Chapter 2: Side Effects

Author's Notes: This chapter is going to be mostly Hiccup's point of view, because a lot of important things happen involving him, but I add a little bit in as myself. Just to spice it up.

Reviews:

mc arno (Chapter 1, Apr. 10) - Merci!

The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 1, Apr. 11) - My brother has watched some of the Librarians, so I kinda know what you're talking about. Unfortunately for them, our heroes and heroines must face quite a bit, especially in this chapter ;)

understandalone (Episode 1, Chapter 10, Apr. 11) - You'll just have to wait and see. And no, Cog won't fall for Levi. But someone else will :P There will be more fluff, just not yet. I have plans within plans, a veritable web of ideas that are linked together, and there will be some fluff tangled up in there. Thanks for liking my stories! I like them, too.

Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine.

Key:

0*0*0 – scene change

Horizontal line – perspective change

Hiccup looked around rapidly, searching, hoping that there might be some way to escape the horde of Mimics. There was nothing. Above them, they could hear the buzzing of filmy wings. Around them, they could see a sea of red dots stretched out around them, slowly lit up by the Queen's bioluminescence to reveal the undulating insects closing in. The clatter of sharp feet against hard stone and the incessant humming combined into an unpleasant drone that stuck with him.

It seemed the intrepid heroes had already met their doom just hours into their adventure. What kind of a story is that?!

Luckily, that was when life took a turn for the better.

A quick word from the author...

It seemed that the sound of the hive and the rise of the Queen had convinced a few of the larger monsters of the caverns to arrive in search of a meal. Mimic camouflage didn't just help them catch human prey. It kept monsters from eating them, thinking they were just another of the strange constructs of the humanoid races. The insects were very tasty to some of the larger creatures, such as Abyss Worms, Crawlers, and the huge flocks of Abysteels that called the Maze of Myst home.

It was a giant worm that saved them. Tough, dark gray skin speckled with white kept the Mimics from stinging it, and even the Queen began to retreat back into her nest when she saw it.

"What is that?!" Cog shouted hysterically. Levi laughed and patted Dhole's head, and the Seraph started to hover in the air.

"An Abyss Worm! The earth gods must like us!" he replied brightly, just before the Worm turned to look at them with its tiny, milky eyes. Their faces fell when they saw the puny amount of Mimics in its mouth.

"Okay, maybe not..." he amended. The Abyss Worm reared back to take a bite out of them, Snow, Ash, and Toothless jumped into the air – avoiding the hard, chitinous mouth that crashed down – and they flew after the ousted prince with the Worm in pursuit.

0*0*0

When they flew toward a bright light at the end of one tunnel, Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief. If he had learned anything about worms during the few fishing trips he had gone on with his father, it was that they didn't like the sun. Moments before it could snatch Toothless and Hiccup in its beak, they shot out into what looked like a deep gash in the earth just above a natural bridge of rock that connected the tunnel they had just exited to another on the opposite side. The Worm let out a deep shriek of frustration as it came to a stop just out of reach of the light, then slowly turned its ponderous mass around and went back into the tunnel.

"We made it! Thank the earth gods we found this Chasm Bridge," Levi sighed, flopping back onto the furry monster he was sitting on. Dhole, Snow, Ash, and Toothless all set down on the stone bridge, and Hiccup got off to take a good look around. Silver fog was pouring down like water from the top, obscuring most of the bottomless canyon they were in, and if he looked down, all he could see was darkness.

"What is this place?" he whispered, in awe of the strange terrain. Cog joined him and put an elbow on his shoulder, pointing at the top.

"This is why this region is called the Fractured Lands. No other part of the world has deep chasms like this but here. The earth gods created them so that Myst could go back into the ground after it's used and be replenished by the gods. The Maze is connected to its various parts by way of these Chasm Bridges, like this one, and that's how we're gonna get to the Spire of Heaven," she explained quietly. The white-haired girl was about to walk away and leave him to his thoughts, but stopped and turned just enough to look him in the eye.

"Don't fall. No one knows how deep these are but the gods themselves," she said gravely. He took a few steps back from the edge and watched her walk up to Levi.

"Hey, prince. Do you think you can scout out where we are on Dhole? Darksoul knows what Hiccup and I ride and look like, but he doesn't know you're with us. You'll be fine... probably," she asked, pointing to the top of the chasm. The young man rolled his eyes, mounted his bond animal, and shot up into the open air.

At the same time, Hiccup felt a stab of pain in his arm and looked at it. The green sleeve had a large slash in it, and the scratch revealed by the hole was red and oozing. Cog heard him and came over, then winced at the sight of the wound.

"Ooo, you were hit, huh? Looks like you got nicked by a Mimic. At least you weren't stung. You wouldn't have been able to move, otherwise," she said, doing her best to not look at the injury as she pulled out some bandages and a tiny pot of some sort of ointment.

"Basic first aid kit. It's just disinfectant, but it'll help keep it from being infected," the girl told him before shoving them into his hands and moving to the other side of the bridge. He stared after her with a mixture of confusion and surprise, then settled down to applying the green gel in the jar and wrapping some of the strips of cloth around the scratch. It wasn't deep, thank the gods, but it still hurt when he worked the gel into the area. If left unattended, it might have turned serious.

When he was done, Hiccup went over and sat beside the white-haired girl, who was busy undoing the clasps on her battered armor and setting the pieces aside.

"Uh, Cog, you okay? You seemed kinda queasy back there," he asked, remembering the green tint to her face when she saw the injury. The girl looked him steadily in the eye, never letting her gaze move, then went back to taking off the armor silently.

"Cog?"

Levi and Dhole returned at that time, and Hiccup told him about Cog's weird behavior. The man chuckled and looked at the teenage girl, asking her if she was afraid of blood. She blushed and shook her head, simply saying that she didn't like seeing injuries because it reminded her of her adoptive father's wounds. They were silent after that admission, but then Levi, to change the subject, told them that they had, against all odds, managed to find the Chasm Bridge that would take them to the Land of the Rejected, where the Spire of Heaven challenged the skies and the Library waited. But it was getting late, and it would be dangerous to travel through the Maze at night. Deadlier monsters came out to play at night in large numbers, worse than the Mimics and the Abyss Worm. The Bridge would be safe, as long as they set up Cog's anolite stands (she had four, saying that she had planned on exploring other lands in search of her bond animal and would have needed plenty of light to ward off monsters) and stayed in the middle of the rock spanning the gap. The creatures of the night hated light – for obvious reasons – and would leave them be while they slept.

"Everyone, get some rest. We've still got a ways to go before we're clear of the Maze. Darksoul's men might be looking for us even now, so we should take shifts. I'll take the first watch. Cog, you'll go after, and Hiccup, you'll be next. When you feel like a few hours have passed, wake the next person up. When your shift is done, Hiccup, wake me up and we'll start it over again. Got it?" Levi said firmly. The two teenagers nodded and laid down next to their dragons. At first, Cog was uncomfortable lying next to Snow and Ash, but the two dragons soon started crooning gently and curled up around her, supporting her body with their wings and tail. Soon enough, the girl was asleep (they could tell because she was breathing slowly and steadily), leaving Levi and Hiccup awake.

"Wow, she's out like a rock, isn't she?" the older man joked before sitting at one end of the set of lights, nodding briefly to the teenage boy as he went. Hiccup chuckled and leaned against Toothless' side, hoping he would get some sleep in this strange place.

0*0*0

The only way to describe Hiccup's dream was eerie. He was in Berk, and it was like it always had been, the villagers going about their business as usual – except no one seemed to mind the dragons that were also around. Deadly Nadders, Gronckles, Monstrous Nightmares, Hideous Zipplebacks, even Terrible Terrors were everywhere, and some of the Berkians seemed downright pleased to see them. It was so strange, compared to what he had seen of Berk just before leaving.

"Hiccup, there you are!" his father's voice rang out from behind him. Startled, he turned, only to see Stoick walking up to him and Toothless. There was something different about himself, though. What was it?

That was it! His left leg was now a prosthetic! When had that happened? When had all this happened? Why was he here, seeing this?

"Hiccup, I need you to take the rest of the Academy out to find that rogue dragon that's been attacking ships. Be careful. All of the people who return say it's a tricky beast, and that it's not like anything in the Book of Dragons," his father ordered gently. Stoick the Vast, gentle? What sort of crazy world was this? Had the Myst driven him insane?

Other-him nodded and got onto the other-Toothless, who had a red tail fin with a white skull on it. What was that about? His mind reeled with questions, even as he watched the other-him and other-dragon fly off with what looked like a Nadder, a Gronckle, a Monstrous Nightmare, and a Zippleback... with other riders! Not to mention, those were the dragons from the arena.

'What's going on?' he thought bemusedly.

Before he could see any more, the scene shifted to that of a strange campsite hidden from the sky by boughs woven together into a pavilion, of sorts. A crowd of maybe twenty people was gathered around a bonfire in the center of a group of tents, all in strange gray, red, and black leather armor with Sigils sewn onto the backs. Hanging from their waists were helmets with stylized wings on the side where the ears would have been, but though he couldn't see their faces clearly, he had the strangest feeling he should know them. A young woman came up to him, her face masked by a leather helmet, but she also had some sort of emblem on her shoulder pads that no one else wore. It looked like the symbol emblazoned above strange writing on banners scattered throughout the area, the same wing design as those on the crowd's helmets, but it had a red core instead of black.

"Are you ready, Hiccup? This is the final battle. There will be no second chances," she asked affectionately after she hugged him tightly. Her voice was muffled by the leather, but it was very familiar. She reached up to pull off her helmet, and right when he was about to see her face...

He woke up to the sound of screams.

0*0*0

"Hiccup! Get up!" Cog shouted desperately, terror lacing her voice like poison in that weird drink Darksoul liked. Wine, was it called? He hadn't liked it very much because of its weird flavor, but the Jarl had seemed to like it. Maybe you just had to acquire a taste for it.

"HICCUP! GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Levi roared, and that did it. Hiccup shot upright, sleep long forgotten, and barely managed to roll away from his resting place to avoid something horrifying. It was like someone had combined a mouse and a centipede into a freaky, giant, two-headed monstrosity. The eight black, angular legs of the arthropod were completely at odds with its furry, gray body, and the compound eyes and sharp mandibles jutting out of what otherwise looked like a giant mouse head were even worse. Two long antennae flicked around on each head, detecting the others who were fighting it and making it send its tail their way. The necks were like the bodies of two centipedes, with red-violet chitin and small black "legs" sticking out of the sides. More plates of this chitin ran down its back to its mousy tail, which was tipped with two stingers like the Mimics. It was, in essence, the fever dream of some crazed god of vermin.

"Toothless!" Hiccup shouted. The Night Fury dashed over and allowed his rider to get on before shooting up into the sky. Now faced with three powerful monsters, the monstrosity seemed to reconsider attacking them and fled deeper into the abyss, leaving them to take a breather and recuperate.

"What... what was that thing?" he asked the others, who seemed just as upset as he did. Levi was panting with overexertion, so Cog filled him in as usual, though she was also winded.

"That, Hiccup, (pant, pant) was a Centouse. I've (gasp) never seen (wheeze) one that big. Usually they only (deep breath) grow to the size of a small rat, but that's in cities. They might grow bigger here because of the Myst," she explained brokenly. He nodded, stood up, and looked around. It was still night, but the sky above had gone from a dark, steely gray to a lighter shade of fog. Morning was coming.

"Think we should pack up and keep going?" he suggested quietly. The others nodded silently, still trying to recover. Hiccup felt bad that he hadn't been much help, but that dream... what had happened to Berk? And who was that woman? She obviously knew him, and he knew her, but he had no clue who she was right now.

As a way to make up his lack of aid during the fight, he chose to gather up the anolite stands and put them in Cog's pack for her, making sure they didn't crush anything important, like the weird round thing Cog called a compass (it was supposed to point north, but the world had been crazy since the Catastrophe, and so it was unreliable half the time) or the map. Definitely shouldn't crush the map.

He noticed that they had all sustained some injuries, and so Hiccup went around applying the disinfectant and bandages for them. Cog adamantly refused to look at any of her injuries until they were covered with the white cloth, so Nuts had to help him find each and every one. She had a few bruises, cuts, and scratches, but nothing was broken or fractured, so she would be all right. Levi was much the same, only he was more cooperative with the teenage boy's efforts. The bond animals had the least amount of wounds, because they were tougher and had scales or, in Dhole's case, fur that was surprisingly resistant to attack, though Nuts had a large gash in his side from a stray attack by the tail. That was bandaged swiftly, and the Claptrap chirped in gratitude and slithered down into the safety of his partner's armor.

Once they had all regained their strength, the seven of them (or was it eight? Did Snow and Ash count as two separate entities, even though they had one body?) set off into the next part of the Maze, praying that they would survive to see the Library.

A flash of yellow sped by the tunnel entrance and up the canyon. It looked like a tiny hummingbird, only it seemed to be made of pure gold with ruby eyes. It had watched them during the entire battle, transmitting data to its mistress in her citadel.

"They are safe. I only hope Deorca wasn't the one who set that Centouse on them," she murmured worriedly, leaning back in her seat. Golden light surrounded her in the strange room filled with giant bubbles of light. In each one, a different person was shown. One was a girl with short, curly brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and a light blue star tattooed over her right eye. Another was a girl with long, pointed ears, black hair with pink streaks in it, and pale blue eyes. Next to her was a boy who also had long ears and pale blue eyes, but his hair was black with light blue streaks in it. Yet another showed a girl with long, silvery hair pulled back in a ponytail and violet eyes. One glowing sphere near the girl and boy showed a young woman with silver-gray hair, cat ears, and yellow cat eyes. Most of the bubbles had images of young women inside, each with different faces, hair, and eyes, but there was one thing they had in common. Each was a Guardian, one of her Guardians, or was an ally of the Guardians that needed protection.

At the farthest end was a bubble showing a young woman with black hair that faded to white and crimson eyes. Her face changed slightly, and sometimes she had long ears or was replaced by a black and white dragon with red eyes, but it was clearly different versions of the same woman. It was to this that Lucia went, gently placing her hand on the woman's face.

"Luna, you know what to do," she whispered softly as it changed to show one version of the woman standing next to the black and white dragon. Luna turned to speak with someone offscreen and revealed her black and white Sigil, showing that this one, at least, was in the Fractured Lands.

"Keep Cog safe. Make sure Deorca doesn't destroy her, and Darksoul doesn't kill her. We need our Guardian of Happiness."

Author's Notes: The Centouse is a creature of my own creation, not based off any monster from a game, movie, book, etc. Can't you tell by how messed-up it is? It is a centipede-mouse hybrid that I came up with in eighth grade during Spanish class, mostly because that was the sort of thing I did back then. I made a lot of hybrids, like the peaket (peacock-cricket), the phoedracorn (phoenix-dragon-unicorn), and the rupoler (ruby-hippo-sunflower. Don't ask. I did it for a friend). Ah, good times.

Yeah, I'm a little on the weird side, in case you couldn't tell. But that's what makes me fun!

As always, please review! I like it when people leave comments. It makes me happy :)

Wild Cat 214, out!