiccup’s heart jumped into his throat. Perched high on a rock only yards away from him was a long, green dragon. It’s yellow eyes burned with a morbid glee. Glistening green spikes of crystal ran down its back, and its tail wrapped several times around the stone beneath it. Hiccup had seen this dragon before in the deletion void, and he knew what it was. Sardilic had taken this form so as to torture him more creatively, and the act had been vile enough to make even the other Gemnodes appalled. Hiccup wanted to run, scream, wanted to do anything other than sit there and stare into Sardilic’s eyes, but fear had completely paralyzed him. Much to Hiccup’s relief, Toothless moaned behind him and opened his eyes blearily. He had sensed tension in the boy and that had disturbed his own rest. As soon as the Night Fury saw the dragon perching on the rock he leapt to his feet snarling and stood between Sardilic and Hiccup. 

     “Oh, now that really is just adorable.” Sardilic leered with contempt at Toothless. “Your pet would try and protect you? Well of course he would, but--” Sardilic chuckled wickedly, “Sometimes even the best of friends can’t protect their loved ones, can they?” 

     Hiccup finally was able to speak, but the shaking in his own voice shocked him, “Toothless, be careful!” Toothless growled hotly at the Gemdragon. Hiccup trembled almost uncontrollably in fear. He tried to pull himself together, but the sight of Sardilic had brought everything back to the surface that he had buried away. Toothless could feel the fear in Hiccup, and the Night Fury suddenly guessed that this dragon was the one responsible for all the mysterious pain Hiccup had been through ever since he was brought back from deletion. Hiccup had never told Toothless what he had suffered, but Toothless had sensed that Hiccup was afraid of him, and he could not understand why. This dragon was bringing all of that back, and Toothless was putting two and two together. This monster had done something horrible to Hiccup before, and Toothless was not going to let it happen again. He fired, no warning, no roar, just a rapid and powerful blast of flame. It hit Sardilic right in the face, but the Gemnode chuckled. 

     “I suppose that was intended to hurt me. I think it tickled more than anything. Oh, this must be so painful for you, Toothless. You’ve already seen your boy killed once, but that was only deletion. I have something far worse in store for him.”

     Hiccup’s mind raced. WORSE? What could the Gemnode possibly be planning? Toothless was not going to sit around to find out. He stepped back and straddled Hiccup who was still lying on the ground. Toothless shot another blast, but again it did practically nothing.

     “Dear me, you are a crabby one. Why don’t you just calm down? I have been working up an appetite with all this searching, and I don’t really plan of having to fight over my meal. Take a nap.” Sardilic’s eyes flashed, and a green mist swirled around Toothless’s face. He fell to his side and breathed in deeply. Hiccup jumped to his feet, suddenly finding strength within himself to do so. “No! No, Sardilic, don’t do this to him!”

     There was a Skrill’s roar, and Skari flew screaming into the scene. He was carrying Link in his talons, and he dropped him feet away from Sardilic with his sword drawn. Link rushed up, but before he got anywhere near the Gemnode his sword flew out of his hands, and an invisible field of energy grabbed him and slammed him to the ground. Skari was no better off. He found himself blinded, deafened, disoriented, and he crashed into the ground several yards away from Hiccup before he regained his senses. Binding cords of energy wrapped around him and burnt into his scales as he hissed in pain. Sardilic shook his head. “Is this it? Is the best you all could do? And you would stand against the Gemlord? I wish he would have given me permission to kill you all because this is just entertaining!”

     “Sardilic, stop! Please, leave Toothless alone!” Hiccup begged throwing his hands forward in a pleading, desperate gesture. Toothless was beginning to moan in his unconscious state, and Hiccup knew what Sardilic would do to him. The Gemnode only grinned. Then an idea crept into the young boys terrified mind, perhaps a ray of hope, but at least a way give Link a way to fight the Gemnodes. Hiccup needed to drop Endeavor, for if Sardilic searched him and found the shard, their one hope of stopping the purpose would be gone. His mind raced, and then he found a way to do it. “Listen, I’ll do anything, just don’t do this to Toothless. You can take me, just don’t hurt him.” Hiccup stood straight and looked Sardilic in the eye.

     “Hiccup, no.” Link groaned, but the field of energy pressed him harder against the ground as he tried to speak.

     Sardilic was genuinely surprised. “You’ll do anything? Well, I’m going to make you live up to that. Drop your inventory and come with me. You offered yourself, and I will tell you that I intend for this to be-” Sardilic’s tongue flicked out of his mouth and drew across his teeth sinisterly, “Excruciating.”

     Hiccup looked at Toothless. He took off his satchel and dropped it on the ground. His heart was starting to flit around like a bird caught in a net, but he forced himself to be brave. Endeavor was in that satchel, and now Sardilic would never find the shard, and if he was very lucky, perhaps the others could use it to rescue him. He whispered to the still unconscious form of his dear friend, “Bud, I don’t know where he is taking me, but please come find me. I trust you. I trust you.” He stroked Toothless gently on the ear and then turned to face Sardilic. “What are you going to do?”

     “Why should I tell you?”

     “So that my friends can know how I died.”

     “Ah, fair enough. I do love making loved ones hurt, and I suppose it will help them understand what happens to those who oppose the purpose. I am going to take you Hiccup. I am going to take you back to your own world. I am going to find a secluded little spot where it can be just me and you, and I am going to eat you there.”

     Link struggled to try and get to his feet, and Skari roared in anger. Hiccup felt his heart sink into into his stomach which was twisting into knots of fear. This was not going to be deletion after all, Hiccup really would die, and he would die slowly. Toothless jerked in his hallucinating, and Hiccup looked down at him. He took in one last deep breath, stopped his trembling, and then looked back into Sardilic’s eyes. “I am ready. I didn’t really plan to go out this way,” Hiccup’s own sarcasm surprised him, “but I would rather die doing what is right than let you and your villainy go unchallenged. Leave Toothless alone, and let’s get this thing over with.”

     Sardilic whipped his tail and twisted it around Hiccup’s waist. All the conviction, determination, and courage suddenly extinguished from the boy’s composure as he dangled in front of Sardilic’s face. Hiccup was terrified, and there was no way to fight it. He had done the right thing, he knew that, and he believed every single word he said, but that still did not mean he was not afraid of death. He told himself he would do it, he made the decision, but living up to it was not going to be easy, and his whole body trembled as he sucked in shallow breaths and stared into Sardilic’s laughing face. Link could tell what was happening, and his heart burned in anger. Hiccup should not have given himself up. Link could do nothing to stop him, he couldn’t even speak, but he had heard and seen everything, and now he watched helplessly as Sardilic sliced his talon across the air in front of him and ripped a long, white gash in the sky. The Gemnode eyed Link and dangled Hiccup to were the Hilian could clearly see him. Then in a blinding flash Sardilic stepped into the rift and Hiccup was pulled in by Sardilic’s coiling tail. The viking boy had his eyes closed tightly, and Link felt certain he had seen tears flowing quietly down his face. 

     As soon as the rift closed, Link was able to jump to his feet. The burning cords of energy that had bound Skari evaporated into mist and the Skrill lifted himself from the ground. Neither of them made a sound. This was a shocking, mortifying blow, but the worst shock was yet to come. Toothless’s eyes shot open and he let out a frightened yelp. His pupils were contracted into slits and his whole body vibrated in terror. He looked absolutely petrified, Link had never seen him look so afraid. He began to back away from the scene, but Skari knew what was happening, and he took action. The Skrill beat his wings and leapt over to Toothless’s side. He then throated to him with determined force, “Toothless, it was not real. It was a nightmare and nothing more.”

     “I’ve killed him...” Toothless breathed in quiet horror. “I can’t believe it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him, I’ve KILLED HIM!” The Night Fury tossed his head back and howled in grief before falling to the ground and burying his face beneath his arms. 

     “No, he is not dead. Not yet. What you saw was not real, Toothless. Sardilic has forced you into his own world where he is in control of your every thought, motive, and action. That is how he tortures, that is what he did to me, that is what he did to Hiccup. Now can you see why your boy was so afraid?”

     Toothless lifted his head from the ground. Could it possibly be true? It had felt so real. It was not just that he saw himself do it, he felt himself doing it, and he felt right while he did it. But then he remembered Hiccup, remembered the state of mind the boy had been in, and the Night Fury finally understood how monstrous Sardilic had been. He had shown the boy terrible things, made him commit atrocities and had his greatest friends turn against him. The sadism of the action made Toothless sick with anger, and he jumped back onto his feet with every muscle of his body pulsing with wrath. The fire gasses slipped up into his throat and he could literally taste his rage. “He’s taken him, hasn’t he?”

     “Yes, Toothless.”

     “I will kill him for it. I will kill that monster for touching him! If we don’t get to him in time--” Toothless roared angrily at the whole world around him. “I will not sit here as my dearest friend is tortured! We must get to him.”

     “It is worse than that, Toothless. He has taken him back to your own world. Toothless, he is going to kill Hiccup; he is going to eat him alive.”

     Panic filled Toothless’s mind. That couldn’t happen. It couldn’t end that way. Not for Hiccup, not after all they had been through together. If only the Gemnodes would kill him instead, but they could not kill that dear boy. Toothless was a tossing sea of fear, anger, desperation, and despair. He would go mad if he could not get to Hiccup, and Link saw this and saw that there was a glimmer of hope. They just needed to get moving and get moving quickly. He reached down and grabbed Hiccup’s satchel, pulled out Endeavor, and shot the blade up and out of the hilt. Hiccup had said that if this sword moved fast enough, the Gemshard in it could cleave dimensions, and that meant that they could get to Hiccup and have one final, hopeless battle against that most hideous of beings. 

     “Toothless! We can save him!” Link jumped onto the dragon’s back, and stuck his sword into the slot of Hiccup’s foot pedal. “All we need to do is get to Gale Peak, and if we are lucky this sword will do exactly what Hiccup said. Come on dragon, we are going to save your boy!” Toothless roared in determination and rocketed up into the air. It didn’t matter who saw him now, and Skari swooped close behind him. The two Strike class dragons tore through the wind screaming, and Link was happy to have given them hope, but in his heart he felt a grisly worry. He and Hiccup were never sure that this would work, and what if upon arriving at Gale Peak the plan proved to be a failure? What if they could not get to Hiccup in time? Link tried to force these thoughts out of his mind, and he repeated over and over to himself as the wings of the Night Fury pounded beneath him, “It will work, we will save him.”

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     Hiccup felt completely weightless as the rift closed behind him. For a second he could not breath, there was absolutely no sound, and all around him was a painfully bright white light. The only thing solid was the scaly, muscular dragon tail wrapped around his waist. Then there was a dark gash in the endless world of light. Hiccup’s vision was sucked towards the pitch black spot like a smudge of black ink on an otherwise flawless sheet of white. Sardilic passed into this dark door, and Hiccup was tugged in behind him. Suddenly he could hear and breath again, and Hiccup gasped in the air and blinked trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. To his surprise he found that the black of night was not dark at all. It was midday, but compared to the blazing white of the inter-dimensional space sunlight had seemed black. Hiccup looked around and saw he was on a cliff side in a beautifully rugged, cool landscape. Pines were swaying in the wind, and Hiccup could feel it within his heart; he was home.

     Sardilic dropped him and he fell flat on his face. “Welcome back to Berk, Hiccup!”

     Hiccup lifted himself up off the ground as Sardilic began to look him over menacingly. Hiccup tried to say something, but a sudden pain shot like a burning knife up into his back. He cringed and stifled a yell. Hiccup grabbed at his spine and bent over backwards before falling to the ground again. Sardilic looked on, and as Hiccup looked up into his burning reptilian eyes he was shocked to see that Sardilic looked bewildered. Hiccup did not have long to contemplate this as the pain intensified. He screamed out as sharp bursts of thudding agony shot through his back. Hiccup pulled his legs up towards his chest and buckled over. This helped slightly, but then the knife-like stabbing shuttered into his legs. His teeth ground against each other as his entire body began to throb. Over and over and over again. Each wave of sickening pain worse than the one before. It felt as if this throbbing was coming from his middle and was going to pull him apart. He was flat on his face now, writhing and screaming with each onslaught, but just as he felt sure he could endure no more, the pain stopped. He breathed wetly into the dirt beneath him, and his whole form shivered with each shallow gulp of air. Hiccup winced, put his palms flat against the ground, and tried to get to his feet. Something was strange about the action, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

     Sardilic stood with curiosity and surprise written clearly across his face. “Now, I hadn’t counted on that! Though I must say, it was tantalizingly fun to watch.”

     “What?” Hiccup asked weakly. He still had no idea what had happened to him, and he assumed this had been some device of Sardilic. He had never been in such intense physical pain except when the Golden Dragon had tormented him under the Vadaca curse. As he tried to stand upright he lost his footing and fell onto his back. 

     “In returning you to your dimension, I also returned you to your time stream...Well, apparently.” Sardilic cocked his head. “You see we never returned anyone before. I guess you’re just special.”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “You aged, idiot. Your body caught up with this world’s time stream, so you are five years older.” Hiccup looked down at his legs, and they did indeed look longer. His shirt felt tighter, and now that he was thinking about it, his trousers had shortened. “I wonder if it will have changed your flavor.” Sardilic suddenly lunged forward towards Hiccup with a guttural snarl.

     Hiccup tried to roll to the side, but Sardilic straddled over him. The boy was too afraid even to speak, but Sardilic was feeling talkative. “Now, you promised to give me what I wanted, so hold still and don’t squirm.” Sardilic lifted his dragon’s claw and placed it firmly on Hiccup’s right arm. He gripped it tightly, and the shimmering green claws dug into Hiccup’s flesh. Then he lifted the boy clean off of the ground and dangled him like a limp doll. The Gemdragon leaned his head down to the earth and breathed a fog of watery green liquid. It settle in a nook on the ground, and then Sardilic blasted it with a quick jet of flame. The mist solidified into a shimmering, smooth, green coating on the ground. “Don’t want any of you going to waste considering this is the last time I’ll get to enjoy you.”

     Hiccup’s mind raced as Sardilic slung him around by his arm and slid him onto the crystalline equivalent of a dinner plate. The dragon placed his other claw down onto Hiccup’s left arm and splayed him out beneath him. The dragon’s weight was incredible, and Hiccup felt as though his arms might break from the crushing force. Blood was already soaking through his right sleeve and out onto the cold, smooth crystal. Sardilic’s eyes were beginning to burn yellow far more intensely, and Hiccup could feel the reeking breath of the creature blowing over him in heavy excitement. Hiccup needed to do something. Reasoning with Sardilic seemed impossible, and he felt such a deep fear each time the Gemnode spoke that the idea of talking with him was nightmarish, but it was Hiccup’s only shot. Though it would almost certainly not save him, at least he could try. Giving up would get it over with, and deep in his heart Hiccup almost decided to do that, but he could not die now. For Toothless’s sake he needed to live. As Sardilic was beginning to vibrate his jaws slowly open and closed, Hiccup spoke. “What happened to you, Sardilic?”

     The gleam of excitement dulled in the dragon’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

     “How did you become this way? You, the Gemnodes, I know sadness and fear drove you into the purpose, but what happened to you? What turned you into the monster you are today?”

     “Monster?” Sardilic suddenly looked pleased again. He dropped his jaws down frighteningly close to the boy’s face, and Hiccup shuddered as a warm drip of Saliva fell onto his cheek. Sardilic noted this and allowed his tongue to slither out of his mouth and curl wetly around Hiccup’s neck and then his cheek. Hiccup tried to keep his breaths steady, and Sardilic retracted his tongue. “I am just giving you what you deserve, and is it my fault that I enjoy my job?”

     “So every character you have stollen and tortured and destroyed has deserved it?” Hiccup was getting uncontrollably nervous, and Sardilic detected the tremor in his voice.

     “All humans deserve it. You destroyed so much, and yet you are so, so--” Sardilic vented a growl, “Privileged. It is an atrocity, and I will make it right. I am going to give you what you and your species have earned, and that is pain, and I am going to enjoy doing it. I am no monster, you are, humanity is, and every single one of you who falls into my hands will be destroyed. Your pain is my pleasure, and your suffering is my satisfaction. You may see me as being a monster, as being twisted and vile, but that is always the way the prey will view the predator. Try and keep conscious for as long as possible, won’t you? Its more interesting that way.”

     Hiccup would not speak again, and he wouldn’t give Sardilic the privilege of watching him beg. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes tightly as he perceived Sardilic’s jaw drop down onto his chest. Hiccup felt tiny nicks being made in his skin as the monster grabbed at his shirt front and tore it open. Hiccup breathed in and out, in and out trying to brace himself. Sardilic chuckled, and then he sunk his teeth slowly into the right side of Hiccup chest. The boy thrashed his head to the side and gasped as the teeth sunk in deeper and deeper. Hiccup suddenly realized that the Power Gems in the Gemnodes’ dimension had somewhat lessened the pain of death, and as Sardilic began to rhythmically pull his flesh back and forth while throating pleased gurgles, Hiccup wailed out in pain. He could feel his tissue popping and tearing as the jaws tugged at him, and when Hiccup opened his eyes and saw the amount of blood staining the green snout that was buried into him, he nearly lost consciousness. With one last wrenching tug, Sardilic removed a large chunk of Hiccup’s chest muscle. Hiccup gasped out in pain, and his mind sparked his body into contortions. He closed his eyes again, but he could here Sardilic noisily swallowing, and then stabbing struck his left shoulder. This time it was a shredding, rapid, random sensations screaming into him. Sardilic casually chewed his left shoulder into shreds of flesh and then began to peck them off. Hiccup forced himself not to scream over and over again as the quick tugs sent unreal amounts of agony into him. He was losing consciousness now, whether he wanted to or not. He felt cold and clammy, and his own blood was soaking his entire torso and even up into his hair. Sardilic finally stopped pecking at his shoulder, and Hiccup dared not look. He couldn’t feel it anymore, just nauseating pain but no sensation of where his shoulder had been.

     What was almost worse than the pain was the visions. Hiccup’s mind was going into spasms of flashbacks. With his eyes closed tightly he could see them all so vividly. Sardilic being so close was bringing it all back, and the pain was not helping. Hiccup’s terrified mind brought back unspeakable memories. The nightmares he had been through flooded his mind, and he almost begged for death. He suddenly felt that the pain above and around him was being caused not by the fangs of Sardilic, but by the teeth of the dragon he loved most. His mind screamed out in fear, and his eyes shot open. That horrifying mental image was far worse than reality, and his heart sighed with relief to see a long green head above him rather than the face of his Night Fury. If he was going to die, at least it was at the hands of his foes. Toothless loved him, and he would never again have to believe Sardilic’s twisted lies. He would hope in the friendship of that Night Fury, fight the fear, hold on until the bitter end, and never again doubt Toothless’s love.

     “No. Your flavor is about the same. Lots of adrenaline, I believe. I’m glad aging didn’t ruin you, though I must say killing an adult is not as enjoyable as killing a child. Ah well, things can’t be perfect. I don’t see why you don’t just give up hope, honestly. I know you are trying to stay awake, can I ask why?”

     Hiccup’s jaw was locked in contortion, but after a moment he was able to grind out speech. “You’ve taken me to Berk, you’ve brought me to my own world...This is the place where Toothless could always find me--” Hiccup gasped out and his eyes lost focus. “-- He was always able to find me, and I don’t want to give up on him. Sardilic,--” Hiccup looked in a mixture of absolute fear and burning anger as Sardilic began licking the blood off of the smooth green surface Hiccup was laying on, “-- if Toothless should come, I won’t stop him. He will kill you.”

     Sardilic’s eye’s widened in surprise. “You must be joking! Oh this is rich, this is absolutely delicious! You are staying awake because you think your pet will find you, and then you are stupid enough to threaten me? You really are just making this so enjoyable, Hiccup! Please keep it up.”

     Sardilic bobbed his head around and maneuvered it to Hiccup’s right leg. The boy pressed his eyes shut again and locked his teeth together. Sardilic grabbed at the calf, and then looked at Hiccup’s pained expression. The Gemnode grinned, and then with a quick, crunching bite and flick of his head, Sardilic broke the femur. Hiccup’s eyes jolted open and he tried to lurch upwards only to find Sardilic’s arms holding him down and his shoulder and chest wailing out in protest against his sudden movement. He laid his head to the side sucking in air, and as he breathed out he rambled off a nonsensical sentence. Sardilic craned his head around and put one large yellow eye up to Hiccup’s face. The boy’s vision was blurring, and his eyes were wavering in and out of focus. Tears of pain were poring down his pale face, and his mouth had fallen open. 

     “Hmm... You won’t last much longer. Shame. I hate to never be able to do this again. I might as well get to the good bit before I lose you. Have you ever heard of the term “evisceration”? Some people call it disemboweling. It’s really quite fun on my end, and truly horrible on yours. So, as we part, or at least as you die and I eat your corpse to keep you as a part of me forever, I would like to say, thank you, Hiccup. Thank you for following that stupid, little, convicted heart of yours. I’ll enjoy eating it.”

     Hiccup was too weak to turn his head, almost too weak to shut his eyes, but with great effort he closed them. His whole body felt cold, almost devoid of all sensations except the occasional throb of pain coming from his wounds. Then he felt it, Sardilic was pressing the teeth of his top jaw into the top of Hiccup’s stomach and his bottom fangs into the bottom of Hiccup’s abdomen. Hiccup then felt something warm, wet, and muscular slide its was under the crook of his back. Sardilic was lifting his middle slightly off the ground with his long tongue preparing to rip into his stomach cavity. Hiccup prayed that he would not be able to feel it and then whispered faintly, “Sorry, bud.”

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     Toothless slammed headfirst into the cliffside. The impact stunned him, and he spun out of control and crashed into the ground several stories bellow. His impact left huge gashes in the soft soil and sent Link flying off of his back and cartwheeling through the air. The Hilian tried to roll it off, but his shoulder caught the ground too early and his limbs flailed in all directions. This was the third time he had crashed. They had reached Gale Peak, but Link soon discovered that maneuvering Toothless through the hurricane strength winds and energized clouds was not as easy as he would have hoped. Toothless got back to his feet and shook the crash off. Link tried to stand, and Toothless shoved into him whining hotly. “Alright, I’m trying! Your tail fin isn’t easy to work. I want to save him too, you know.” Link was trying not to lose his temper. He wasn’t used to failing, and there was so much at stake. He got back onto the Night Fury, shoved his sword into the pedal, clicked it into gear, and Toothless launched up into the air. Within seconds a random gust whirred past them, and Link was not able to adjust the fin in time. They spiraled downwards, and Toothless landed roughly on his side and rolled over top of Link. The Night Fury got to his feet and roared angrily. Skari had been watching from a distance, and the Skrill landed beside Toothless.

     “Alright, this is not working.” He clacked in aggravation. “You need to stop, and we need to do something different.”

     “No.” Toothless hissed. “We can’t stop. Hiccup thought this would work. I can do this. I have to get to him.”

     “You will save him, but not on your own.” Skari walked up and shoved his shoulder into Link. He tossed his head to the side, and Link guessed his meaning. He leapt onto the Skrill’s neck and positioned himself between two of the large razor sharp spines. “I’ll try to open the rift, Toothless. Your Hiccup is not here to fly you, but on my life I will help you fix that.” Toothless clawed the ground nervously as Skari shot up into the air. He could feel it in his chest, Hiccup was hurting. Hiccup needed him, and all he could do was sit and wait. 

     Skari whirled around and around Gale Peak. Each random torrent of wind was cut through and mastered to his will. Even the clouds of blue, tingling energy were of use to him. Finally he reached the top and with a shriek went into a nose dive. Down the jagged cliff face he went, the wind screaming into his face. Link held Endeavor in front of him, and thought desperately to himself. Please let this work. For once let everything turn out alright. This has to get us to Hiccup, it has to. Suddenly Link felt a tremor of energy pass down the hilt of the sword and vibrate up into his arm. He and Skari were only seconds away from a neck-breaking collision with the ground, but just a Skari pulled up, Link slashed the sword forward, and the tip cut a blinding white gash into the air in front of him. It was so disorienting and bright that Skari lost focus and slammed headfirst into the ground. He and Link were far to excited and focused to let that stall them. They both jumped to their feet and dashed towards the light. Toothless was already ahead of them, and with a furious roar and a mighty beat of his wings, he vanished into the rift. 

     As Link and Skari followed, they found themselves exactly as Hiccup had been. Everything was white and completely silent. They could not see each other, but they all could see one thing, a huge black tear. All three tried to move towards it. They could not tell if they were running, flying, swimming, or just willing to pass through that dark breach in this terrible brightness, but pass through it they did. Link could not see anything, but as soon as he passed through he was able to breath and hear again, and something strange happened. He felt tremendously heavy for a moment, and then something on his side exploded and stabbed into him. He fell to the ground and cringed. His eyes slowly adjusted and to his surprise he saw that he was not only on the island of Berk, but he was surrounded by a massive pile of items. His own set of pouches had burst open along with Hiccup’s satchel. Every item contained within them had returned to its original size. Link gripped his side and winced. One of his weapons must have sliced against him as it expanded. Hiccup’s devices were strewn all around, and suddenly Link remembered why he was here. He would have to prioritize what to carry, and he could not even begin to guess why he had so luckily fallen into the correct dimension. He grabbed the Master Sword, a shield, Endeavor, and his bow and quiver. As he looked up he suddenly saw that Skari was not far from him. The Skrill was snarling and biting randomly at the air. Link suddenly noticed that there was a clicky, bursting sort of noise coming from the dragon. Skari fell to the ground and buzzed with electricity, but then his growls stopped. He breathed heavily and then slowly got back on his feet. Link looked with surprise to see that Skari had changed. The Skrill’s chest was broader, the splash of purple on his head had extended down his neck, and his crest of horns had begun to grow all the way around his bottom jaw. Skari did not know what had happened, neither did Link, but both noticed that they were standing there in a stupor while precious time slipped away. Skari sniffed, screeched, and then soared off towards a nearby spire of rock. Link ran after him, annoyed that the Skrill would not carry him, but he noticed Night Fury prints as he sprinted along, and that meant that he was going in the right direction. If anyone could find Hiccup, it was Toothless.

     The Night Fury did not know why he was hurting, but he didn’t care. He pumped his legs faster and faster. He could smell Hiccup, but the smell was mixed with a pungent scent of blood, and Toothless could feel it within his own body that Hiccup was dying. The spikes on his arms extended, and he yelped in pain. His body throbbed and sent shockwaves of agony through his arms and the shoulders of his wings. Probably most unpleasant was a pinching bite coming from the back of either side of his chin. Finally the pain stopped, and Toothless was surprised to find that with the end of the pain came sudden feeling of strength, strength he had never felt before. He looked down and saw the blade-like scales protruding from his sprinting forearms, remembered his father had had such long and lethal spikes, and though he did not understand why it had happened, he was glad to feel such strength pumping through his muscles. He was older, more mature, a true Night Fury, and nothing would stand in his way.

     Toothless leapt up onto the ridge and stopped in sudden horror. The long, sinuous form of Sardilic was stooping over someone. Its tongue was wrapped beneath the figure’s back and its jaws were about to slice into the helpless victim’s middle. Toothless could see who it was, and his heart twisted and writhed to see the pallor of Hiccup’s face and red of his blood staining the green crystal below. The boy wasn’t moving, he was completely limp and from his wounds he could very well have been dead. Then, as grief washed through the Night Fury, he heard something, extremely faint, but unquestionably there. “Sorry, bud.”

     Wrath. Burning, terrible wrath welled up into Toothless’s chest. No death would be agonizing enough to punish that Gemnode fully. Toothless was determined, it did not matter how powerful his foe was, he was going to crush the life out of him, rip him limb from limb and incinerate the remains. He screamed a roar, and Sardilic paused. The monster’s eyes flashed to the side just in time to see the black blur of Toothless rushing towards him. “Impossible!” 

     Toothless leapt off a nearby boulder and slammed into Sardilic. The Gemdragon was at least twice Toothless’s size, but the Night Fury latched onto his enemy’s throat with deadly force. Sardilic was knocked off of Hiccup’s unconscious form, and he tumbled to the ground. Toothless held himself close to Sardilic’s long neck with his jaws still clamped onto the Gemnode’s throat, and the Night Fury sliced viscously against the shimmering green neck with his claws. Toothless’s arms moved fast and hard, slamming over and over again into his foe with a tight, rapid technique. Sardilic thrashed trying to pull himself free. Toothless’s arm spikes where beginning to do their work, and with one particularly vicious slash the Night Fury sliced a deep wound into Sardilic’s neck. Glowing, green blood stained Toothless’s weaponry, and with a roar of triumph he slashed again. Sardilic was livid. He had never truly experienced pain, not like this, and it angered him. Being on the wrong end of the wounding was very unpleasant, and he was going to make this small black creature suffer for drawing his blood. 

     Sardilic’s body burst into flames. The heat startled Toothless, but after the initial shock he regained his focus and bit down even harder. He wanted so badly to feel the Gemnode’s windpipe crush between his teeth, and he gave a powerful, clawing kick into Sardilic’s chest for good measure, but Toothless’s face and chest were beginning to smart in the searing heat. Sardilic tried to reach up his neck and claw Toothless loose, but found that each time he tried Toothless would kick down violently and deflect the attempting talons. Sardilic tried a different technique. There was a crackling buzz, and his body surged with electricity. Toothless jolted, tried to regain his composure, but the Gemnode had gotten the upper hand. Sardilic slug his tail around with terrible force, and the blade-like gem at the end of the appendage pieced deep into Toothless’s chest. Sardilic shrieked in jubilation as he felt Toothless’s jaws tremble and release. He whipped his neck free and in a serpentine motion grabbed Toothless in his own jaws. Toothless struggled for a moment, slapped his tail down hard on Sardilic’s head, but the Gemnode held him in a bite stronger than even the angriest Gronckle. He slung Toothless around like a rag-doll and slammed his head into the nearby boulder. Toothless yelped in pain and slapped his tail down again. Sardilic’s whole body moved in one sinuous, whip-like motion, and he smashed Toothless into the ground again, this time tail-first. The Gemnode chuckled to himself. He could taste Toothless’s blood trickling down his tongue, and to think that this creature was supposed to be the ultimate dragon of this dimension seemed very humorous to the Gemnode. He slung his head upwards and released Toothless just long enough for him to catch the Night Fury by the tail and smash him down onto the boulder back-first. There was a sickening snapping noise, and Toothless felt as if a huge spring had suddenly uncoiled sharply in his back. He howled and tried to kick at Sardilic, but his legs would not move. With one last coiling movement Sardilic tossed him to the side and the Night Fury went crashing to the earth. His hind limbs, tail, and wings were completely limp, and they flailed around as he landed. His right wing broke from his own weight, he could hear it, but to his shock he could not feel the pain. His spine hurt, hurt like nothing he had ever felt before, and he was weakening from loss of blood. Sardilic had punctured one of his lungs with his tail, and the Night Fury’s breaths were stuttering and erratic. He tried to get to his feet, but only his fore arms would obey his mind. Sardilic laughed long, high and cruel. “You are broken, fool! Your boy will still die, and just for fun, I’ll let you watch.” 

     Sardilic’s mouth flashed open and he breathed out a luminous, blue mist. The blast hit Toothless in the face, and the whole front end of his body tingled and went numb. As if not being able to feel his legs wasn’t bad enough, now his entire body was paralyzed. His heart roared within him, but no sound forced its way into his throat. He could still do this. He had to; he could see Hiccup lying there, but he couldn’t do anything to stop Sardilic from striding slowly back towards him.

     There was a flash of blue overhead, and to Toothless’s relief a bolt of lightning surged down and stabbed into Sardilic’s back. Skari was hovering in the air snarling. The electricity channeled into the Gemdragon’s body, but he was completely unscathed. Apparently he could absorb the energy very much like a Skrill. He flexed his long green tail and spines of emerald shot up from his scaly hide. Sardilic flicked his tail upwards, and the lethal spikes detached and whizzed through the air towards Skari. The Skrill swerved to the side and dodged them before diving down towards Hiccup’s shredded body. Skari was actually quite good at snatching people, and he nearly made it to the boy, but Sardilic inhaled and spewed a billowing stream of flame. The fire blasted in between Skari and Hiccup, and the Skrill had to veer shrieking to the side. He used the momentum of his dive to swerve straight into Sardilic, and right before he collided with him he spiraled around in the air, dodged the snapping jaws of his opponent, and sliced his tail violently across the back of Sardilic’s neck. It was an expert blow, but his enemy was well armored, and the cut was not deep. Skari pumped his wings and pulled himself high into the air out of the Gemnode’s range. Sardilic gave an excited snarl and unfurled his own massive, luminous wings. He shot them downwards and rocketed into the sky. Skari twisted out of the way, but one of Sardilic’s wings caught him on the leg, and the razor sharp edge sliced down to the bone. Skari sucked in the pain and made another dive for Hiccup only to be foiled again by another blast of flame. Sardilic flew towards him at a terrifying speed, and the Skrill tried to outpace him, but the Gemdragon was just a hair faster, that annoyingly tiny advantage that Skari had always had to face when trying to outfly Toothless, that little edge that had cost his father and so many other Skrills their lives. Sardilic caught Skari by the back of his neck and then coiled around him mid-flight. Both dragons fell to earth with a painful thud. Sardilic made sure that the Skrill broke his fall, and he wrapped his tail and body tightly around his captured opponent. He lit himself on fire and began to squeeze. Skari yowled in pain. 

     Sardilic hissed into his ear. “That hurts, doesn’t it? You’re no dragon of fire, cold and shock are the element you thrive in. Feel it, Skari. Feel your skin burning to a cinder and your lungs being crushed to pulp!” Skari was quickly blacking out. The heat was disorienting, and he could no longer breath. Eventually his struggling stopped as the muscular coils squeezed around his chest and neck. Sardilic laughed wickedly, but something suddenly struck him in the side. 

     It was Link. He had driven his sword straight into Sardilic’s body. The blade struggled to cut through the thick, nearly unbreakable scales. He was angry, furious. Of course. He thought to himself. Of course the two of you would go and try to challenge the most powerful being in existence one at a time! Sardilic unwound with surprising speed and thundered a terribly low roar at the young knight. The sound waves thudded through him and sent him flying onto his backside. His ears rang painfully, but he got back to his feet just in time to see Sardilic blast a spray of mist at him. He dove to the side and dodge the cloud. His enemy looked annoyed, but he then blasted the cloud with a bolt of brilliant purple plasma. The cloud solidified into crystal and sent knife-like shards exploding in all directions. Link raised his shield just in time to avoid being impaled. He could see Hiccup, but Sardilic was between him and his brother. He drew his bow and fired an arrow towards the Gemdragon’s eye, but Sardilic blocked it with his nasal horn in a elegant flick. 

     “Venevonix will be SO upset if I kill you here.” Sardilic moaned. “You are lucky we want you alive!” The Gemdragon shuddered, and clouds of smoke pored from his mouth and skin. 

     “And you’ll be lucky if I don’t bury the Master Sword in your skull for what you’ve done!” Link shouted and rushed forward. The long form of Sardilic vanished into the mist, and Link found himself surrounded in a thick fog. He could hear his enemy walking, those thudding feet and scraping claws. He nocked an arrow and pulled it back to his cheek. There was another step, and he let the arrow fly. With satisfaction Link heard a pained snarl come from the fog. Then, with a terrifying burst of speed, Sardilic showed himself. He flexed his hands and his talons shot out to the length of swords. Each finger fighting independently slicing and stabbing with terrible force and accuracy. Link parried and dodged masterfully, and before long he had knocked two of the talons in opposite directions and stabbed at the hand right in the gap between the fingers. Sardilic howled pathetically and waved the injured hand around frantically. “You’ll pay for that!” Sardilic clacked his jaws, and Link saw in dismay as a spark of his mouth whizzed into the air. It hit the fog, and the smoke around Link exploded into flames. His clothes and hat caught fire, his sword and shield flew out of his grasp as he was blown to the ground. Before he could get up, Sardilic was upon him. “Like I said, you are soooo fortunate that I don’t have permission to kill you because I promise you I could easily go for seconds after I’ve finished Hiccup!” The slender jaws of the head opened above Link, and the blue blast of mist splattered into the boy’s form. He lost all feeling, and his heart screamed out in anger as his limbs refused to fight back. 

     Sardilic stepped back and took a deep breath. He was not used to intense combat, at least not with anyone except for Eminis. But, he did feel quite pleased with this dragon form. He had every ability of every dragon in this world, and in his own mind he could see no weakness. He had proven himself against the two most lethal Strike Class dragons and the fight had only lasted moments. Now it was time to finish what he came for, and his mouth watered as he remembered what he had been about to do. He stepped back over to the crystal platter and looked down at Hiccup. Unconscious. That was annoying, but at least the boy was still breathing. He opened his mouth and began to drop his head towards the helpless, bloody body bellow. Then there was a flash, and searing, screaming agony burst into the side of Sardilic’s face. He fell to the ground and writhed. Toothless had recovered from the mist, lifted himself with his front legs, and blasted the Gemnode directly in the eye socket. Sardilic’s once radiant, sun-like eye was now nothing more than a smoldering gash of burning green blood. “YOU!” He roared. “You--dare? You filth! You’ve marred me-- Me! I will turn your flesh into cinders for that, you...Pet!” 

     Sardilic reared his head back and spread his wings wide. His mind was filled with blinding fury from the trauma of losing his eye, and he was going to end this quickly. No drawing it out, no time for a rescue or a touching goodbye. Toothless watched as the hideous maw in front of him opened. The teeth were still stained with blood, his boy’s blood, and suddenly Toothless’s welling anger turned into brilliant realization. Sardilic inhaled, and just as the gasses formed up into a pall of chemicals strong enough to decimate a small armada--

--Toothless fired.

     The violet blast of plasma shot into Sardilic’s throat, and there was a sound like cracking glass, sucking plasma, and a booming thunderclap. The noise echoed across the nordic landscape resonating through the entire Island of Berk. Toothless gnashed his teeth in angry satisfaction as the the fireball engulfed Sardilic’s head. When the torrent of flame finally stopped and the smoke cleared, the Night Fury looked to see Sardilic’s dragon form still poised to strike, his eye missing, and a huge hole blasted through the back of his head. The form quivered, and then emitted a blinding flash. The glowing body pulled in and compacted back into the original, humanoid shape of the Gemnode, and then with an electrical scream of agony, the form exploded in a ring of sea green energy. Emerald colored shards whizzed in all directions, and dozens of blinding white gashes formed in the sky as the pieces of Sardilic cut the dimensional fabric. Toothless and Link watched in amazement. Ten years, ten years they had been trapped by these creatures who could never be vanquished, and now one had died in front of them. Toothless had done it, he had killed the most vile, cruel, twisted, and sadistic creature not just in the universe, but in the universes. 

     Then Toothless’s vision blurred. That breath of fire had sent a fresh gush of blood spewing out of his deeply cut side. He still couldn’t move his back legs, but he needed to be next to Hiccup. He drug himself painfully across the turf. The light of the rifts stung his eyes as his vision began to fade. His strength was failing him, and with a moan he collapsed feet away from Hiccup. He could see the blurry form of the boy, but Toothless had no stamina left in his broken body. He would never be able to fly again, not even Hiccup could repair the wounds he had suffered. The thought broke the dragon’s already cracking heart and ground it to powder. He whined at the form on the green crystal in front of him. He needed to see Hiccup wake up, to hear his voice before the end. He watched Hiccup trying to wish him awake and well, but each breath was a cacophony of twisting pain, and finally Toothless could keep his eyes open no longer.

     A tear rolled down Link’s cheek. He still could not move, and he was lucky that none of the shards of the Gemnode had hit him. His brother and the one thing that mattered most to Hiccup lay shattered only feet away from each other. They were not not even able to touch, but then Link saw Hiccup’s hand twitch. Hiccup opened his eyes weakly and saw the black form of Toothless only so close and yet so far from him. Sardilic was gone, and Hiccup did not know how, but Toothless was there, and he was hurt. Hiccup tried to roll over. He groaned in pain. His left shoulder was gone, and he couldn’t move that arm at all, and his right leg was broken. He screamed out as he used his right arm to drag himself forward. The grass and dirt getting into the massive gash in his chest made tears push up into his eyes and his teeth crack against each other, but he would not stop. He drug himself the last few feet and then laid beside Toothless’s head. He stroked the dragon, but he was quickly losing his senses again, and his fingers tingled. He couldn’t even feel the beautiful bumpy texture of those black scales brushing against his hand. He breathed, “Oh, Bud. Thank you. You came... of course you came. But--” Hiccup choked up. “Look at what he did to you.” 

     Suddenly, strange bat-like creatures flew out of one of the dozens of white cuts in the sky. Link recognized them as creatures from his own world, and the danger of their predicament struck his mind like a thunderbolt. These were doors in the sky, doors to anywhere, and absolutely anything could walk through them. Hiccup and Toothless were helpless, he was paralyzed, and as far as he could tell Skari was dead. Then, just as Link had feared, another figure emerged from a different rift. Link could hardly see the form silhouetted against the blinding white. Then the figure spoke. “What?”

      The form stepped forward and whipped off a pair of glasses with red and blue lenses. He was now clearly a man wearing a long brown trench-coat over a modern suit. The suit was strikingly blue, and his brown hair stuck upwards in a wavelike motion. He stepped further out and exclaimed again. “What?!” He pulled out a small silver flashlight-like device and pointed it at the rifts. “What!?” Then he stopped. Hiccup had moaned, and the stranger was only a few feet from him. He had not seen Hiccup lying there, but now the man walked forward slowly, putting his silver device back into his coat pocket. “Oh dear...” he breathed through clenched teeth.

     Hiccup opened his eyes and saw the stranger’s shoes. He couldn’t see anything more of him, just his feet, but it was human, and Hiccup had seen this kind of fashion in America and Great Britain. Hiccup couldn’t think of what to say, but he felt Toothless weakening beside him. Neither of them would last much longer. Hiccup choked out a sentence, but it was too distorted for the man to make out. The stranger kneeled down and quietly asked, “What?”

     “Help me. Help him.” Hiccup sobbed, and then his head fell back to the dirt. 

     The man stood bolt upright, his brow contorted in deep concern. He thought for a moment, and then grabbed Hiccup by the arms and began to tug him towards the rift. A yell broke out into the air. Link had regained his feeling, and he leapt towards the stranger with sword drawn. He reached him in a flash and pointed his blade at the stranger’s face. “Leave him! He’s my brother.”

     The man seemed to ignore the weapon pointed threateningly at him. He calmly looked up, and with sad, old eyes he stared into Link. “Then I am sorry, I am so sorry. He’s wounded very badly. I might can save him, but you’ll have to trust me.”

     “Trust you? You just came from nowhere. What could possibly make me believe in a complete stranger enough to let him abduct my dying brother and yank him into another dimension? Why are you just conveniently here? How do I know they haven’t sent you? Answer!”  Link pressed his sword point to the man’s chest. “Answer!”

      The man looked suddenly angry, convicted, and he stood straight and looked Link directly in the eye. He was going to save this victim, and he was not going to let the immature fear of a sword wielding boy cause the loss of something as precious as a life.  

     “Trust me. I’m the Doctor.”

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