A/N: Got the fourth one done! Next one will be trickier to write so it might take some days for next update... DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own HTTYD or it's characters, but the Frostbite is all mine. Chapter 4: Ruthless Frostbite
Before that, I hope you enjoy this chapter. There won't be any fancy flashback anymore and the story is now going on full :D
Hiccup watched as Toothless wandered off his sight of view, disappearing somewhere between the icy stalactites.
I wonder what he is looking for, Hiccup shrugged. Probably he is just enjoying the view.
Hiccup hadn't noticed how nervous his dragon was. No, he just kept picking up the herbs. His backpack was getting full. It was quiet for a while and Hiccup was focused in his job, so he startled badly when he looked up and noticed that he was staring at a plate-sized, cyan colored eye with narrowed pupil.
The dragon to which the eye belonged shook its head when the boy suddenly jumped backwards. It growled threateningly.
The creature was the most terrifying and magnificent dragon that the teen had ever seen. It was rather large; at least twice the length of a Monstrous Nightmare, and three times taller than one. Its body build was quite like Deadly Nadder's. It had only two legs, which were apparently very strong, and had vicious-looking claws. Its tail was long, about five meters, and there was a row of razor-sharp spikes on the both sides of the tail, covering two thirds of it. The dragon's wings were probably rather small but it was hard to tell as they were folded. Its scales were like
glittering crystal and its coloring was mainly sky blue - white with some faint, cyan tiger stripes.
However, the thing that really made the dragon to look respectable was its head. It was long like Monstrous Nightmare's, but a lot more massive; it must had great jaw strength. And then there was a huge amount of icy needles in its mouth that were its teeth. Above the jaws were two, deep cyan-colored eyes, which looked down at Hiccup with cold stare. The dragon sniffed and bared its teeth, making a low snarl. It took a step towards the boy.
The distance between Hiccup and the large dragon was only few meters. It was far to near for Hiccup to feel comfortable, but he nevertheless forced himself to calm down.
"It's alright, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm sorry if I invaded your territory, but I had to get some of these plants." Hiccup gestured towards the Gloomweeds that were growing in front of him. He kept his both hands raised up, palms towards the large dragon, and slowly get on his feet.
"It's okay, it's okay", Hiccup repeated.
The icy-looking dragon tilted its head to have better look at Hiccup with its left eye. Its expression was rather surprised and confused. For some seconds the dragon just stared at him. Then it opened its well-armed jaws and breathed out a cloud of mist.
Huh, is it really that cold here?
Hiccup stretched his right hand towards the dragon. It was looking at him intensively, like it was waiting for something to happen. He took a step towards the dragon, and his hand went into the mist cloud that was hovering between the boy and the ice-blue creature. It was pretty bad mistake.
Hiccup screamed in the combination of surprise, horror, shock and pain, and immediately pulled his hand back. It was covered in ice. He couldn't move his fingers. The mist breathed out by the large beast had turned into ice at contact and frozen his hand. He took some steps backwards while looking his hand in disbelief. Then his metallic leg slipped on the ice and he fell on his back.
The dragon stepped forward and let out a mighty roar, which echoed from the walls everywhere.
Hiccup tried to get up immediately but hit his head on something. There was something black and large above him. That black, large, scaly, hissing something was nothing else than Toothless, standing over him protectively.
Hiccup examined his hand while lying on the cold cave floor, under Toothless. His hand wasn't frozen, but it was covered in centimeter-thick ice layer. And now, his hand was freezing and it didn't feel too good.
So the dragon's breath will freeze… I think I know what that thing is, it was only few days ago when Fishlegs mentioned something…, now if I'd just remember… oh yes:
Ruthless Frostbite: This dragon inhabits places with such a low temperature that other dragon species couldn't live there. Very rare, possibly extinct. Legends tell it hunts by encasing its victims in ice. Extremely dangerous, hide and pray it doesn't find you.
Why I have this habit of running into all these extreme rarities that want to kill me?
First time, he had managed to befriend the dragon in question, which was really extraordinary considering his luck. Second time, he lost his foot. He didn't want to think what could happen this time.
The Frostbite was surprised of the Night Fury's appearing and backed off few meters. Toothless snapped his teeth furiously and spreaded his wings in order to appear as scary as possible and make the other dragon flee.
Unfortunately, the Frostbite wasn't tricked so easily and soon it let out a ferocious roar and charged towards Toothless. Toothless couldn't take the risk of accidentally crushing his rider and thus was forced to leave the boy exposed and attack first. Using his wings as help he jumped over the ice-dragon, turned around in mid-air and shot a shocking blue blast of fire at its back.
It groaned in pain when the blast exploded against its scales with such a force that the dragon fell on its right side. Right in front of its nose was Hiccup, who was still lying on ground, trying to free his hand from its freezing glove. He narrowly avoided the Ruthless Frostbite's jaws by rolling to right. Before it had time for another try there was Toothless all over it, biting and slashing with his claws.
Hiccup backed off as shrieks and roars and other loud noises echoed from the cave's walls. The Ruthless Frostbite tried to shake Toothless off its back, but the Night Fury had solid hold from its neck – with his teeth – and wasn't going to let it go anytime soon. There was plenty of blood dripping from its neck. It dashed its tail around furiously and flapped its wings, but that was not enough to make Toothless loosen his grip.
"Toothless", Hiccup yelled. "Try to hold on, I'll grab my pack and then let's get out of here!"
Toothless couldn't answer with his mouth full of dragon neck, nor was he able to nod his head, so he simply blinked his eye and bit harder, causing more blood to burst out. The Frostbite's neck was too thick for Toothless to cause any severe damage, though.
The situation seemed to be partly under control, but Hiccup was still extremely worried. Not least because this was the largest he had seen since Red Death (not anywhere near its size, though) and in addition it could freeze its victims!
He turned his attention to his backpack that was lying on ground behind him. There was still plenty of space to be filled with Gloomweeds, but there was no time for that. Those that he had should do now. He crawled to the pack as walking on slippery surface with metallic leg was rather difficult. After reaching the pack he quickly grabbed his dagger from there and then secured the pack.
The job would have been easier if he'd been able to use both hands, but at the moment his right hand was pretty much useless, but he couldn't help it before Toothless has time to make a fire.
As soon as the pack was securely closed he swung it to his back. At the same time he heard a nasty thud somewhere behind him, followed by Toothless' shriek.
The white-cyan dragon had pounded against the wall back first. This had been rather painful experience for Toothless and he had to let the Frostbite go. Now the Night Fury had lost his only advantage in ground-based fight, there wouldn't be another opportunity to attack from behind, the large dragon would certainly take care of that.
The Frostbite whipped its spiky tail towards Toothless and he was too slow to move out of the way. Pain erupted in his left hind leg. The Frostbite made some barking noises, almost like it was laughing at him. Laugh was followed by cloud of ice-mist aimed towards him. This time he was faster. He jumped to his right and then beat his wings few times to get forward. He landed between the Ruthless Frostbite and Hiccup. This was the position he was supposed to be in, protecting his human.
Hiccup watched as Toothless avoided Frostbite's ice breath and then landed in front of him. He saw few deep, bleeding cuts on the Night Fury's left hind leg. The dragon was shaking slightly and breathing heavily. Some blood was dropping on the ground. Hiccup felt really angry all of sudden. He couldn't stand seeing his best friend getting in such a condition because of him.
"Toothless." He took few steps towards his dragon, but he was growling at the Ruthless Frostbite and didn't pay attention to anything else. The Frostbite, on other note, was closing on them at the same pace as Toothless was backing towards Hiccup.
"Toothless, listen", Hiccup said, touching the black scales above the wounds. Although the ice had melted from his hand, it was still numb. The Night Fury eyed him at the corner of his eye, groaning faintly. "You are injured, we should hurry and leave. Exit is some twenty meters behind us, let me hop on your back and then say goodbyes to that thing. It is too big to follow us there." Toothless snarled and turned away from the other dragon.
The plan was good as the Frostbite couldn't have caught them before they'd have disappeared in the tunnel. Only problem was the even larger Ruthless Frostbite that was completely blocking the tunnel from them. It was a bit different from the other icy dragon in coloring also aside from being slightly bigger; it didn't have stripes and it was overall more white than blue-ish. It probably was a female.
"No…" Hiccup whispered. He was so shocked that he almost forgot to breathe. This so isn't happening.
The fact was that they were trapped between two large, bloodthirsty dragons. Behind them the male Frostbite was staring at them hungrily. It had stopped from advancing towards them, in about the same distance that there was between Hiccup and Toothless and the female Frostbite. The female had an expression on its face that was telling them that they'd die soon.
Hiccup tried to get better hold of his dagger. His hands were sweating. He changed looks with Toothless. Even the dragon looked worried, which had to mean the situation was really dire. What chances did a skinny teenage Viking and injured Night Fury really had against two ice-breathing, shack-sized monsters after all?
"Odin help us", Hiccup muttered.
Now please review ppl, I need to know what you think of the story!