Astrid Struck

Chapter 8
Monstrous Nightmare

I looked down at the center of the street where a beautiful face surrounded by burning buildings and franticly scarring people looked up at me lovingly. Tear nearly burst forth from my eyes instantly as I realized that she was still alive, and that realization made me feel as though the entire world had been returned to me. Maybe it wasn't in the same shape as what I'd like for it to be, but it was still seemed ok.

She nodded to me with a smile upon her face and a tear in her eyes, but she pointed up beyond me desperately. I nodded to her without looking up in acknowledgement, and she waved me one to fight it. Apparently she didn't have anything against my being with Toothless.

Above me the giant orange apparition that shone through the nighttime's obscurity flashed in and out from the clouds. I knew that what me and Toothless were about to embark in one of the most dangerous things that we'd ever done once again. No more would I allow the dragons to be slaved around by their queens, and no longer would my people have to defend Burk from their attacks. Never again would I allow blood to stain the pathways of Burk, and no longer could I allow death to prevail in this continuous cycle of survival.

Toothless seemed to read my thoughts and immediately launched himself towards the Monstrous Nightmare with teeth showing, and claws extended. Taking one last look down at Astrid and Burk for inspiration I clinched my hands around Toothless in preparation for the battle. I moved the flange into a climbing position and awaited Toothless to indicate which direction we should take next.

Some odd kind of dragon whooshed by in front of us and Toothless unleashed a large column of nightfury energy that exploded all of the internal organs into a shower for the two of us. Red liquid blurred my vision and my whole body was suddenly dampened by this dragons remains. Never having experienced such gore on a personal level my stomach purged everything that was left within my bows through my stomach violently.

There was no time to revel in the victory though as the Monstrous Nightmare suddenly took notice of our progress and faced towards us. It glared at us out of the corner of its eye casually as though we were no threat to it, or that it didn't exactly know what we were doing. Toothless didn't know what it was thinking exactly, but he did know what to do to it.

Flapped his wings violently towards the beast and I felt something begin to be summoned from deep within his stomach as it gurgled about beneath me. I guessed that it was Nightfury, but I didn't recall this happening before the first use of it, however this was the second shot, and would be harder to summon fourth. I was proved to be correct as he launched it directly into the massive dragon's side.

Here the hide was bent in and turned into a bright blue color before the entirety of the shot was absorbed. I prayed that the beast would fall from the sky then, but my prayers would not be answered in the best of manners. Later I'd realize how good of a thing it was that this wasn't the case.

My dragon turned his wings into a right rolling angle and I copied this sending us into a perfect roll that puled upon the loose skin on my face throwing it to the outer side of my face. My guts dropped towards Toothless's back as he turned on his side for the roll and my butt began to feel pain from the sudden force. Fortunately, it was over quickly and we were heading behind the beast.

It roared its disapproval of the attack and whirled around to face us head on once again; this time we found ourselves in the center of its eye sight. Toothless faulted for a moment as a claw whooshed across his face causing him to be thrown to the side and pouring blood from his face.

I gasped as I feared for his life, and then realized that I would go down with him doubling my fear, but I didn't have time to ponder it as Toothless made a quick maneuver to avoid its reach. This younger version of the former dragon we'd fought had a lot more maneuverability I noticed. She wasn't as fat anyhow.

I tapped my companion on the head and pointed out to our enemy's side pointing out a point that it appeared he wouldn't be able to defend. Toothless moved his head up then down, but proceeded to fly directly towards the thing's face. I watched as in a slow motion two claws raced towards our location with sharp claws faced towards us. Toothless to noticed, but did nothing and I nearly fainted upon the back of Toothless as they came towards us.

I could feel the dimensions of my body begin to tingle with fear as adrenaline attempted to spew out of my body entirely to avoid its own demise only to be denied by my skin. I knew that toothless knew what he was doing, though I wasn't sure why he was doing it.

The glossy sharpness of the dragons dewclaws neared my companion's sides and I knew that my body was about to take a great tumble to the Earth thousands of feet below. The last thing I thought about before I closed my eyes was how all of the other dragons had abandoned their owners much the same as what had happened on my own home front with our dragons.

Perhaps he was abandoning me much the same as I could have him in our encounter with the security guard. Maybe I should have listened to Astrid all along and given up on these dragons, they were nothing more than bad luck and death for our entire race.

I was sure my life wouldn't last long enough to regret any of it anyhow.


A/N: Well, only one chapter remaining and only I know how it's going to end. If you'd like to guess how it's going to end send me that in a review, and you may suddenly pick up a new reader. As you know my fan fiction career is winding to a close and me the novelist has more time than me the fan fiction writer, so I'm looking for material to read come the end of this month.

Thanks for reading, without you none of this is possible,
Cornys