Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the film How To Train Your Dragon, nor the rights to the children's book the film is based on.
Warning: This fic will be rated T, as there will be some blood here and there, coarse language, and possibly some semi-lovely stuff later on.
Acknowledgement: I wish to thank my Beta reader Star-struck Inu for her help in getting this fic up and running.
Chapter 1. The Bermuda Triangle
It was a hot, spring day in the United States Marines base; located in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Although it was early in the morning, there was a lot of hurried movement around the base as, roughly forty, fully packed and armed marines of the 1st Platoon 2nd battalion 2nd Marine Corps were preparing to board a large Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft. Although the loading of the plane was going smoothly, a number of the troops were complaining about the fact that their leave had seemed to go by way too fast for any of them to enjoy decently. One soldier, a Corporal named Sweetwater, nicknamed Sweets remarked, " Man this is bullshit! We just finished a rotation in Baghdad about a month ago I though we'd at least get a couple of months to unwind after that hell of a year we went through in Fallujha."
Listening in to the conservations of the whining soldiers, is the guy who will be telling the story of the events that occurred following the take off of this ill fated plane from the Marine base in North Carolina. My name is Joseph Gibson and I am the lieutenant in charge of the combat squad that Sweets belongs to. Feeling somewhat dissapointed with my comrades pessimistic view of our current deployment, but wanting to make light of the situation, I chimed in with "Oh you know those rear echelon commanders back at HQ just want to get rid of ya Sweets. Even if it means sending the rest of us to die in some God forsaken country."
Sweets looked at me sourly, but after a few seconds broke into full out laughter; in between fits of laughter he managed to say, " You always know the right things to say in order to get under my skin Fearless Joe man. I hope you're the one who buys the farm this time." Knowing his jest were harmless, I only smiled at Sweets and prepared to walk up the ramp into the plane itself. Even though I was as gung ho to acquire some fancy nickname as any other marine present on the plane; I hated that title, Fearless Joe. I felt that I had never done something worthwhile to earn the title that any other soldier could have done in the various chaotic battle situations that can arise during a simple mounted Humvee patrol mission. Any soldier, with a good pair of hands, is capable of using a Humvee's mounted .50 caliber machine gun and mow down attacking insurgents. It didn't take knowing brain surgery to kill a man The would break like a piece of grass being mowed by a lawnmower. I myself however, preferred the finer qualities of weapons such as the M-4, which had gotten me and my fellow marines out of many life or death circumstances during our platoons various tours of duty.
Suddenly, one my squad's new replacement soldiers shouted out, "Atten-hut! Officer on deck." And seemingly out of nowhere the acting commander of the unit, a Colonel by the named Thomas Shepard, appeared.
He shouted, " Listen up Marines! We're almost ready to get this bird off the ground and begin the long, tiring journey back to our base in Baghdad, Iraq. This is where most of you will be immediately assigned to do whatever dangerous and extremely deadly jobs we can find for men of your caliber."
After pausing a few seconds to take a breath the Colonel continued "I hope you boys, all being grown ups now, should know by now that I want this flight to go as smoothly as possible. So no fights to prove who is the stronger male, because I'll win, or any cell phones to check your B.S myspace page or some random crap like that, you got me?"
All the marines present on the plane, including myself, responded with the distinct "Hoorah!!!!" cry of the Corps that precedes most talks from the top brass.
After being dismissed by the Colonel, a wave of his hand, the dismissed marines sat down and strapped themselves into their respective seats inside the transport plane. Following another short waiting period of about thirty minutes, our plane was soon cleared for take off and proceeded to the allotted runway where it sped down and lifted up into the wild blue yonder of the sky above.
Thinking that this flight was like all the other flights I had been on, the flight would be as routinely boring as the last. I decided to find a comfortable position in my seat next to my buddy Sweets, who was fidgeting with his marine issued M-4 assault rifle, and pulled a hat over my face in order to attempt to sleep through the bulk of the journey.
A few hours later, I was rudely awakened by some shouting from the front of the plane near the cockpit , "What the hells is going on? Why has this plane been detracted from the planned flight course from North Carolina to our base in Iraq?"
A response soon accompanied this, sounding like it came from one of the flight crew, "Sir, I'm sorry there nothing I can do, we received orders from the office to the Secretary of Defense; ordering us to change the original flight path and set a new course that proceeds near the Bermuda Islands." I pushed my cap from my face and followed the sound of this heated conversation to the front of the plane. Discovering that the source was Colonel Shepard and the co-pilot, whose name I believe was Tom, angrily staring at one another.
Wanting to diffuse a possibly violent outcome to their argument I saluted the Colonel, "Sir! Should I inform the rest of the men of our current change in route?" Shepard looked at me for a few seconds with a bit of surprise on his face; as the majority of the marines present on the plane had fallen asleep, were spacing out with their I-pods, or some device similar to that. Regaining his composer, the Colonel responded, " No don't wake them at this point. It doesn't even matter as this poin;t as we are already flying over Bermuda as we speak." I gaped at this statement and inquired, "Sir, we're not going to be flying into the Triangle are we?" I had watched and read enough stupid TV shows and books to know that the area was well known for being the doom for both ships and planes that dared to venture into its unholy region.
Colonel Shepard was about to reply to my question when suddenly a violent lurch from turbulence shook the plane beneath out feet; causing both myself, Shepard and Tom to be flung to the floor. After regaining some semblance of stable gravity in the plane, Shepard said,"Go back to your seat Lieutenant. There's nothing you can do now. Were at the mercy of God now, or whatever higher being watches over us in this world." He muttered sardonically.
It took me a few seconds to make it back to my seat in the middle section of the plane. When I finally was able to sit down and buckle myself in, Sweets who was previously asleep, asked me ,"What the hells is going on Joe?"
I thought to myself that he must have seen the pale look on my face from hearing where our plane was flying into right as he spoke to me. After thinking about how to respond for a few momentsl I turned to my friend and said, "Sweets we're in the freakin' Bermuda Triangle and I have a feeling something terrible is about to happen to us, we may actually die here man."
I watched as Sweets face developed a look of horror that was perhaps similar to the one that was plastered onto my face at that very moment. Sweets was opening his mouth to say something, when suddenly the plane violently convulsed again and a cry rang out from a soldier, another buddy of mine -a Gunnery Sergeant- named Jason Grimms, who was staring out of a window of the plane, "Holy shit guys! Take a look out your nearby windows, there's some freaky shit happening out there in the sky."
Dreading to look out and see what the hell Grim was seeing out that window; I nonetheless turned my head around to the window behind my and Sweets seats. To my horror-filled amazement that the sky outside had changed from it characteristic blue shade to a dark-brown cloud filled space that was shooting out lightening of various colors of the rainbow. As I stared outside that window, I remembered how in one Triangle TV show detailed how an entire squadron of World War Two fighter jets codenamed flight 19 disappeared in 1945 after encountering similar crazy weather conditions in the infamous Triangle area.
Suddenly, a strange sensation overcame my senses and it felt like we were all was being pulled into a vortex in a manner similar to being sucked into a black hole in space. I saw the men around me, including Sweets, begin to keel over as if they had been knocked out and I felt that a similar outcome was going to overtake me as well. I fought the urge to pass out for a few more seconds and managed to look out the window one final time and saw how the sky around us had changed into something akin to those transdimensional vortex you see in science fiction movies and then the world blacked out around. While this was happening I was sure we were all going to die from whatever the hell the triangle was doing to us. Little did I know that this event would begin a long odyssey into a world filled with beings that we humans had once thought existed only in our imaginations… Dragons!
AN: This is the first fanfic I have written so please no flames! Constructive and valid argumentative reviews will be appreciated. Also, it will take a few chapters until the link between my marine characters and the film's so please bear with me here!
Notes On The Gear of The Marines: main weapon that most of the marines will be carrying is the standard military issued M4A1 carbine. The M4, for short,has selective fire options including semi-automatic and full automatic option in place of the three-round burst. The weapon fires 5.56x45 NATO ammunition. Most M4s will have mounted AUG scopes for long range fights and will have flashlights attached to the underside of the barrel. 2. For side arms, the marine will be equipped with the standard issued semi-automatic Beretta 9mm pistol that is used by all police and military forces in the United States today. 3. On top of their uniforms the marines will be wearing what is called Interceptor body armor that is used to protect the soldier from small arms fire and fragmentation bits from explosives and has pouches for spare ammo magazine and loops for grenades. 4. Standard Issued modern day desert colored camouflaged uniforms,boots, and Helmets will be worn by the troops as well. 5. Each Marine will have two M67 Fragmentation Grenades attached to the loops on their body armor, useful for clearing out a dug in enemy. 6. Finally, a few lucky marines will have access to Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW) is a shoulder-launched rocket weapon with the primary function of being a portable assault weapon (eg bunker buster) and a secondary anti-armor rocket launcher. Info for these weapons and gear was obtained from Wikipedia.
If there is anything else that needs to be addressed please let me know!