"Welcome to Dragon Training!" Gobber stated as he opened the gate to the training yard.
"No turning back." Astrid said out loud. The teens all walked in excitedly with their weapons. Snotlout had his mace, Fishlegs had his hammer, the twins carried their spears and Astrid held her axe.
"I hope I get some serious burns." Tuffnut said.
"I'm hoping for some mauling, like on my shoulder or lower back." Ruffnut added.
"Yeah," Astrid agreed. "It's only fun if you get a scar out of it."
"Yeah, no kidding, right?" The teenagers turned to unfortunately find Hazel straggling along behind them carrying the axe her father gave her. "Pain. Love it."
"Oh, great. Who let her in?" Tuffnut asked as he pointed his spear at the chief's daughter.
"Let's get started!" Gobber interrupted. "The recruit who does best will win the honor of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village."
"Hazel already killed a Night Fury, so does that disqualify her or..." Snotlout teased.
Hazel glared at her cousin. "I honestly don't know, Snotlout. That sounds more like a question your mom could answer." The twins snickered at Snotlout's expression, even Astrid and Fishlegs couldn't hide their grins. The other teenagers may not have seen Hazel as a friend, but they loved watching her insult her cousin. especially since Snotlout usually would insult all of them.
"Don't worry." Gobber said as he led Hazel to the other Vikings. "You're small and...um...yes, small. That's makes you less of a target. The dragons will see you as sick or insane and go-"
"Yeah, yeah. Don't remind me that I'm weaker than the rest. I can see it clearly, thank you." Hazel pushed past Gobber to stand next to Fishlegs.
Gobber stood in front of the trainees to continue his lesson. "Behind these doors are just a few of the many species you will learn to fight. The Deadly Nadder!"
"Speed eight, armor sixteen." Fishlegs muttered.
"The Hideous Zippleback."
"Plus eleven stealth, times two."
"The Monstrous Nightmare."
"Firepower fifteen."
"The terrible Terror."
"Attack eight, venom twelve."
"Can you stop that?!" Gobber yelled at the blond teenager. "And the Gronckle." He put his hand on the switch that opened the cage.
"Jaw strength eight." Fishlegs whispered to Hazel, who chuckled a bit.
"Whoa, whoa! Wait!" Snotlout shouted. "Aren't you gonna teach us first?"
"I believe in learning on the job." Gobber smirked before opening the cage, letting the Gronckle out. "Today is about survival." The blacksmith said as the teenagers scattered to avoid the dragon. "If you get blasted...you're dead!" The Gronckle then picked up some rocks with it's mouth and chomped them up. "Quick! What's the first thing you're going to need?" Gobber asked when he saw this.
"A doctor?" Hazel blurted out.
"Plus five speed?" Fishlegs asked.
"A shield." Astrid stated. Of course she was right.
"Shields. Go!" Gobber said as he pointed out the shields. You're most important piece of equipment is your shield! If you must make a choice between a sword or a shield, take the shield."
Astrid, Fishlegs and Snotlout grabbed their own shields. But the twins were fighting over one. Let go of my shield!" Tuffnut yelled.
"There's like a million shields!" Ruffnut complained.
"Take that one. It has a flower on it. Girls like flowers." Tuffnut stated.
Ruffnut was able to pull the shield out of her brother's grip and hit him on the head with it. "Oops. Now this one has blood on it."
While the twins were fighting, Hazel ran between them and snatched the shield they fought for. Only moments later did the Gronckle blasted them, knocking them down. "Tuffnut! Ruffnut! You're out!" Gobber said. "Those shields are good for another thing. Noise! Make lots of it to throw off a dragon's aim!" The four remaining teenagers banged their weapons against their shields. The Gronckle soon looked as though it were getting dizzy and confused. "All dragons have a limited number of shot. How many does a Gronckle have?"
"Five?" Snotlout guessed.
"No, six!" Fishlegs cried out.
"Correct, six! That's one for each of you." Gobber explained.
The Gronckle saw that Fishlegs had his back turned. Easy target. It blasted a fire ball and hit Fishlegs' shield out of his hand. "Fishlegs, out!" Gobber yelled. Fishlegs threw his arms up and ran out of harm's way.
"Hazel, get in there!" Gobber demanded. Hazel was frozen in fear. The Gronckle tried to take a shot at her, but missed. So far, three shots.
The Gronckle turned to find Astrid and Snotlout. "So anyway, I moved into my parents' basement. You should come by some time to work out. You look like you work out." Snotlout was thick enough to think he could flirt with Astrid at a time like this? Seriously? The Gronckle saw Snotlout distracted and took the shot. Got him!
"Snotlout! You're done!" Gobber cried out.
All that was left was Astrid and Hazel. "So, it's just you and me, huh? Just like old times?" Hazel asked Astrid.
"Nope, just you." Astrid said when she saw the Gronckle take another shot.
She moved out of the way just in time for Hazel to take the hit. It knocked her shield from her grip and was smashed into the wall. "One shot left!" Gobber informed. The dragon could've gone after either Hazel or Astrid. But unlike what Gobber said earlier, the dragon chose to chase..."Hazel!" Gobber yelled. Oh, how much he hated being wrong.
The Gronckle cornered Hazel against the wall until it was merely inches away from her. After taking a few sniffs, the Gronckle opened it's mouth wide to take the final shot. Hazel squeezed her eyes shut. Suddenly, Gobber snagged the dragon with his hook just in time for the final blast to hit the wall next to the young girl. "And that's six." Gobber panted. "Go back to bed, you overgrown sausage!" And with that, he threw the dragon back into it's cage. "You'll get another chance, don't you worry." He then turned to the exhausted teenagers. "Remember, a dragon will always," He then turned to Hazel who was sitting against the wall next to him and helped her stand up. "Always go for the kill."
"So why didn't you?" Hazel asked herself as she examined what was left of the bolas. She remembered the way the Night Fury flew off and decided to follow it. She felt insane, trying to find a dragon that she released, as if it would be that easy to find. She eventually came across a glade. It wa beautiful, almost like a sanctuary. It had a pond in it and she could just barely see fish swimming in it. But what she came to find wasn't there. "Well, this was stupid." She muttered.
Hazel almost left until she saw black dragon scales on the ground. Picking one up, she put it her pocket for safe keeping. She knew from the way they looked that were the Night Fury's. It had been there. Before she could pick up another one, the dragon in question flew up in front of her with an ear shattering roar. Once over the initial shock, Hazel saw it trying to climb out of the glade. It was struggling. It fell down and had to spread it's wings to glide back down. The young girl took out her book and started drawing a picture of the dragon. She kept noticing how it couldn't escape he glade. Once she finished the picture, Hazel muttered, "Why don't you just fly away?" She got her answer when the Night Fury blasted the ground and spread it's wings and tail fin. The left tail fin was missing. Hazel corrected her drawing by rubbing off the part of the tail that was missing, leaving only a smudge of coal.
She watched the dragon make one more attempt, not even coming close to the top. The poor dragon landed with a crash next to the pond. A fish fin emerged from the water and got its attention. The Night Fury crept closer to the water's edge and tried to catch a fish, but it couldn't get one, he was too slow.
The young Viking sighed, feeling pity for the dragon. She never meant for this to happen. Suddenly, Hazel's charcoal fell from her hand and landed in the glade. The soft sound caught the Night Fury's attention and made him look up and find the same human that did this to him. Hazel could only stare into the green eyes as they seemed to glare back at her. But this thought vanished when the dragon leaned its head to the side, almost in a curious manner. This made Hazel wonder. Were dragons as evil as Vikings thought they were?
On the way back, Hazel kept thinking about her relationship with Astrid. It was hard for anyone to believe, but Hazel used to have a friend when she was a small child. Astrid. They would play together and have fun. But one day, Astrid came over to play, only to have Stoick tell her that Hazel didn't want to play with anyone. Later, from her own parents, Astrid found out that Val had been killed by a dragon. It explained why whenever anyone saw Hazel, they would see her crying her eyes out, why she didn't want to be with anyone, why she wanted to be alone. From then on, Astrid avoided Hazel. As they grew up, the girls just felt awkward around each other. So their friendship crumbled as the years went by.
Before she knew it, Hazel was at the doors of the great hall. She pushed them open and entered as the other trainees were discussing their lesson from earlier. "All right, where did Astrid go wrong in the ring today?" Gobber asked.
"I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble." Astrid admitted.
"Yeah, we noticed." Ruffnut commented. At this time, Hazel was now inside from the pouring rain and walking toward the table to the others. She rolled her eyes at what her cousin said.
"No, no. you were great. That was so...'Astrid'."
"She's right. You have to be tough on yourselves." Gobber said as he saw Hazel pick up a plate of food and walk over to sit at another table. "Where did Hazel go wrong?"
"Uh, she showed up." Ruffnut said.
"She didn't get eaten." Tuffnut added with a cruel grin.
"She's never where she should be." Astrid sighed gently as she glanced at the Viking in question.
"Thank you, Astrid." Gobber said. "You need to live and breathe this stuff." He then brought out the book. "The dragon manual. everything we know about every dragon we know of." That was when he finally heard the thunder outside. As if seeingHazel soaking wet from the rain wasn't enough of a clue. "No attacks tonight. Study up."
"Wait, you mean read?" Tuffnut asked.
"While we're still alive?" Ruffnut added.
"Why read words when you can just kill stuff the words tell you stuff about?" Snot lout asked.
"I don't know, because the words tell you what you need to kill so you know what to kill instead of accidentally killing the wrong thing, maybe?" Hazel said as she looked at her cousin. She was clearly reminding him of the time he almost killed Val's pet cat when he thought it was a fluffy baby dragon. Yeah, sharpest tool in the stall, Snotlout was. Val was mad that day. "But in your case, I think a nice picture book would be better suited." The other Vikings laughed. Even Gobber chuckled.
"Oh, I've read it, like, seven times." Fishlegs said, clearly referring to the dragon manual. "There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face. And there's this other one-"
"Yeah. That sounds great." Tuffnut interrupted. "There was a chance I was gonna read that..."
"But now..." Ruffnut trailed.
"You guys read, I'll go kill stuff that look like Hazel." Snotlout said.
All the Vikings got up to leave, except for Astridand Hazel. Astrid took her last bite of her meal before getting up and leaving the dragon manual on the table. Hazel knew she was trying to get away from her. She was used to it. She picked the book up and pt it down by her plate. As she ate, she read.
Dragon classifications.
Strike Class
Fear Class
Mystery Class
Thunderdrum. This reclusive dragon inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled, the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man at close range. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight.
Timberjack. This gigantic creature has razor sharp wings that can slice through full grown trees. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sigh.
Scauldron. Sprays scalding water at its victims. Extremely dangerous.
Changewing. Even newly hatched dragons can spray acid. Kill on sight.
Gronckle.
Zippleback.
The Skrill.
Bone Knapper.
Whispering Death.
Burns its victims.
Buries its victims.
Chokes its victims.
Turns its victims inside out.
Extremely dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
Kill on sight.
Kill on sight.
Kill on sight.
...Night Fury. Speed unknown. Size unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance: hide and pray it does not find you.
Hazel took out her book and opened it to the page she drew the picture of the Night Fury on. It made her think: Do we know anything about dragons?
