Hello again!

So my family and It arrived at our vacation destination. I would have posted sooner, but I did not have good internet connection in the car. We left the house at 6:30 am yesterday (Saturday), and arrived at the hotel at 5 pm this evening. That's thirty four and a half hours for those who do not want to do math.

So I have two chapters with me. This one is being posted today, and the next will be posted either Saturday or Monday, depending on how early we have to leave to go home next weekend.

If you wish to contact between now and then, you can still do so via PM or through a review.

Here's the chapter. More adventures with the Dragon Riding Rescuers of Berk!

Chapter 10: The Start of a rescue

The following morning found four teens and three dragons in the air on their way to Lava Flow Island. Everyone had kept to themselves for the first stretch. Snotlout, who was not a morning person, was dozing off in his saddle. Ruff was looking into the ocean for any sign of her Scauldron friends and her brother was making faces at his reflection. Fishlegs was still trying to get over the fact that he was in charge. He was excited, yet at the same time nervous. What if he failed? What if he couldn't find Hiccup? What would Astrid say? What would Stoick say?

He was brought back to reality from his distant thoughts as Tuffnut ran out of faces and decided it was a good time to start whining.

"Are we there yet? My butt hurts!"

"Tuffnut, we've flown much farther than this before." Fishlegs said, exasperated. "Your butt should be fine!"

"No it shouldn't!" Tuff retorted. "You try sitting in this saddle after having Ruff kick your rear-end over and over."

"To be fair, you did ask." Ruff explained.

"No I didn't! I asked for help getting my helmet off the top shelf," he protested. "You could have passed me a chair to stand on."

"Why would I do that when making you fly with my boot is much more fun?" she grinned broadly.

Tuffnut pondered this for a brief moment.

"I suppose you're right." He conceded. "But next time I get to kick you."

"You think Ruff hits hard?" Snotlout exclaimed. "My beautiful face still hurts from when Astrid punched me last night!"

"It doesn't look to beautiful now!" Tuff said as he pointed at Snotlout's bruised eye. "It's all purple and puffy!"

"Well…what do you know? You're just a..a..a"

"You're right!" Ruff said. "Tuff is an 'ah ah'!"

The twins cackle at Snotlout and his pathetic vocabulary. Though to be fair, theirs probably wasn't much better.

"Guys, knock it off." Fishlegs intervened. "This is a stealth mission. Keep quiet."

"Who says it's a stealth mission?" Snotlout challenged. "And who put you in charge?"

"Astrid, and…Astrid."

"Oh, right." With that reminder, Snotlout decided he had better keep quiet from then on.

"Now then," said Fishlegs, trying to sound important, "We must be quiet because we are about to fly over Outcast Island-"

"Ooh! Can we stop and say hi to Alvin by setting fire to his house?" Tuff interjected.

"Of course not!" Fishlegs was shocked by the audacity of Tuffnut's question. "Alvin would kill us as soon as he saw us! Besides, if we risk getting captured, we also risk the mission as well."

"Oh, so we can visit him?!"

"Didn't I just say no?"

"No, you said 'of course not'" Ruff pointed out. "There's a big difference."

Fishlegs sighed. "Whatever. Let me be clear on this then. We are not going to visit the outcasts. No, nix, niet, qo, nein, hakuna, ie, non! It's too dangerous."

"Great Thor, you sound just like Hiccup." Snotlout complained.

"Good, I'll take that as a compliment," countered Fishlegs. "That means I'm doing my job right!"

"If Astrid hadn't given you this job I would be in charge."

"No you wouldn't. The only reason Astrid gave me the job is because the rest of you are too incompetent. If I didn't get the job it would be because Hiccup was here. But he's not and Astrid is grounded!"

Fishlegs knew he was getting a little harsh and somewhat abusive and he felt a little ashamed, but he felt most strongly that he had put up with the others complaining and snide remarks long enough. It was time to get tough.

"So you're out-ranked by a girl! How pathetic!" Snotlout sneered.

"Yeah, well you're ranked under me!" Fishlegs shot back.

Ruff and Tuff watched the two of them banter back and forth with a mix of confusion and delight.

"This is pretty fun to watch." Ruff noted.

"I know!" her brother agreed. "It's like watching us fight, but cooler because we can actually see them!"

Ruff rolled her eyes and was about to reply, but before she could say anything a large boulder flew by her head.

"Whoa!" she cried.

Looking down, she saw about twelve burly Vikings standing by several loaded catapults. She watched as they began launching more boulders at the riders.

"This isn't good." She muttered. She turned towards the other dragon riders and sighed as she saw they were still arguing about their leadership skills (or lack thereof).

"Hey Tuff! We need to warn the others!"

"Okay. Leave it to me sis."

Tuffnut reached into his saddle bag and produced what appeared to a small rock.

"What's that?" His sister queried.

"A small rock." He replied confidently.

Tuffnut threw the rock at the squabbling riders. It hit Fishlegs square in the head.

"Ow! What was that for?". The stocky teen whined.

"As much as we love a good fight, now's not the time."

"And why's that, Tuff?" Snotlout asked.

Tuffnut pointed down.

"Because there's a bunch of angry guys trying to shoot us out of the sky." He stated matter-of-factly.

Fishlegs looked to where he was pointing.

"Outcasts! I warned you about this." He scolded. "Come on, let's get out of here!"

Fortunately they were high enough and were able to dodge the flying boulders and didn't get hit, but there were a few close calls. Gaining even more altitude, they passed over Outcast Island, and soon reached their destination of Lava Flow Island without many more difficulties.

When they got there, Fishlegs motioned to the others to land quietly on the western shore.

"Hiccup came here to get the Dragonwood blossoms," he explained. "We'll split up to cover more ground. Look for any clues. If you find anything, let out a dragon call."

He sent the twins and their dragon to the north. Snotlout and Hookfang headed south while he and Meatlug went east towards the center of the island and the peak of the volcanic mountain.

As they wandered in their respective directions, they all failed to notice a pair of hidden eyes watching them.

They are being watched, but by what?