WARNING: RACE TO THE EDGE SPOILERS!
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*spins around in black chair stroking laptop*
Hello, readers. I've been expecting you.
*flips open laptop* NEW STORY. WHOOP WHOOP! WHY THE HECK AM I...GUYS...I CAN'T STOP UPDATING HELP ME. Oh, and I'm on spring break right now too, which is really nice, which means I'll have a lot more time to write...and YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I HAVE A LOT MORE TIME TO WRITE. UPDATES GALORE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA help me
BUT ANYWAYS I HOPE YOU AWESOME PEOPLE ENJOY THE FIRST CHAPTER OF "THE FURY OF THE NIGHT"! :D :D :D I LOVE YOU GUYS! ENJOY! :D
The dragon riders had ransacked their own Clubhouse - and not for the first time. A chest in the corner was overturned on its side, its contents sprawled out on the floor. The dragon riders dug through buckets and barrels of supplies; Ruffnut and Tuffnut looked under a pebble; Snotlout slipped on a poorly placed spyglass, smacked his hip against the corner of the table, and limped away moaning as if he had been stabbed; Fishlegs, standing on a stool, looked through the shelves; Astrid pushed over a barrel and dug through it; Hiccup dug through a box on the table.
"It's gotta be around here somewhere!" Hiccup said, slamming the lid of the box down in defeat. "We didn't go anywhere with it, did we?"
"Who knew we had so much stuff?" asked Tuffnut, gesturing to the large piles of miscellaneous objects on the floor. Tuffnut grabbed a long cylinder off the floor and raised it to his eye. "Whoa," he said in awe. "This tube...is like a spyglass...except it doesn't zoom in on anything, it sort of just...stays the same as it always is…"
He turned his head. "This is amazing!" he said, grinning. "Hey, Hiccup! Can I keep this?"
"Come on, guys!" Hiccup groaned. "We can organize all this stuff later! Can't we just find it before we go through everything else?"
"I don't know, H.," said Tuffnut, looking down at the tube with respect. "This is one sick tube. It demands my unhindered, immediate attention!"
"Yeah, okay, whatever," said Hiccup, "just, go somewhere else and mess with it, please? Let the rest of us finish up."
Ruffnut and Tuffnut looked at each other, down at the tube again, and then back at each other. They didn't leave; they took turns looking through the tube and staring at objects all around the room.
"Hey, I can see Fishlegs from here!" said Tuffnut. Fishlegs crossed his arms and shook his head. "And he is looking pretty mad at me…"
"Knock it off, you two!" said Fishlegs.
Hiccup sighed heavily, putting his hands against the table. "Are you guys sure none of you took it with you anywhere?" he asked for the utmost time.
"I know I didn't," said Fishlegs.
"And what would I want with a Dragon Eye lense?" said Snotlout, offended. "They were lame before we got the Dragon Eye back."
"And we don't want it!" Ruffnut insisted. "We wouldn't touch something that wasn't ours! We have something called respect!"
"Yeah, totally!" Tuffnut said, still indulged in the tube. "Hey, sis, this tube is amazing! Here, you look in it again…"
"Wait, I found it!" Astrid called, leaping off the stool she had been standing on, holding her prize up for the rest of them to see.
"Bork's Dragon Eye lense!" said Fishlegs excitedly, hurrying forward to take it from her. "You found it!"
"It was on the twins' shelf," said Astrid, gesturing to said shelf behind her. "Go figure."
All eyes turned to Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who shrugged in unison. "Hey, it's not like we weren't going to tell you eventually!" Ruffnut said.
"Yeah!" said Tuffnut. "Wait, you mean we weren't not going to tell them?"
"Come on, I can't wait to see where this leads to!" said Fishlegs happily, and he raced over to where the Dragon Eye was placed. Fishlegs slipped the lense into one of the slots and beckoned Meatlug over.
"Come on, Meatlug," he said. "Let's see what Bork wanted to show us."
Meatlug growled her agreement and breathed her hot-as-lava breath against the Dragon Eye. For a moment, the projector flickered, but then, quite pathetically, it went out.
Fishlegs looked confused. "Huh," he said, taking up the Dragon Eye and fiddling with the lense.
"What's the matter, Fishlegs?" said Snotlout. "Did you break it?"
"I didn't break it!" said Fishlegs. "Meatlug's lava didn't work on it."
"Really?" said Astrid. "Meatlug's lava works on just about every lense we've tried so far. Are you sure you have it in all the way?"
"I am quite sure I have it in all the way," said Fishlegs. "Maybe we need a certain dragon fire to access this lense."
"Aha!" Snotlout said suddenly, triumphantly. "And I have just the dragon for the job!" He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled; Hookfang came barrelling through the front doors of the Clubhouse, his tail lit on fire. "Come on, Fangster!" said Snotlout. "Time to do your thing!"
Hookfang breathed in proudly and shot fire into the air, just in front of the Dragon Eye. But just like before, it spluttered and went out.
"Huh," said Fishlegs. "Seems like Hookfang was not just the dragon for the job."
Snotlout jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at Hookfang. "Dragon's fault," he blamed, and Hookfang growled dangerously.
"It's not Hookfang's fault, Snotlout," said Hiccup, "it's the lense. Let's try something else...Ruffnut, Tuffnut, what about Zippleback fire?"
Ruffnut and Tuffnut brightened. Their jaws dropped. Tuffnut released his hold on the tube.
"Um, Hiccup," said Fishlegs, raising his finger, "I'm pretty sure the twins should have been a last resort-"
"BARF, BELCH! Ruffnut and Tuffnut shouted in unison, leaping to their feet and pointing frantically at the space just in front of the Dragon Eye. "ANNIHILATE THE THING!"
"Yeah, I think you're right, Fishlegs-" Hiccup said, but he didn't get to finish. "DUCK!" he shouted, and he and the other riders dove beneath the round table, hands over their heads.
There was a loud explosion, and smoke filled the Clubhouse. Fishlegs grabbed the nearest book and began fanning it away; Snotlout, coughing, used his helmet to do the same.
When the smoke finally cleared, Ruffnut and Tuffnut looked at them sheepishly. The Dragon Eye sat on the table; the projector shuddered weakly and went out. The Zippleback fire hadn't worked, either.
But there was a rather large hole in the floor of the Clubhouse from the explosion, which Ruffnut and Tuffnut winced at.
"Ooh…" grimaced Ruffnut. "Not good, not good…"
"On the bright side, Hiccup," said Tuffnut, raising his finger, "it is sort of an improvement…"
Hiccup crossed his arms.
"Ugh, fine!" said Tuffnut. "We'll go get the wood and nails! Geez, does everything have to be perfect for you guys…?"
And, grabbing his tube off the ground as he went, Tuffnut headed out of the Clubhouse, Ruffnut walking behind in his wake. Barf and Belch turned and followed their riders, flicking the doors shut with their tails.
"That," said Fishlegs, still fanning the air, "could have gone a lot worse."
"Yeah, but let's make sure it doesn't happen again," said Hiccup. "Okay, Toothless, let's say we try your fire, and then we'll have Stormfly try if it doesn't work, alright?"
Toothless growled his agreement and stepped forward, standing just behind the large hole in the floor. He sucked in a deep breath and fired a small plasma blast.
The Dragon Eye's projector instantly sprang to life, a large screen projected onto the opposite wall. The light that shined from it was a deep purple with tinges of pink tickling the edges.
"Whoa," said Fishlegs. "This...this is amazing!"
In the center of the large map was runes; Hiccup quickly deciphered their meaning and said, "Strike Class," for the rest of the riders to hear. "This must be a document of all the dragons in the Strike Class."
"I've never seen so many Strike Class dragons before!" gasped Fishlegs excitedly. "Most of them are extinct, or endangered! We have the Snow Wraiths, the Skrill, and, well, the Night Fury!"
"I always thought it was weird that the Strike Class dragons have most of the endangered species," said Astrid. "I mean, the Strike Class is built of the most powerful dragons. They all have blazing speed, extreme intelligence, outstanding accuracy...I wonder how they all died out."
"Dragon hunters," Hiccup said darkly. "People like Viggo and Ryker, who kill dragons for a living. I bet that's one of the biggest reasons we don't see more Strike Class dragons out in the open."
"Well," said Fishlegs, "that's a good point, but it could have been shifting in the environments, too."
"So what does this mean for us?" said Snotlout flatly, crossing his arms. "We have a list of all the extinct and endangered Strike Class dragons. Now what?"
"It's not just a list, Snotlout," said Fishlegs, and he sounded offended. "It's a map, and each map leads to the place each of these dragons was last seen."
"Strange," said Hiccup, "I don't see the Night Fury on this map at all."
"That's because Night Furies are the most secretive," said Fishlegs. "Bork probably never even saw a Night Fury up close in his lifetime. The only information we ever had on the Night Fury in the Book of Dragons was that if you saw one, you were dead."
"What about this one?" Astrid asked, raising her hand towards the map. "There's no name here, just a map."
"Weird," said Hiccup.
"Oh no," said Snotlout, and he sounded panicked. "Oh no, oh no…"
"What is it, Snotlout?" Astrid demanded.
"I know what you guys are thinking!" Snotlout said. "The minute anything is weird, that's when we fly over and check it out and normally end up either running for our lives or captured by homicidal dragon hunters! No thank you! I, personally, would like to live long enough to see my next sunrise!"
"We've survived so far," said Hiccup.
"That," seethed Snotlout, "is not the point!"
"So, what would you suggest we do, Snotlout?" said Astrid with a frown, putting a hand on her hip. "Should we go revisit the Skrill's home island instead? I'm sure they'll be glad to see us."
"Listen," said Snotlout, "it's not that I don't like you, or that I think you're crazy, but you are crazy, so it's not just a thought!"
"How do you know we'll end up doomed, Snotlout?" Hiccup asked, becoming thoroughly annoyed very quickly.
"I have a sixth sense!" Snotlout insisted. "This sense tells me things no one else can hear, it sees me through every situation, guides and directs my every step."
For emphasis, Snotlout took a step forward - and fell straight through the hole Ruffnut and Tuffnut had created earlier. He screamed briefly, and Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Astrid leaned over the side of the hole. Snotlout had caught onto a long branch jutting out from the side of the cliff beneath the Clubhouse.
"Ah," said Astrid, nodding, "I get it. Sixth sense! How I wish I had one!"
"Haha, very funny!" snapped Snotlout angrily. "Now would you stop wallowing in your victory get me out of here!? Hookfang!"
Hookfang didn't even make a move to save his rider. He looked over the hole, grinned at Snotlout, and turned away again. Snotlout stared up through the hole, jaw dropped.
"I know that face, Hookfang!" Snotlout shouted angrily. "Get your lazy tail over here and get me out of here!"
Hookfang snorted.
"HOOKFANG!"
"Should we help him out?" said Fishlegs.
"GUYS, I THINK THERE ARE SPIDERS DOWN HERE. GUYS!"
"Let me think about it…" said Astrid, tapping her chin.
"GUYS, SPIDERS! AHHHHHHHHH!"
"Yeah, we should probably get him out," said Hiccup. "We're coming, Snotlout!"
"SPIDER CRAWLING UP MY LEG! SOMEONE DO SOMETHING! HELP ME! AHHHH!"
"Fishlegs, draw out a copy of that map for me," Hiccup said, pointing to the map without the name of a dragon over it.
"Sure thing!" said Fishlegs, already taking a piece of paper and beginning to copy it down. "I'll set a course for the island, and we can leave as soon as you're ready!"
"Perfect," said Hiccup. "Come on, Toothless, let's go get Snotlout."
"SPIDERS!"
"WE'RE COMING, SNOTLOUT!"