RotBTD Book 2 Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Hiccup's Promise

The scene on the roof of North's workshop looked like something out of a fantasy film. A giant, fire engulfed black bear and a dragon humanoid were thrashing each other, both with claws so sharp they'd slice through your stomach in no time. Something that the blood on the dragon's claws showed he'd already done.  

This fight was one swift motion after another. One moment, the dragon had the bear pinned to the ground by the throat, only to be forced off by a set of claws to the snout. The bear lunged at him, only to have him knock her back with a plasma blast to the face, knocking her through the skylight, and crashing onto the floor of the workshop.

He flew down and landed next to her as she stood up and cracked her neck and shoulders.

“This is a pointless fight, Merida.”, he said to her. “You can't win this. Trust me. I have the stronger killer instinct.”

Merida shifted back into her human form with a scowl on her face. “Oh aye, I know ye have th' killer instinct. But I never thought, in my entire life, that even a Viking would turn on his friends.”

Hiccup chuckled.“Who said Jack was my friend? He's never done anything for me, we never formed any best-buddies bond.” His face was full of nothing but hate as he scowled down at the Princess. “You wanna know what I had? What I was stuck with for a best friend? A brainless, two ton, reptile.”

“You know ye don' mean tha'!”, Merida scolded. “You love tha' dragon like he was yer brother, Hiccup!” She said, pointing down stairs. “What you two had when I first met ye was the strongest bond between a pet and it's owner I'd ever seen in m' life.”

“Sure, I can see how it's easy to see a beautiful bond between man and beast when you're a girl who's mother was a bear!”, Hiccup scoffed. “You know what? Enough talk. You came to fight the dark side, so let's this over with.”

He cracked his knuckles, and shot his fist directly into Merida’s bottom jaw, sending her arcing back, landing on her head on the other side of the room, and collapsing on her stomach.

Merida stood up, snarling, and returned Hiccup’s hateful glare threefold.

Holding her stare, she wiped the blood dripping from her mouth, spit out a dislodged tooth, and said; “As ye wish…” the next word rolled off her lips with a century's worth of spite, mockery and pure hatred behind it. “Viking.”

Meanwhile, upstairs, in North's workshop, Jack was leaning over his daughter. She was wounded, bleeding out, and near the point of death. And even closer to the point of not existing at all.

Luna let out a quiet cringe of pain as the gash across her stomach stung again. “Looks like mission's over for me, dad.”, she said weakly.

“Don't say that. OK? Nothing's over yet.”, Jack said, trying to sound assertive yet comforting. “I'll find a way to save you, alright? I promise, you'll walk away from this.”

“You're sounding just like mom.” Luna said, with a weak smile. But that smile quickly turned to sadness. “At least, the mom I knew.”
Jack lifted his daughter's head, and looked right into her eyes. “And that's the one we're gonna get back.”

Luna smiled again, but suddenly screamed as her stomach gave another lurch of pain. “Dad?”, she panicked. “I feel cold...” her breathing had become heavy by this point.

“No! Luna, stay with me.” Jack pleaded. “Come on, don't quit on me, Luna. Stay with me, please!” The panic coming from his own mouth was something he'd never experienced in his life. He had no idea where it was coming from, it just happened.

“Dad...it's OK.”, Luna said, her voice trembling. “Just get mom back...I'll be OK.”

“Luna, please, don't do this.”, Jack pleaded. His eyes suddenly filled with tears.

“Dad, if you get mom back, it'll...”, Luna cringed again. “It'll fix the future, and...I'll be fine.”
Jack felt his emotions crack a little, and his voice was trembling as much as Luna's now. “I promise, I'll fix this. We'll destroy Pitch, we'll save your mom, and...and, you, a-and me, and your mom, we'll...we'll all be together. I promise, I'll do what ever it takes to save you.”
“I know, dad.”, Luna said, smiling with a tear escaping her eye. She suddenly coughed. A splatter of blood came out of her mouth as she did, and she gave a gurgling gasp.

“Luna!”, Jack panicked.

Shaking, Luna stared up to the roof, and grabbed her father's hand.“I believe in you, dad.”

Another breath, and Luna's body stopped shaking, and her eyes slowly closed.

Jack knew perfectly well what just happened, but his mind was telling him not to believe it.

“Luna?”, he asked, desperately. “LUNA!” When he finally accepted that she wasn't going to respond, he did something he hadn't done in his entire 300 years as Jack Frost. He broke down, and silently started crying.

It was mostly a combination of Luna, the weight of the situation, and his fear of letting the entire world slip into Pitch's hands, but this is what had broken him. He hadn't noticed it until now, but the whole thing had been building up in his mind since his first step into Rapunzel's tower. It was like a dam, building up and getting overloaded with water, getting more and more strained as the pressure kept building...and building...and building...until it burst!

That's what Jack felt like right now. It was as if his emotions had been all pressed back by something. And it just kept building, and building, and building, until he couldn't hold it back anymore.
He just knelt there, quietly sobbing, with his head hung over Luna's, not saying a word, until he realized something.

“I never...I never even called you my daughter.”

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The wall of the workshop, acting as a barrier to the cold polar outside was burst open as Merida's bear form head-butted Hiccup through it at full force. The dragon soared uncontrollably through the air, and crashed into one of the towers branching off of it. Disoriented, he plummeted into the snowy chasm that surrounded the workshop, and disappeared.  

Merida stood there at the hole in the wall, snout down towards the chasm. Watching. Waiting. Ready to blast a breath of fire at anything.

For a long moment, it was quiet. The only sound was the rushing of the polar wind against her black fur, and sending the curly mess of it on her head into a calm frenzy.

Her ears perked as she heard something crackle. But looked up, and saw that it was just an icicle falling from the overhang above her.

She heard another noise, like a muffled boom, and was able to catch an orange explosion fading. But then it re-ignited. And started getting brighter, and brighter. Merida soon realized it wasn't getting brighter, but closer!  

She snarled, and opened her jaws, a flame quickly building up in her throat, and her claws becoming engulfed in a white hot fire. As the orange light quickly reached her, she let out a fire-blasted roar, but it ricocheted off of the approaching target, and struck her in the face, just before Hiccup, his body engulfed in flames, tackled her to the ground.

Merida tried to break out of his pin, but he had all four of her limbs with three of his and his tail, and with his free claw, he pinned her head to the ground. Hiccup extinguished the flame on his body, and gave a fang filled smirk. “How's that for a viking? Eh, Scotsman?”

Thinking fast, Merida shifted back into her human form, slipped her arms and legs out of Hiccup's grip, and socked him straight across the jaw, knocking his head a bit to the left. He snarled again, and stuck his right claws in the stone floor of the workshop, his hand around Merida's throat. She grabbed at his arm, and tried to burn him off with her fire, but the lack of oxygen made her powers fade. “Lot of good that did, wasn't there?” he asked, sarcastically. He was hyperventilating with anger and partial exhaustion.  

He ejected the claws on his left hand, and held them open over Merida's stomach. “Any last words, before you die a second time?”

“Why are ye doin' this, Hiccup?”, Merida managed to choke out. “This isn't you. Pitch has a grip on ye, ye've got te fight it.”

“Why should I?”, Hiccup growled. “There's no use fighting Pitch, there's no use of any of you fighting him. He's going to win, the darkness is too powerful.”

Merida just stared at him for a moment, and then choked out her answer. “Do you remember what ye said to me when I died in North's office? Do ye remember what ye promised me?”

“Oh, that's cute. You really think I'm going to suddenly have a “back to the light moment” over something I promised you? You really have no idea how the dark side works, do you?”

“Do ye even remember what it was?”, Merida asked him.

“Humor me, what was it?!”, Hiccup challenged, his hot breath smacking Merida in the face.

“Ye promised me that ye'd do yer job, and protect the children of the world.”, she answered. “Ye promised me that, Hiccup. And the Hiccup I knew would never break a promise. Ye swore to Thor on it.”

At first Hiccup just stared at her with a blank expression. Then, he suddenly shook his head violently. He gripped at it with both hands, releasing Merida's throat. She quickly scrambled to her feet, and stepped back from Hiccup. He was on his knees, thrashing his head side to side. As if two forces were in conflict, and his mind was the battle ground. He banged his head three times on the floor, trying to make whatever it was stop. He gripped his fore head, as if to try and suppress the pressure in his head, but even that didn't seem to work.

Finally, he just let out a scream mixed with a Night Fury's roar, and shot straight up and out through the skylight.

Merida just stood there, massaging her throat, starting in amazement after Hiccup. She hadn't actually expected to end the fight with what she said, she was just trying to buy time. She let out a surprised chuckle, and then thought about what to do next.

“Jack.”, she gasped. “Oh, please tell me ye're still breathin'.”

She quickly ran up the stairs, and ran past every doorway on the second level. “Jack?”, she called out. “Jaaaack!?” It was surprisingly empty, considering the mess of nightmares that had been there when they'd first gotten there. She zipped passed North's office, and stopped herself on a support beam. She back tracked to North's office, and found Jack inside. “Jack!”, she said, excitedly. But that excitement quickly changed into horror as she gasped at the scene before her.