I do apologise if the chapters in this story are shorter than that of my last story. I'll do my best. Also, quick bit of info for newcomers who haven't read my last story: Draven has a dragon form of his own but cannot fly in daylight without sunlight hurting him (hence he flies on his Skrill).
...
Hiccup and Toothless were following close behind to Draven and Violet who were trying to locate the Wraith Draven was sensing. If it were at all possible, Draven would have preferred to avoid any conflict and just to ascertain whether or not the Wraith would have been a threat or not. If it were simply nearby, he and Hiccup could easily skirt around it to get to the smoke column, but from what Draven was sensing, it was right in their path and it would take too long to skirt around.
Signaling to Hiccup and Toothless, the two dragons and their riders landed in the forest to continue on foot. Upon landing, Draven dismounted and ungloved his morphed right hand, placing it on the ground. Using his Wraith senses, he was trying to find were a Wraith could hide in the surrounding terrain.
Moments later, Hiccup and Toothless landed as well. Approaching her Pyro-Typhon partner while atop Toothless, Hiccup asked him "What is it Drav? Why did we land?" Quiet for a moment, Draven stood back up and replied "Something's wrong here. You know how much Wraiths hate sunlight and yet there isn't a cave in this area for miles. So if they couldn't find a cave, then they'd no doubt create an electrical storm to shroud out the sun and yet here we are with clear skies. Lastly, as dense as this forest is, the canopy is nowhere near thick enough to block the sun either."
With eyes going wide with shock and nervousness, Hiccup hesitantly asked "So, what? Do we have a Wraith that's fully immune to the sun?"
With chills running down Draven's back, the hybrid simply replied "Please, don't ever say that sentence out loud again. The thought if that makes even me nervous."
Hearing several sound coming from deeper within the forest, Draven readied himself and began to move through the trees. "Stay close, eyes up." The hybrid said to his companion as the moved.
For several minutes, Draven scouted the area searching for signs of the Wraith he was sensing. Hiccup, Toothless and Violet stayed close behind with Violet sniffing for Wraith whereabouts.
Eventually after coming up with nothing and deciding the coast was clear to get to the smoke column, the riders prepared to mount up. It was at this point that Hiccup saw something BIG moving about the thick treeline behind Draven. Bigger than any Wraith she'd ever seen. "Uh, guys!" Hiccup warned Violet and Draven.
Hearing a twig snap behind him, Draven drew his sword and turned to face the Wraith. However as he turned, he heard and felt a deafeningly loud and disorientating screech resonate throughout his mind. Dropping to the ground, the two riders and their dragons heard the Wraith speak to them in human tongue. "Calm yourself child. I am not the one here who's a threat." the Wraith said to Draven in a female voice.
After a moment, the disorientation subsided and Draven looked up to see what was clearly a Wraith, only it wasn't. It was twice the size of a standard Wraith making it close to the size of a Timberjack. It's outer pair of wings were coated in it's hard black armoured scales and it's exo-skull was black as well instead of silver. It also didn't have any kind of pale blue glow like a normal Wraith, but a bright golden glow. Lastly and most unnervingly, it was clearly standing in raw sunlight and yet seemed to have no issue with it whatsoever.
"I mean you no harm Draven Mothlyn. I wouldn't even harm a fly, but I can still easily put you down again if you try threaten me." the Wraith said in a calm manner. "You know who I am?" Draven asked, breathing heavily from his disorientation.
"Oh but of course." the Wraith said with a chuckle. "What Wraith doesn't know the great Draven Mothlyn, famed Wraith-hunter and the worlds first ever Pyro-Typhon."
Toothless and Violet were standing in front of Hiccup and Draven in battle stance to protect their riders, when Draven gestured for them to stand down. He sensed from earlier that this Wraith was different and it wasn't the fact that this Wraith was clearly of a different kind. This Wraith was...calm, atypical of the other Wraiths he'd encountered. Carefully stepping forward whilst still being ready to strike, Draven watched the gargantuan Fear class dragon closely. "What do you want?" Draven asked.
"Why nothing dear boy." the Wraith chuckled. "I was simply minding my own business in the clouds when I heard the sounds of battle over that mountain. I came down to explore and it was then that I sensed your presence and I guess curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to meet the first person who became a human/Wraith hybrid."
It was at this point that the female Wraith noticed the look in Hiccup's eyes as well as the others. "My father once taught me 'If you have a question, ask.' Speak you mind child." the Wraith asked Hiccup.
"S-Sorry, it's just that... Besides your colours and size, you behave different to Wraiths Draven and I have met before. Civilised almost." Hiccup answered the giant dragon.
"Ah, why I haven't attacked any of you yet. Draven, you may be more surprised than most by the truth." the Wraith said as she slowly stepped closer to the group. "What if I told you that Wraiths are not only more civilised than most would believe but there are far more of us than you realise."
Still maintaining his guard with his hand still on his sword, Draven said to the Wraith "I'm listening."
The Wraith began "Have you ever noticed and wondered that for all the victims that Wraiths claim to infect, you see so few of them? Well let's just say most victims send themselves into self imposed exile out of shame while the few that you do see are the malicious kind that spread the Wraith curse out of spite. Most Wraiths are actually about as friendly as they were when they were human. You just have to find them."
Draven thought over what the female Wraith had said for a moment and in a way, it did make sense to him. Despite his hate for Wraiths for what one did to he and his family, he was strangely eager to listen to more of what this Wraith had to say.
Noticing at how the group kept staring at her features, the Wraith continued "As for my appearance, well, this is just what happens when we Wraiths reach Titan-wing status. We become Alphas among Wraiths. It was because of this that I was able to exert some will over you, Draven, and stop you from trying anything rash."
"Alpha!?" Hiccup, Toothless, Draven and Violet said in unison with surprise in their voices.
"Yes." the Wraith said. "Though we cannot attain that status through age alone like other dragons. Wraiths can only become Titan-wings by killing other Wraiths and becoming stronger from absorbing their essences. I killed nearly a dozen Wraiths out of defence to become what I am today."
Looking back to the horizon, the Wraith finally said to the group "Well you kids better run along now if you want to find out what happened over that mountain. Good day to you." Opening her massive wings, she shot into the sky and disappeared from sight.
"Interesting." Draven thought aloud at these new revelations that continually swirled within his mind. Getting back onto Toothless, Hiccup said to her partner "Come on. It's getting late and we still gotta check out whatever made that smoke."
Sheathing his sword and shaking his head to clear his mind, Draven simply got back onto Violet and followed Hiccup towards the smoke column.
...
Flying low while just above the treeline, the two riders and their dragons made their way to the smoke. As they moved over the forest, the scenery changed from lush autumn trees to burned out husks and dead land. Whatever battled here, it left little standing.
Reaching the edge of the forest, Toothless and Violet weaved in and out of several sea stacks and ice spikes. Reaching the other side however, both dragons came to a dead halt in the air with their riders gasping at the site of an inconceivably large tower of ice spikes with pieces of structures hanging off its ends.
Hiccup looked back to Draven wondering if he had an answer, but all he answered was a surprised and shocked expression and a shrug. "Stay close." Hiccup said as she and Toothless took point.
Circling the tower of ice, the thing that they continually kept looking at was the ruined structures impaled by the ice. "What happened here?" Hiccup wondered aloud.
Feeling that something was not right, Draven put on his hood and ungloved his right hand in case things would get heated.
Toothless however was looking down and noticed something unnerving for him. He saw two massive dragon footprints in the mud at where the ice seemed to start. "I don't like this Hic'. Those are bigger even than Red Death's tracks." the Night Fury growled out. "Alright. Easy, bud." Hiccup said soothingly to her dragon whilst petting his side.
At this point, the riders had reached the far side of the tower where Draven noticed movement on the ground. "Hiccup!" the hybrid warned.
"FIRE!" a mercenary on the ground shouted out.
With that order, a bola-net launcher fired from the ground headed right for the riders. "DRAVEN! LOOK OUT!" hiccup yelled to her companion, but it was too little, too late.
As Toothless turned to evade the net, Violet was perfectly lined up. Hitting the Skrill and tangling both her feet and one of her wings together, she began to plummet from the sky.
"No! VIOLET!" Draven panicked as he prayed himself from the net, but couldn't reach his dagger to get it off his Skrill before she'd hit the deck.
"Go! I'll be fine!" Violet shouted back reassuringly as the ground neared. Knowing she could take the fall, Draven jumped off of Violet and shrouded himself in black and dark purple smoke, transforming into his hybridised form. Not a second after the smoke cleared, Draven immediately began to feel the disorientating and strength-sapping effects of the sun. Grouping up with Toothless and Hiccup, the three flew back around to rescue Violet.
Violet hit the ground hard but was able to shake off the crash. Thrashing her spiked tail around, she was able to tear the nets to escape, whereby she started channeling her lightning within to her wings and mouth.
Unfortunately for her, these mercenaries knew her weakness, and quickly doused her in water to keep her from conducting electricity.
"Watch the tail!" the mercenary leader called out as he and his team jumped onto the thrashing Skrill. "Tie those legs up!"
The mercenaries were much more skilled than Violet had anticipated and before she knew it, she was completely bound in nets and was subdued on the ground.
Just then, everyone on the ground began to feel icy chills with the wind and thick sheets of frost began to grow all around them. Hearing a high pitched whistling sound, the mercenary leader looked up to see two figures pass over them; one black and one glowing blue.
"Are those what I think they are?" the leader said to himself.
"STOP!" Hiccup cried out as Toothless and Draven landed.
Upon landing, Draven changed to a state that was between human and Typhon state. Red mist still oozed from his eyes, his morphed right arm was exposed and the surface veins under his skin glowed an intense blue.
As Hiccup jumped off of Toothless, both riders drew their weapons. Draven drawing his katana, Harvest, and Hiccup drawing her modified dragon sword, Inferno, in which she set the blade alight.
"Whoa!" the mercenaries all said in unison at the sight.
"Back again?" the mercenary leader said as he face the riders, thinking they were the ones who attacked him earlier. "Soil my britches... A Night Fury and a Pyro-Typhon. You don't often find many of them around. Looks like our luck's had a turn for the better, lads! Don't think Drago has either of those in his dragon army." the leader said to his men, seeing Toothless and Draven as prizes.
"Dragon army?" Draven questioned. Hiccup could clearly see that Draven was in no mood for this and wanted to prevent conflict.
"Look, we don't want any trouble." Hiccup pleaded, trying to bring the heated situation to a peaceful solution.
"Ha! You should've thought of that before you stole all of our dragons and blasted our fort to bits!" the leader yelled, gesturing to the ruins behind him stuck in the ice.
"What!? Clearly you don't know much about how PYRO-Typhons fight." Draven said, trying to convince the mercenaries that he and Hiccup were innocent.
"You think we did this?" Hiccup added.
Stepping away from Violet, the leader continued "Dragon trapping is hard enough work as it is, without do-gooder Dragon Riders sneaking in to rescue them."
"What do-gooder-" Hiccup wondered, but it was then that the words sparked something in her mind. As far as she knew, Berk was the only places in the Archipelago to have Dragon Riders, AND no one from Berk had ever traveled this far north before. This could only mean one thing. "There are other Dragon Riders?"
"You mean, other than your thieving friend from last night? You tell me." the leader added, still thinking Hiccup and Draven were lying. "You may have an ice-spitting dragon on your side, but we still have a quota to fill. How do you suppose we explain this mess to Drago Bludvist?"
"Drago what-vist?" Hiccup wondered, not sure if that name was suppose to mean something. "Does anything you say make sense?"
"He's expecting a new shipment of dragons for his army by tomorrow." one mercenary said.
"And Drago don't take well to excuses." another mercenary added.
"This is what he gave me last time I showed up empty-handed." the leader said as he pulled down the top of his shirts to reveal a large burn scar in a symbol. "He promised to be far less understanding in the future."
"Look, we don't know anything about a dragon thief, or an ice-spitting dragon..." Hiccup pleaded, trying to remedy the situation. It was then that the leader gave a slight nod to more mercenaries atop a platform behind the riders. Draven however noticed this. "Or your lunatic boss and his dragon army, okay? Just give us back our dragon and we'll go, strange, hostile person whom we've never met." Hiccup continued.
"Oh, where are my manners? Ha. I'm Eret. Son of Eret." the man said with a bow, pulling out a blade a moment later. "Finest dragon trapper alive. After all, it's not just anyone who can capture a Night Fury."
"Try it!" Toothless growled out.
"And this is Toothless. He says we're going. Now." Hiccup said, backing away with Toothless from the group.
"Heh. They all say that. Rush 'em, lads!" Eret ordered.
Toothless, Draven and Hiccup had anticipated this however and were ready. Toothless and Draven acted at the same time, with the Night Fury firing a plasma shot at an overhanging spike of ice, shattering it and bringing it down on Eret and his team.
Draven retaliated by releasing his whip-like tendril from his right arm and swiped it at the mercenary team Eret nodded to, hitting them with a plasma blast.
With the trappers split up, Hiccup rushed over to Violet with Inferno in hand and cut the nets. The Skrill was out of her restraints quick and made a beeline for her rider.
"Violet! C'mon!" Draven called out, mounting her as she reached him. "Go! Go!"
With the riders on their dragons, Draven covered their take off with his paralysing mist and took to the air.
Eret was able to avoid the mist and watched hopelessly as his potential prizes disappeared into the sky. "YOU WILL NEVER HOLD ON TO THOSE DRAGONS, YOU HEAR ME?! DRAGO IS COMING FOR THEM ALL!" Eret screamed to the riders as they escaped.
Looking to each other, the two riders knew that this was bigger than anything they'd dealt with before, whether it being Outcasts or Berserkers. "Let's get home. My dad would want to hear this." Hiccup said to Draven.
Draven couldn't agree more. Between discovering a new revelation about Wraiths and Wraith Alphas, and now this 'Drago' with his dragon army, he and Hiccup knew the future would no doubt hold more challenges.