This story is actually a crossover with a book trilogy called Airborn, which doesn't have its own section for Fanfiction. I know most of you have probably not read the books, so I've tried to add a good introduction for Matt Cruse here. I'll keep the details coming when we get to them, and I hope I won't go and get you too confused. Just know that the books are set in a world where technology branched off onto zeppelins instead of airplanes, and it is set in the past, around the time period between world wars I and II, though neither of these is mentioned in the books. For those of you who, by some miracle, have read the books, this takes place after the second book, but ignores the events in Starclimber. The ending of that book just didn't give me what I wanted.

Disclaimer: I'm not going to say this again. I don't own any of these series.

Strange Situations

Chapter 1

Two Sides to Every Story

After the battle, the vikings had gone to work salvaging their sunken ships. Those that did survive the inferno were busy transporting workers to and from the site, along with some of the larger dragons – though not all of the vikings were willing to ride those.

Many of the catapults used in the battle had been converted to cranes, and the grunts of the vikings as they lifted their burdens could be heard. In the middle of it all, four vikings were straining to turn the enormous wheels of some confounded contraption.

"That's enough!" A boy yelled, and the four stout men sighed in relief of their labors.

"Here you go, buddy," the young viking said to his pet dragon, handing it a hooked rope. The dragon took it in its mouth, then jumped into the water. He swam down to the remnants of a mostly-intact viking ship, and tied the rope securely to its mast. He gave the rope a few light jerks, and, satisfied that it would hold, swam back up to the surface.

Hiccup watched as Toothless pulled himself up out of the water and sat down next to him. The boy turned his head, and nodded to a man standing near the contraption, holding a hammer in his good had.

"Go ahead, Gobber." Hiccup said.

Gobber swung the hammer, hitting a switch on the machine, and then dove for cover; a habit developed after dealing with several of Hiccup's previous inventions.

The wheels on the machine spun a short distance, and then stopped with a bang.

Gobber looked over at Hiccup. "Sorry, lad, I truly thought this one was going to work."

Hiccup looked around him, as other vikings slowly heaved their sunken ships to the surface. At the rate they were going, it would take forever to get what remained of the fleet up and running. Hiccup had been trying out some new ideas for pulling them up faster, his desk at home now void of his notes on dragon riding and covered in sketches of every manner of pulling and lifting devices.

Hiccup replied, "It must have jammed. We better lock it again, before–"

There was a loud crack, and the wheels on either side of the machine began spinning rapidly, quickly winding the rope up. After a short time, a ship exploded to the surface in a plume of water – a far cry from the slow heavings of the other vikings, as they pulled up the counterweights on the cranes and lifted only a slow ten feet at a time.

The other four vikings surrounded Hiccup, cheering, glad that their effort had not gone to waste; they had lifted an entire ship in less than a day. One of the huge men gave him a pat on the back, which threw the small boy forward onto the rocks by the shore.

Gobber, laughing, picked him and said, "Good job, lad."

Hiccup dusted himself off and smiled. He looked over the bay at Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Astrid had challenged him that she and the other viking children could lift a ship before he and a team of real vikings could. She had hoped – correctly – that Hiccup wouldn't try to lift it with a crane like they would, but waste his time trying to build something complicated to do it for him. They had the mast of their ship just breaking the surface, and she had been sure they would win today, but Hiccup's latest attempt had finally worked.

Astrid looked over with a small scowl in his direction. Then she returned her gaze to the crane and gave the order, "Pull!"

The back of the crane moved up a few feet, and Ruffnut (the lightest) crawled to the end of the long arm of the crane and tightened the rope. She flashed a thumbs-up to Tuffnut, who pulled a lever attached to a clamp, holding the rope tight. The rope was released, as well as the ratchet in the crane, and the counterweight pulled the ship up a few more feet, exposing more of the mast above the waves. They began to pull the rope back to the clamp, and start the procedure over again.

Gobber said to Hiccup, "Good job, boy. I'll fix up your machine, and we can do it again tomorrow! The fleet 'l be back up in no time with this contraption!"

Hiccup smiled again. He was glad that his inventions were finally helping the tribe.

Hiccup and Toothless walked around the bay, getting congratulations from other viking teams that had seen their display. They stopped where the other children were busy raising the counterweight again, putting slack on the line for Ruffnut to pull up.

Hiccup said, "Can we–?"

"Nope, we're fine." Astrid replied.

Apparently, Toothless didn't care. He jumped over and grabbed the rope in his mouth, pulling the other vikings off their feet. As he pulled, the ratchet locked the counterweight in place, high above the ground. With the quick jerk, Ruffnut fell off the crane, landing on Tuffnut.

"Hey!" he said, punching her.

"Hey!" She tackled him, and it quickly turned into a brawl on the rocks.

"That was awesome!" Snotlout exclaimed, "Can we do it again?"

Astrid glared at him, then at Hiccup's dragon, then at Hiccup. Toothless sensed her hostility, and walked away from the rope over to his rider.

Astrid deftly climbed the crane, retied the knot, and jumped down to release the clamp, raising their boat further. She called Snotlout and Fishlegs over, and began to pull the rope back over to the clamp.

"Thanks, Hiccup, but we can do this ourselves." Astrid proclaimed.

Hiccup ignored her, and once they had locked the crane's line in the clamp, he grabbed the counterweight rope. Toothless, happy to help, grabbed the line behind him.

Snotlout and Fishlegs gripped the rope, and Tuffnut and Ruffnut stopped fighting. Everyone stared at Astrid.

She walked over and grabbed the line herself. Ruffnut pushed Tuffnut away and began to climb to her position, and her twin moved back to the clamp.

Once again, Astrid yelled, "Pull!" and they began to lift the weight again. Hiccup tried to meet Astrid's eyes, but she turned away from him, locking her gaze on the crane. She hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt.

Matt Cruse loved his job.

He loved the feeling of being aloft – of being free, always moving, not being held back by the ground. He had been patrolling the lighter-than-air hydrium gas cells that gave the airship, the Aurora, its lift, searching for the sweet mango scent that signaled a leak.

Now he was in his bunk in the officer's quarters, instead of the familiar bunk he had used for all his years as a cabin boy.

After he had completed his school terms at the prestigious airship academy, he had been accepted to serve as assistant sailmaker on the luxury air liner Aurora. Before he had gone to the academy, he had served as a cabin boy on board the ship, and had hoped to become an officer, eventually working his way up to captain.

The current captain of the Aurora, Captain Walken, had heartily approved of his venture; however, he had been forced to deny Matt his promised promotion, as it had been taken by the son of the airship's owner. The captain knew Matt had the abilities to be an officer – he had more spirit than most of the other crewmen – but he did not have the credentials he needed to advance.

On that same trip across the Pacificus, they had run into a storm and were boarded by pirates, led by the notorious Vikram Szpirglas. They eventually discovered the island hideout of the pirates and escaped, in no small part due to Matt and one of the passengers, Kate de Vries.

Kate.

She had boarded the flight because of her dead grandfather's journal, which detailed large, panther-like creatures that lived their entire lives in the air, never landing, even for food or water. She was convinced that these creatures were real, and was determined to bring back some specimens. She developed a friendship with Matt, after he had brought her on a tour of the airship.

They did discover the cloud cats, and Matt had nearly been mauled by one. In the end, the cloud cat had saved him, knocking Szpirglas off the top of the Aurora before the pirate could do the same to Matt.

Now that Kate was always busy lecturing about the cloud cats (along with other high-altitude life forms they had discovered, salvaging the "ghost" ship Hyperion at 20,000 feet), and Matt was always moving from air port to air port, their relationship had been put on hold. While Matt was sure that he was in love with her – and her with him, though neither would admit it to anyone else – he was not sure. Kate was, among other things, unpredictable.

Only last year, when they were salvaging the Hyperion, she had tried to make him jealous by feigning interest with the salvage ship's captain – Hal Slater – and he had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. Every time Kate had entered his life, strange things had happened, and he had no idea what could happen next.

Author's Note:

Sorry if I got a little technical with the catapults; after my last measly fanfic, I'm going into as much detail as I can. I can't wait until you meet Kate – she's an interesting character, and I hope I can capture that.