Chapter Text
“Jack! Watch out!”
Jack saw the black tendrils of Pitch's attack reflected in Toothiana’s wide eyes just in time to dodge it. Unfortunately, the movement sent him spiraling out of control into the moonlit clouds below, and he had to grip his staff for dear life. He swung around for miles, the wind whipping him back and forth, the stars and clouds blurring in his vision. Luckily, he managed to regain control just before he would have crashed into the second story window of a convenience store.
He tripped over the roof's shingles instead and stumbled onto the damp asphalt of the parking lot on the other side. He brushed some imagined dust from his knees and sucked in a breath of relief. That had been wayyy too close.
Aster loped passed him.
“Close one, mate!” The rabbit smirked and threw his boomerang at an unsuspecting Nightmare. The demon horse divided in two with a piercing scream and evaporated. Then Aster was gone, leaping far ahead.
“What is he doing back?!” Jack questioned, flabbergasted and sore, but no one was there to hear him.
He chased after Aster, bare feet pounding on the pavement until he gained enough momentum to jump upward, letting his toes skim the wet grass of someone's lawn. He ignored the ground rushing beneath him and peered up into the night sky, narrowing his eyes, but he couldn't see anything. The cloud cover was too dense. He muttered a curse and just like that, the clouds parted enough to reveal the black spider web of Pitch’s power entangled in Sandy’s golden ropes. Jack grinned, his frustration forgotten. Gotcha.
Jack pushed off the ground with all his might and shot upward, riding a helpful gust of wind into the fray.
He had no idea why Pitch was back or how he had become so powerful again. Jack and the other Guardians had been doing well since Pitch had last fallen back into that dark and creepy hole he called home. In the year that had followed, they'd been able to regain most of the young believers they'd lost, and now their powers were nearly restored to full capacity. Pitch had become a distant memory, barely even a bad dream, but now here he was, attacking them all out of the blue. And he was powerful, which didn’t make sense. Something bad had to have happened, and it definitely gave Jack a foreboding feeling in the pit if his stomach.
He gripped his staff tighter and swung toward the battle. That is, until he was forced to swallow a yelp of alarm and flip backward to avoid decapitation by North and his sleigh barreling across his path at a dizzying speed.
“Sorry, Jack! Should watch where you are going, I think!” North shouted back to him on the wind.
“Right. Thanks,” Jack hissed, clutching at his chest where his heart was beating a mile a minute. He eyed the man as he obliviously plowed his sleigh straight through a gaggle of Nightmares and disappeared into the resultant cloud of black dust.
Toothiana fluttered to his side and lay a hand on his shoulder, biting her lip. “Are you alright, Jack?”
“Yeah, fine,” he replied, ripping his hand away from his chest and focusing back on the main skirmish between Sandy and Pitch just above them. Their attacks nearly blocked out the moonlight as the two danced across the sky, gold and black sand shooting out in all directions.
“I can’t believe he’s back,” Toothiana stated, mirroring his thoughts as she, too, took in the scene. Sandy’s golden light was reflected in her wide eyes and it flickered across her features.
“Me neither,” Jack grimaced. He eyed Toothiana speculatively. The same wind that whipped through his hair, ruffled her feathers in a dramatic fashion. He grinned. “Let’s give him a proper welcome.”
Toothiana's eyes gleamed an iridescent purple and she nodded, the cupid's bow of her lips tugging up into an answering grin. “Ready when you are.”
As if on cue, an army of baby-Tooths swarmed up behind her, chattering excitedly.
Jack smiled wide, all teeth, and swung his staff forward, gripping it with both hands. He scanned the sky until he found Pitch again, standing upon his night-sand and dodging Sandy’s lashes. Pitch was monologuing, but Jack couldn’t hear the words over the wind rushing past his ears. He was grateful for that, at least. He'd heard enough of that man's manipulative words for a lifetime, and that was saying something because he was immortal.
Jack took aim and felt the power build in his core, just waiting to be unleashed.
Now or never.
“Hey, Pitch!” he shouted. “Welcome back!”
He let his power explode out of him, crackling along the length of his staff and leaping into the air. It crystallized into a deadly ice structure that grew at a voracious pace. He could see the moment Pitch noticed what was headed his way, his golden eyes growing wide in the white glow of Jack’s power, and Jack smirked. The length of Pitch’s body stiffened like a lightning rod and the ice hit him full force with a sickening crack.
Jack crowed in triumph and punched a fist into the air, but something jolted uncomfortably in his core and the sound died in his throat. He could feel something happening to his ice before he saw it. Black lines were spiking through the crystal monument he'd erected in his attack, infecting it like a virus. He only had a moment to realize his celebration had been premature, dread lancing through him, before his ice structure exploded, shooting sharp shards in every direction.
Without thinking, he flipped backward in the air just in time to shield Toothiana and take the brunt of the blast.
He could feel the moment the ice pierced his back, forcing him to gasp in a painful breath. It felt like glass shards were embedded in his lungs.
Ow. That hurt.
A lot.
Toothiana stared back at him, wide-eyed. "Jack?"
He doubled forward and leaned against her, his strength draining out of him with every futile attempt he made to gulp in air.
She snaked her arms under his armpits, but he could feel himself slipping through her trembling hold.
He tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He could barely move, and it hurt so much to breathe. He could only stare back at her, her face swimming dimly in his vision.
“Jack, I can’t hold you up much longer!” Toothiana whispered, sounding desperate now as she struggled, her voice breaking.
He heard Pitch laugh mockingly somewhere behind him. “Say farewell to being a Guardian, Jack!”
Jack stared at Tooth’s anxious expression and attempted to gather some strength in his limbs, but he couldn't feel them. This was worse than anything he'd ever experienced since becoming a Guardian. There was a blackness creeping in from the edges of his vision and his limbs were stiff and unresponsive.
He felt the first tendril of fear, his eyes wide.
Tooth struggled to hold him up, droplets gathering at the corners of her eyes, but it didn't work. It was never going to work, a voice in the back of his mind told him as he gasped for breath like a fish out of water, like a man drowning in air. He slipped through her weakening arms, despondent, and gravity pulled him straight back down through the blanket of clouds below.
“Jack!” Tooth cried, but he couldn’t see her through the mist.
He was engulfed by the cumulus until he shot through to the other side, his paralyzed body spinning uncontrollably in his descent back to earth.
“Jack!”
He squinted and spotted the unmistakable silhouette of North’s sleigh plummeting toward him through the cloud cover, but he doubted he would be able to reach him. Even Jack knew the laws of physics, and North’s sleigh didn’t have the extra propulsion necessary to overtake Jack’s free fall.
Jack swallowed, struggling to move his limbs in a last valiant effort, but everything hurt and the blackness that had started to creep into the corners of his vision was now threatening to blind him. He could even feel the cold entering his body, something he hadn't felt in centuries. He shivered. It was as if something foreign was slithering into his veins from the ice in his back.
He closed his eyes, finding them stinging and wet. So this was it, huh? This was how it ended. He couldn’t believe it.
Guardians were supposed to be immortal, right? As long as children believed. But no, Sandy had died once when children had still believed in him, and Jack didn’t think he’d be able to resurrect himself the way Sandy had. Sandy was a special --
He was startled out of his brooding thoughts when North’s sleigh punched through the cloud cover and Jack could see him silhouetted against the full moon behind him. Jack smiled bitterly at the man’s tenacity, his grasp on reality slipping with every ragged breath. The old man should know it was too late.
“Hang on, Jack!” North bellowed, just as he pulled his arm all the way back and lobbed something at him.
Jack only had a moment to wonder what the old man was doing before he felt a blast of air so strong below him that it forced him to flip over midair. He stared, wide-eyed, straight down into an open portal, verdant green replacing the liquid black of the night sky.
One moment he was falling through cold, rushing air, and the next he was crashing into grass and dirt, the nerves in his battered body exploding with pain.
He didn’t even have a chance to react before the darkness that had been threatening to overcome him since Pitch’s attack finally succeeded, and he lost consciousness.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“He’s breathing, isn’t he?”
Jack groaned and forced his sticky eyes open. Only to hastily squint them against the light that singed his retinas, because ow. Even so, he could make out four silhouettes hovering over him, their oddly shaped figures haloed in bright sunlight. “Wha-?”
“Dude,” one of the bulkier figures prodded him in the chest. “Are you alive?”
“Uh…” he replied at length.
“I think he is,” another horned figure observed.
“What are you guys doing?” Someone shoved their way through the gap between the middle two. “Why have you landed? What are you –? Oh.” The figure stopped when they seemed to notice him. “Who…are you?”
“Um…Jack?” he uttered, and blinked a bit to clear his vision. He looked up at the group of them and their features slowly came into focus. There were two who looked like twins, a boy and a girl, with long blond hair, wearing a pair of odd, long-horned helmets; the newcomer was a blonde girl with a fur-lined hood draped over her armored shoulders; then there was a bulky boy with black hair and a pug nose, who was wearing what Jack could only assume was an incredibly fuzzy throw rug; and beside him was an even bulkier boy with buck teeth who was taller and wider than the rest. They all looked to be about his age, or at least, his physical age, before he’d died, and they were all staring down at him with varying degrees of interest. That's when Jack’s thought-process ground to a halt, because they clearly weren’t children and they were all staring down at him…with interest… “Wait…can you see me?”
The teens all looked at each other.
“Is that a trick question?” the male twin asked, scratching the sparse hairs on his chin.
Jack gingerly pushed himself up into a sitting position, adrenaline pumping through his veins. “You all can hear me, too?”
“Yehhhss,” the pug-nosed one answered slowly, raising a thick dark eyebrow and eyeing his friends. “I don’t think this one’s sane. We should throw him back.”
“Why do you ask?” the blonde girl questioned, ignoring her friend. She watched Jack warily, her posture tense. “Where are you from?”
“I…” And then he remembered it, the battle with Pitch, the shards of ice, the portal. He shot to his feet, startling the others. The blonde girl actually pulled out an axe. Jack’s eyes widened in alarm. “Woah! Woah!”
“Um…Astrid?” the buck toothed one muttered nervously, eyes shooting between her and Jack.
Her eyes narrowed, and she didn’t relax her stance. “What are you doing here on Berk, Jack, if that is your real name?”
Jack snorted, laughter bubbling out of him. “Seriously?”
She glared. “Just answer the question or I will cut you.”
Jack looked at her axe then back at her. “Right. Is this how you normally greet people?” He paused for a moment, remembering what her friend had called her. “Astrid, if that is your real name?”
The blond twins actually snickered and Jack grinned at them. Astrid didn’t look any less murderous, though. If anything, she looked worse.
Jack put out his hands, placating, when she raised her axe. “Look, I’m not from around here.”
“Obviously,” she scoffed. “Where are you from and how did you get here?”
“Right,” he continued warily, trying to think of what he could tell her. He decided against letting her and her friends in on the whole portal thing. He wasn’t sure they would believe him. He looked about and couldn’t see his staff anywhere either, and he felt a pang of loss. He’d probably dropped it after Pitch’s attack and it didn’t come with him through North’s portal, which meant he was basically powerless. There was no way he could prove he was a Guardian without it. Think, Jack, think. “I…um…don’t remember?”
Smooth, Jack. Real smooth.
They all just stared at him. Astrid’s eyes were narrowed in suspicion, but at least she lowered her axe.
“Where are your shoes?” the male twin asked.
Jack startled and looked down at his bare feet, staring at his toes, which were oddly pink in the sunlight. “I don’t wear shoes.” He looked up to see Astrid frowning, and he rolled his shoulders in what he hoped looked like a casual shrug. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to remember the shoe thing either. “I guess.”
Nailed it.
He avoided her scrutiny by inspecting his fingernails, which were also fairly pink in a way that was starting to raise alarm bells. He uncurled his fingers and stared at the palm of his hand then the back, biting his lip. His heart beat quickened and he could actually feel his cheeks flush with warmth.
“Um…what are you doing?” the bulkiest one questioned nervously, voice breaking.
Jack snapped his attention up to the others. They were all watching him with varying degrees of wariness. He opened and then closed his mouth soundlessly, before he peered around the cove he seemed to have landed in. He spotted a pond with a placid surface and scrambled over to it, ignoring the prickling sensation in his feet as he stepped over sharp rocks and brambles. He collapsed at the bank and stared into the water, his face coming into view. His breath hitched. His cheeks were flushed and rosy, and even in the frigid water’s reflection the eyes staring back at him were brown, not blue, beneath brown, not white, hair.
Something swooped in his stomach.
“I’m alive,” he whispered.
The teens came up behind him and peered into the water as well, frowning.
“What?” Astrid questioned, staring down at his reflection.
“I’m alive!” he shouted, shooting up to his feet.
The other teens startled, but he was too euphoric to care. He jumped about, feeling the warmth of the blood pumping to his extremities, something he hadn’t felt in over 300 years. He laughed. “I’m alive!”
“Does anyone else suddenly wish he wasn’t?” the pug-nosed one questioned, and both of the twins raised their hands, but Jack didn't care.
He was too lost in his discovery, in the utter wonder of it. He was human again! He bounced about the clearing, feeling the soft mulch of the earth between his warm toes.
Astrid shoved the pug-nosed teen in the arm anyway. “Shut up, Snotlout.”
“But how?” Jack questioned out loud, giddiness turning to confusion as he stared at his hands. Somehow, he had turned human again. He didn’t think even the Man in the Moon could do that.
“You mean you weren’t alive, before this?” Astrid questioned cautiously, approaching him again.
Jack looked up at her. At least she wasn’t carrying her axe this time, but she still didn’t look altogether welcoming either. “I…” he sobered. He wasn’t sure how to explain this. It wasn't like he hadn't been alive before. He just hadn't been mortal, or human. But now he was, and he could barely believe it.
His stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.
She stared at him for a long moment, then sighed. “You’re not a Viking, are you?”
“A what?” he asked, still getting over the fact that he was feeling hunger for the first time in over 300 years and glancing down at his stomach in wonder.
“A Viking,” she repeated, gesturing at Snotlout’s hat for emphasis.
“Um…no.” He shook his head. He eyed them all in their strange garb, and something other than emptiness sunk in his stomach. “But you are, aren’t you?”
“That would be correct,” the big one stated helpfully. “I’m Fishlegs, this is Ruffnut and Tuffnut,” he gestured to the twins. “And you already know Astrid, and that’s Snotlout.” He gestured to the mean looking one Astrid had already identified. “We’re all members of the Hooligan tribe of Berk, to be exact.”
“Right.” Jack nodded. “I have no idea what any of that means.”
“It means if you try anything…” Astrid began, and Snotlout crushed a fist into his palm menacingly in the background. Astrid glanced back at the rest of the teens and they all nodded to her.
Jack frowned in confusion, but Astrid put two fingers in her mouth and blew out a high pitched whistle. Something rustled beyond the stone walls of the cove and Jack nearly choked on his spit, because giant, colorful lizards with wings of all shapes and sizes dropped heavily onto the ground around him. The lizards squawked and screeched as they rose above him, flanking the Viking teens like overly protective pets.
Astrid smirked. “We’ve got dragons, and we’re not afraid to use them.”
“Woah,” Jack breathed. He definitely wasn’t in Burgess anymore, which was very worrisome, but also… “Cool.”
“I like him,” the female twin, Ruffnut, decided, her thin lips curling into a smile as one head of her two-headed dragon (oh my god) bumped against her helmet.
“I’m undecided,” Tuffnut (seriously, what was with these names?) disagreed, picking one of his nostrils with a pinky finger.
“Will you cooperate?” Astrid asked, ignoring her friends’ antics and leveling Jack with a steely-eyed look.
“Since when have I not cooperated?” Jack questioned lightly, moving to lean on his staff until he realized it wasn’t there so he just stumbled a bit instead.
“Right…” Astrid eyed him.
Jack tried not to wince. Today was not exactly going his way. Actually, he couldn’t quite decide how his day was going. He still couldn’t process it, but he was probably going to worry about it later. A lot.
“We’ll take him back to the village,” Astrid sighed, pushing a hand through her bangs and scratching her dragon beneath its head. It trilled, seeming to enjoy it. “Maybe Stoick will know what to do with him.”
“What about Hiccup?” Fishlegs asked, twiddling his fingers together.
“What about him?” Snotlout sneered.
“Wouldn’t he want to know about…” he eyed Jack warily. “Our guest?”
“He’s not here,” Astrid replied, and there was something hollow in her voice, her expression downcast. “And we don’t know when he’ll be back.”
The other teens stared at her and the pregnant pause that followed could only be described as uncomfortable.
“Okay, but he’s not riding with us,” Tuffnut broke in. “Ruffnut’s enough.”
“Hey!” Ruffnut punched him in the arm, and her brother retaliated until they were punching each other with abandon, their dragon's heads joining in, slamming into each other behind them.
“Fine,” Astrid waved them off, looking tired rather than alarmed, like this was all just par for the course. “Just go back. I’ll take him.”
“Your funeral,” Snotlout snickered and hopped onto his dragon’s neck.
Astrid just shook her head as the other teens mounted their dragons and rose up into the air. Jack watched them all, awestruck, until they were out of sight.
“You’ve never seen a dragon before, have you?” Astrid questioned, bringing him back to earth.
Jack shrugged. “Not outside of storybooks, no. Honestly, I’m still trying to convince myself that they exist.”
“You seem oddly accepting, though,” she observed, placing a hand on her hip.
Jack shrugged again and rubbed the nape of his neck. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things.”
“Hm,” she hummed. Then turned around and mounted her dragon. She put out a hand to him. “This doesn’t mean I trust you, exactly, but…hop on.”
“Um…” he eyed the dragon with trepidation. It eyed him back, twitching its head and squawking like a parakeet. He wasn’t exactly a Guardian anymore so he couldn’t just fly away if the dragon decided to drop him out over the ocean.
“Just get on.” Astrid rolled her eyes. “It’ll be fine. I promise. Unless you’d rather walk ten miles.”
“Okay,” Jack relented, but put up a finger. “But only one ride.”
“Like I’m doing this again,” Astrid muttered, and she pulled Jack up onto the saddle behind her. He only just swung a leg over the girth of it before she looked back at him, an evil gleam in her eye. “Okay, hold on!”
They rose into the air with one powerful wing beat and then they were flying forward. Well, more like bouncing forward, if he wanted to be accurate. He whooped in delight at first, grabbing Astrid’s shoulders with an iron grip, but eventually, about five minutes later, he started to feel a bit sick. He wasn’t used to this level of turbulence. It was a lot bumpier than North’s sleigh and even the wind, when it decided to cooperate. The only thing he could do was concentrate on the horizon with its strangely pointy peaks jutting out of a thick forest that apparently covered what he now could assume was an island. The island of Berk, apparently. Strange name – he eyed the girl in front of him, the axe strapped to her hip glinting in the sun – to match its strange people.
Eventually, they rounded the largest peak he’d seen so far on the island and flew over a cove where a tall rock arch jutted out over the dark water below. He could just make out some buildings scattered over the point where the arch met the island and widened into a grass-covered, triangular rock surface. Astrid nodded to him over her shoulder, pointing down at the village below.
“Here we are. Home sweet home.”
They descended, the sunset light glinting off of the water and painting the pointed rooftops orange. The village was crude, but he had to admit, it definitely had its appeal. They landed heavily in what looked to be the village center, and Jack wasted no time in hopping off, finding nothing in his vicinity to lean on and missing his staff. He settled for stumbling a bit instead, until he could regain the feeling in his legs. Astrid dismounted gracefully behind him and stepped around him.
“Follow me,” she muttered, gesturing to him with a wave of her hand.
Now that he really looked about, he noticed the village was deserted, unless he counted the few odd dragons milling about or sleeping on rooftops like giant, fire-breathing barn owls.
“Everyone’s in the Great Hall,” she answered his unasked question. “Eating dinner.”
Jack’s stomach rumbled again and he patted it, anticipation growing for food of any kind. He hadn’t eaten in over…yeah, it had been a really long time.
He followed her up a series of steps that lead to a gigantic, round-roofed building with large double doors flanked by two crudely shaped Viking statues. Large bowls of fire were lit above the statues, their flickering light burning brighter now that the sun was almost below the horizon and dark clouds were moving in. Astrid pushed one door open with a loud creak and he slipped in after her, immediately enveloped in warmth. He couldn’t help staring in awe at the torch lit interior with its wooden pillars and statues all surrounding an enormous pit of fire that crackled merrily in the center of the hall.
And yep, those were definitely Vikings eating at the tables. They were all generally heavy set and wearing various cuts of leather and iron studs. He swore most of them had thighs that were thicker than his torso, although that may have been an exaggeration. A lot of them stopped eating and eyed him with interest the moment he stepped further into the hall, but then a man bigger than all of them lumbered toward him with single-minded purpose. Astrid stepped aside and Jack stared up at the man, wide-eyed. He reminded him a lot of North, if he had auburn hair…
“Who’s this, then?” the Viking grunted.
…And a Scottish accent. Right. Was he the only one in this village with a Scottish accent, or…?
“Who are you?” Another Viking echoed, stepping up beside his friend on a false, metal leg that clomped loudly on the wooden floor boards.
Yeah, not the only one with a Scottish accent, apparently. Good to know.
“Stoick, Gobber, this,” Astrid gestured to him. “Is Jack. We found him at the cove.”
“Technically, I found him,” Snotlout corrected, stepping up behind her.
"Yeah," Ruffnut agreed, joining the group with her brother and Fishlegs in tow. "And we helped."
“We thought he was dead," Tuffnut added with a smile. "But he’s not.”
Jack eyed them all. None of the teenagers seemed to have Scottish accents, even though the adults did. Weird.
“Where are you from, lad?” Stoick asked, his green eyes falling upon him again.
“Uh…” Jack spluttered. “I can’t remember?”
He could feel Astrid watching him with narrowed eyes, but Stoick only grunted, “Hm.”
“Did yeh hit your head on a rock?” Gobber asked, pushing his tongue against what looked like a pebble where a tooth should be. Toothiana would have had a fit.
“I dunno,” Jack replied. “Maybe.”
“Tha'd do it!” the man agreed. “Nothing like a rock to the ‘ead to addle the brain. I know a lot abou’ that.”
“You don’t say,” Jack stated wryly.
The twins snickered again. He grinned at them. Those two were definitely growing on him. They obviously knew how to have fun, but he felt a slight pang in his chest at that thought. He used to be the Guardian of fun, but now he was just Jack. The anxiety he should have felt earlier began to creep in. Being human again was cool and all, but what if he never got back to the other Guardians or the children of Burgess? What if he never got his powers back?
“Well, I suppose you can stay here until you regain your memories,” Stoick sighed. “As long as you play by the rules and – “
Suddenly, there was a loud creak and groan from behind Jack, followed by some rolling thunder. Stoick’s eyes widened and he closed his mouth, cutting himself off.
Jack turned around to see what all the fuss was about just as Astrid breathed out a soft, “Hiccup?”
He took in the teen standing in the doorway, his hair and leather armor glistening and wet from the freak downpour outside. His lean form was haloed in a flash of lightning and the flickering fire of the torches, and Jack’s stomach summersaulted up into his rib cage, because…wow. The boy ran a hand through his wet locks, pushing them back from his face, and he gazed at them all with a slight smile that bordered on cautious, before his green eyes fell on Jack and his dark brows knit in curiosity.
Flashbacks of Jack’s life before he’d drowned swirled through his mind, taunting him with memories of forbidden feelings for long lost friends, people he had been told by his Puritan culture were completely off limits, people who would have never reciprocated but would have rebuffed him in disgust. All of those feelings and fears came rushing back from his first life in an instant, and he suddenly found it very, very hard to breathe.
Oh, he was so screwed.