Chapter Three:

"Hiccup! Astrid!" Fishlegs called from behind the camper. Hiccup and Astrid came rushing out at the sound of strain in Fishlegs' voice. Much to their surprise, they saw Fishlegs standing in front of several odd objects: a knife, a spare tire, a rubber duck and Hiccup's prototype for a saddle for Toothless. In his hands he held several papers. Perched on top of Fishlegs' head was a green Terrible Terror.

"What's all the hubbabaloo about?" Hiccup asked. Astrid tried to stifle a giggle at Hiccup's choice of wording. Her boyfriend shot her a glare and made a mental note to not add that particular word to his daily vocabulary. Apparently it was only cool when the young interns said it, not when the old dragontologist did.

"Meet Iggy." Hiccup and Astrid were less than impressed. "I've been training him. Terrible Terrors are really quite smart. I noticed that when they're in packs they can be quite mischievous and I figured that in order to be mischievous you…"

"Have to have at least half a brain," Astrid interrupted. "Yes, yes. Now why did you scream so frantically like the dragon was attacking you?"

Fishlegs blushed. "Well actually. Iggy wasn't attacking me but watch. He shuffled the papers in his hands and instructed Hiccup to pick one: it was a picture of the rubber duck. "Now show the picture to Iggy." Hiccup raised a suspicious eyebrow but shrugged and showed the picture to the Terrible Terror. "Iggy bring me that!" Fishlegs commanded in the most authoritative voice he could muster.

The Terrible Terror tilted its green head, licked its eyeball once and then flew off towards the objects. It picked up the rubber duck in its front paws and dropped it at Fishlegs' feet. "Aww what a good boy! Who's the smartest lil' dragon around? That's right, you are!" Fishlegs cooed at the Terrible Terror.

Astrid leaned over to Hiccup, "Y'know if Fishlegs wasn't creeping me out right now by ogling over the Terrible Terror I would be impressed by this trick."

"Can we pick another one?" Hiccup asked. As a scientist he always wanted to make sure he could replicate results. Couldn't have it be a fluke in his research findings. Fishlegs nodded, reshuffled the cards and let Hiccup choose. This time Hiccup chose the spare tire. "Iggy, bring me this!" Hiccup commanded.

Again the Terrible Terror tilted his head, licked his eyeball and flew off towards the objects. He landed on top of the spare tire and tried with all his might to lift it off the ground. After a few moments of trying the Terrible Terror flew back onto Fishlegs and hid in his brown hood. "It's okay, Iggy. That tire probably weighs more than you. You can still have a treat for picking the right object."

"Well, the Terrors can be trained like little Terriers," Astrid said. "Better put that in the book of dragons because without that they're about as useful as seagulls and just as irritating."

"You mean you don't like their singing to wake you up as the sun rises majestically over the horizon of the Isle of Berk?" Hiccup winked and Astrid forced a small smile.


Valka leaned over the edge of the railing of the boat as the island came into view. She pointed excitedly at the heavily forested terrain. "Look, Gobber! I haven't been this excited since we were researching in Antarctica!"

From the barrel where he sat, Gobber forced a small smile. "Le's hope I don' lose any limbs this time though."

"Got your anti-venom?" Valka smiled over her shoulder and Gobber scowled at her. "C'mon Gobber. It's gonna be just like old times. Minus the scripts and the camera crew."

"Valka, we aren't jest filming these creatures. We are sabotagin' BioSyn's attempts at capturing them," Gobber pointed out. "How similar dya think their traps will be to the poachers' traps in Zimbabwe?"

Valka planted her feet back on the ground, walked over to Gobber and sat next to him on a nearby barrel. "Well considering dragons haven't existed since the time of actual Vikings…"

"Hey now! You and I both 'ave pure Viking blood, y'know!"

Valka pursed her lips into a small smile. "Yes, what I meant was that Vikings and dragons haven't existed together in thousands of years. So I'm sure they've just made the traps bigger. There is a black market for poachers, y'know."

"Val, you have t' consider that they might not have made those traps bigger. They might jest go with rhino or elephant traps. Poachers rarely are humane in their efforts. An' this man, Dagur, they called him 'Dagur the Deranged'. We are gonna to have our work cut out fer us. I don' think this is going t' be like old times but minus the camera crew."

Valka sighed. "Well at least you'll get a good Snoggletog story out of it."

Gobber laughed. "I don't fink I've gotten Hiccup t' believe any of my stories in a long time, Val. He's too bright of a kid. Takes afta ya…the both o' ya."

Valka smiled. She picked up the briefing packets that Hammond had given them and idly flipped through them. As she paged through something caught her eye: on several of the pages for the dragons there was a stamp across their picture that labeled the dragon Trainable. She flipped through several more pages…the Hobblegrunt, Gronckle, Night Fury, all had those red stamps. The next dragon, however, the Changewing, did not. She skimmed over the information on the Changewing. At the bottom it read: Trainability status currently unknown. Awaiting further research from team.


As Hammond sat in the private cafeteria in the InGen office she checked her watch. The private cafeteria was slightly smaller than the main one, but it still fit two conference style tables. She sat at the head of the table closest to the entranceway with her back to the door. A lush dinner of chicken, assorted vegetables and rice lay on the table in front of her, though she had barely touched it.

Hammond checked her watch again and furrowed her brow. The twins were running late for dinner. And by late, they were over an hour late, and that was what struck her as odd. Usually the twins came barreling in about ten or fifteen minutes after dinner had started. The only other time they had been this late Ruff had coming running into the room covered in mud screaming about how Tuff was going to die and it wasn't her fault. Truth be told it was a little bit her fault, but that was neither here nor there.

Still, Hammond kept checking the door behind her hoping to see a glimpse of one of her grandkids. Both would be preferable, of course, but since they were this late for dinner she could only imagine what they had gotten themselves into this time. Slowly she rose from her seat and pressed the intercom button on the wall. The voice on the other line responded cordially, "Yes ma'am?"

"I wonder, Suzanne, have you seen my grandchildren lately? They are very late for dinner and their mother should be arriving soon to pick them up." Hammond released the button and awaited the response from the other line.

There was brief silence on the other line. The intercom button rang and Suzanne spoke again, "Uh, no ma'am and I just asked the others here at the front. No one has seen them anywhere on the premises since lunch."

Hammond pinched the bridge of her nose. One of these days I'm going to inject a tracker into those two. Then I can at least use satellites to find their whereabouts. Hammond sighed and pressed the intercom button again, "Is there any unusual movement in the air ducts?"

Another moment of silence. Then Suzanne replied solemnly, "No ma'am."

"Where could they have gone?" Hammond whispered to herself. She then pressed the button one final time. "I wonder, Suzanne, can you get Snotlout back in please?"

"Of course, ma'am. Though I must warn you: he left in quite a tizzy." At that particular description Hammond frowned and silently mouthed the word 'tizzy' to herself. "But I will send him straight away. To the conference room or the cafeteria?"

"Conference room, if you please."

"Yes ma'am." Hammond thanked her and made her way across the hall to the conference room.

Not five minutes later, Snotlout barreled through the door of the conference. "I told you, a whole new set of mistakes," Snotlout said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Now your little field expedition has turned into a rescue mission."

"How do you mean, Snotlout?" Though Hammond had a pretty good hunch what Snotlout was hinting at…and she was hoping that he was wrong.

"Duh! Isn't it obvious? Your two crazed, adventure-seeking grandkids are probably halfway to Site B by now. Because you couldn't build just ONE island full of fire breathing reptiles, you had to build two. And then, you've made more enemies than friends in the past decade, so now one of your major competitors is trying to hijack your entire island! And why are you grandkids here all the time anyway? Whole new set of mistakes! I told you, we should have actually sent out the poison after the first incident. But did you listen to lil' ol' Snotlout? No, of course not! Because he has 'alarmist behaviors'."

"Calm down, Snotlout. We'll figure this out," Hammond said, optimistically, to which Snotlout merely scoffed. "And not that it is any of your business but my daughter is going through a nasty divorce, so my grandkids have been staying with me."

A moment passed between them. Snotlout scanned the room and pointed to the air ducts. "Do you think they fit in those?" Hammond shrugged, it was a definite possibility. The twins were teenagers, but both were on the better side of scraggly. "I bet that they saw your fancy new guests today and decided to eavesdrop. I'd be willing to bet my pay that they're on the boat with Valka Haddock and Gobber Van Owen."

Hammond bit her lip. This was a disaster. And what was worse: Snotlout was right! She had made a whole new set of mistakes. And now she was endangering her grandkids. She didn't think the dragons would hurt them, but she couldn't be so sure about the BioSyn team. "You are right and I'm totally wrong. I've not learned from my mistakes and no I'm not repeating old ones, but I've still endangered people's lives for these islands. There I said it. Bet you never thought you'd hear those words come out of my mouth."

"No I didn't think I'd hear you say that, Joanna," Snotlout paused. "What do you want me to do?"

"Bring back my grandkids."

Snotlout nodded. "What are you going to tell their mother?"

Hammond shrugged. "I'll stall for you until you've returned them safely here. That's the one good thing about this messy divorce that my daughter is going through: she won't say no to letting the kids stay another night with their favorite Grandma."

"I'm going to need backup."

"Anything you want."

"Hiccup."

"Done."

[a/n] I am so sorry for the long wait. My personal and professional life got really busy. Anyway I hope you enjoy the chapter.