If you've ever attempted this feat...you have my sympathy! I'm sure Snotlout will have yours by the end!
Snotlout and the twins were at the diner, where the twins owed Snotlout a full lunch. They were searching through the menu.
"Hey Snot! You're Lord of the Flames, aren't you?" sung out Tuffnut.
"Accidentally set my clothes on fire ONCE..." sighed Snot, rolling his eyes.
"Nah! He means you're the Chilli King," corrected Ruffnut.
"Oh!...Yeah baby! The hotter the better!" boasted Snotlout, waving his fingers towards himself in a 'bring it on' gesture, as he swaggered closer to the twins.
"You up for a challenge?" dared Tuff, with Ruff sniggering behind him.
"Involving what?...Flames or chilli?" questioned Snot.
"Both, if we're lucky. This diner does a mean Chilli Wings...but you can also strike it lucky," teased Tuff.
"What do you mean?" asked Snot, his curiosity peaked.
"He means...if you can eat two dozen of their special chilli wings in under three minutes, you'll win a prize and end up on their Wall of Fame," said Ruff, indicating towards the photos of previous prize winners on the Diner's wall.
"Ha! That's easy! I can do that with one hand behind my back!" boasted Snotlout.
"Well, that would make you 'armless," jibed Ruff, "But it's not that easy. If you win, you get your photo on the wall, a t-shirt with "Hot Stuff" written on it, and $50 cash!"
"No probs! Bring it on!" smirked Snot.
"Not so fast, Snot man!" Tuff held up his hand. "How about we make this a little more interesting?" he wiggled his eyebrows at Snot.
"Like how?"
"Like maybe Ruff and I will put up another hundred dollars if you can do it," suggested Tuff with a calculating glance at his sister. She nodded back.
"Make it a hundred each, and you're on," said Snot grinning, sticking his hand out to shake Tuff's.
Ruff questioned his sister with a raised eyebrow. She nodded back eagerly, her eyes narrowed in glee.
"We are so on," she agreed, as Tuff extended his hand to meet Snot's.
"Okay! You asked for it!" said Tuff, as he went to order the chilli wings. Ruff and Snot sat down at the nearest table, and prepared a space for the chilli challenge. Other interested patrons kept glancing over towards them, and Snot nodded towards them, "Yeah, you better be looking! See how the Master gets it done!"
"Soo...does that make you Master of the Chilli? Or Master of the Flame? Or just the Master of Insanity?" queried Ruff, raising a smug eyebrow at her friend.
Snot thought about it, "How about Master of the Insanely Flamed Chilli?"
Ruff grinned, "That's truer than you know," she quipped.
"Huh?"
"Oh, looky here! Tuff's got your chilli wings!" said Ruff quickly as Tuff walked over with a tray containing chilli wings, napkins, a timer and several litres of milk.
Snotlout rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Let's get this show on the road!"
"Yeah...lets!" agreed Tuff with an evil grin, winking at his twin.
"Is there plenty of special sauce on the chicken?" asked Ruff cryptically.
"Ohh baby...we'll be seeing flames tonight!" promised Tuff with a nod.
Snotlout hadn't noticed the exchange, or he might have hesitated before committing himself to eating food that had passed through the hands of the madcap twins. As it was, his fate was sealed.
Ruff set up the timer, while Snot spaced out the other items around him.
"Ready?" she asked, her finger hoovering over the 'start' button.
"The Snotman is READY!" he yelled, for the benefit of the many curious onlookers.
"Okay...GO!" Ruff shouted, as Snot dug in to the first of the twenty-four super spicy chicken wings. He polished it off quickly in a well-practiced motion, and was half way through the second before the heat started to bite back.
"Whoof!" he breathed out quickly, before pushing forward into his third. He had mowed his way through that one and the next, when beads of sweat started to appear on his forehead. Ruff dabbed them away with a napkin.
"Come on Snottykins! Kick that chicken's butt!" she encouraged loudly.
"You can do it, bro!" enthused Tuffnut, as he leaned eagerly over the table, watching Snotlout closely.
Snot merely grunted as he took a quick swig of milk. He grimaced at the strange taste, but paid no attention to it as he eyed off the timer and continued his assault on the chilli wings.
He got the fifth and sixth wings down, but Ruff watched fascinated as his face turned bright red, and his eyes bulged a little. The heat was really building up in in his mouth, and Snot was finding it harder to keep pushing on. But he was determined to win easy money from the twins.
He got a seventh wing in, before he had to gulp down some more milk. It soothed his throat, and eased some of the burn, but he couldn't drink too much as it would eat into his time, so he gritted his teeth and chomped into his eighth wing, his eyes closing against the pain.
"Feel the burn!" yelled Tuff, slapping his hand on the table. The crowd around the table had grown, morbidly fascinated with Snot's course of self-destruction. "Go! Go! Go!" chanted Ruff, encouragingly. Some in the crowd echoed her, the din starting to rise in the small diner.
Snotlout hesitated for a moment before reaching for his ninth wing, and Ruff saw it. "Think of the money, Snotface!" she yelled in his ear as he chewed. He shook his head and leaned away from her as he forced the tenth wing past his swollen lips. He stopped to blow out the hot air that was burning the sensitive tissue inside his mouth, the heat causing the air to distort in front of Snotlout's face.
"We have flames!" yelled Tuff, punching his fists over his head triumphantly, as the crowd cheered around him.
"Ten down! Fourteen left to go! The Snotman is on a roll!" shouted Ruff as she stood up beside him excitedly. She grabbed a handful of napkins to mop around his face, as he was sweating quite profusely by now, his hair slicking to the sides of his face.
"Come on, baby! Show us what you got!" she cried, thumping him on the back, making him choke. He scowled at her, as she pulled her hand back. "Oops! Sorry about that! Got a little excited!" she giggled at him.
"One minute, fifteen seconds gone...and so have a dozen wings," called out Tuff. "Can he do it, folks? Can he hold out for another dozen hot ones?"
Snotlout's eyes were beginning to roll to the back of his head, as he took another swig of milk and breathed out some more 'flames'. His face was beetroot red now, and he looked as if he'd single-handedly bench-pressed his own truck. But he wasn't giving in, as he grimly went for a thirteenth wing, his fingers slick with the chilli sauce and burning hot.
The pain in his mouth was immense and Snotlout kept his eyes shut tight, as he forced himself to keep chewing. He felt as if he literally had a mouthful of flames, the heat was so intense. He was sure if he stuck a raw egg in there, it would come out cooked in seconds.
He cracked open one eyelid to check out the timer. One minute, twenty-five seconds down. That last wing had taken longer than expected. He hastily gulped down some more milk, and reached for a fourteenth.
"Slowing down, Lord of the Flames," warned Tuff. "Pick up the pace! Don't let a plate of miserable chicken wings beat you, man!" he called out, as the crowd grew louder.
"You're the man that set your clothes on fire!" Ruff yelled. "While you were still wearing them!...A dozen wings is nothing for a hero like you!" she enthused, dancing beside him, mopping his face haphazardly with more napkins.
Snotlout frowned in determination as he dropped the bones from the fifteenth and took hold of the sixteenth.
"Are his lips...bleeding?" asked Tuff in awe, as he paused to inspect the super-heated skin on Snot's face. Ruff leaned over Snot's shoulder and stuck her head upside down to see what Tuff was looking at. "He might be..." she wondered, not really sure if it was because of the red chilli sauce, or his red skin, or his swollen lips.
"Awesome, dude!" exclaimed Tuff, as he fist-bumped his sister. "That chilli made you bleed!"
"How cool is that?" laughed Ruff.
"How hot is that?" corrected Tuffnut, as Snotlout groaned and grabbed another mouthful of milk. He paused to take a few heavy breaths, the heat from his mouth burning the skin on his arms.
"Don't stop now!" cried out Tuff, staring at the timer. "Two minutes, ten seconds! Hurry, Snot! You can still do it!"
Snotlout eyed off the remaining eight wings, and glanced again at the timer. Two minutes, thirteen seconds. His eyeballs were starting to melt, and he could barely see through the tears streaming down his face. He was sure his head was about to explode, and he could feel every inch of his chilli lined oesophagus leading into the fiery pit of hell, that was currently his stomach.
Ruff leaned down beside him and rubbed her fingers together, as she sang in a lower voice, "Money, money, money, money!"
"Two minutes, fifteen seconds!" yelled Tuff, as shouts of encouragement came from complete strangers.
Snot squeezed his eyes shut tight, and grasped onto the seventeenth chilli wing. He hesitated a second, then doggedly shoved it between his teeth, stripping the flesh from the bones with a growl.
"Yeah!" whooped Ruff. "He's not out yet!"
"My man, Snot! He won't let us down!" hollered Tuff, leaping and punching the air excitedly on the other side of the table. He grabbed a young woman off her chair behind him, and danced with her to the chanting of the congregated throng, his dreadlocks waving wildly behind him.
Snotlout wasn't really sure where his lips and tongue were anymore. He just couldn't define where they started or ended, as the pain was so overwhelming.
"Go Snotty! Go Snotty! Go Snotty!" chorused Ruff, mopping his face without looking at him. She accidentally swatted him across his tightly clenched eyelids a few times, but he didn't really care. They were pits of liquid anyway.
"Two minutes, thirty-five seconds!" called Tuff, picking up the timer to check it.
Snotlout hurriedly picked up an eighteenth wing while a small part of his brain distanced itself from him, looking at him from above to ask a very serious question, "Why?"
He ignored it, as he shovelled the chicken into his mouth, chewing quickly, as tears streamed down his face.
"Are...you crying, man?" quizzed Tuff in confusion.
"Nah! He's just putting the fire out," teased Ruff, as she eagerly watched Snot force feed himself more pain.
"I think he's gonna need the entire fire station to put that fire out!" said Tuff as he indicated to the steaming pile of...red...that was Snotlout.
Snot doggedly pursued the nineteenth wing around the almost empty plate, shoving it in over his swollen tongue. He chewed as fast as his aching jaw would allow.
"Two minutes, forty-two seconds!" crowed Tuff, showing the timer to the girl he had been dancing with before.
"Come on, Snot! Five more wings! Don't give up yet!" yelled Ruff, jumping up and down beside him as she whooped and hollered with the crowd around her as they all cheered him on.
"Two minutes, forty-eight seconds!" Tuff shouted as Snot went for his twentieth wing.
"Yeah, Snotty!" encouraged Ruff as she carelessly mopped the sweat from his brow once more, almost pulling his head backwards.
"Show that miserable chicken whose boss!" Tuff demanded, thumping his fist on the table.
"Two minutes, fifty-one seconds!" called out Ruff, as she snatched the timer out of Tuff's hand.
"Hey! Gimme that back! I'm the official time keeper here!" complained Tuff. He vainly tried to grab the timer as Ruff danced beside him, keeping it just out of his reach.
Snot tried to growl, but found he had no voice, so he shoved the twenty-first wing into his mouth instead.
"Let's do this together," suggested Ruff, fending off her brother. She held the timer out at arm's length so they could read it together.
"Seven seconds left!" they chorused as Snot vainly tried to polish off the wing he had, and push another in at the same time. His eyes bulged as he contemplated the two wings still left on the plate.
"Six!"
Snot chewed and ripped as fast as he could, but found two wings at the same time was a bit difficult.
"Five!"
Snotlout threw the half stripped bones on the plate and paused to push out a very hot breath. A member of the crowd who had gotten a little close, reeled back from the heat.
"Four!"
Snot picked up the twenty-third wing and eyed it off warily.
"Three!"
He screwed his eyes up tight, and took a deep breath before shoving the second last wing into his inflamed and raw mouth.
"Two!"
He chewed and chewed as fast as his numb lips would allow, not even sure what his lower face was doing anymore.
"One!"
Snot's eyes opened wide and he picked up the last wing, but just as he had it in front of his opened mouth...
"Zero! Finished!" yelled Ruff and Tuff together, high-fiving each other and the crowd around them.
"You almost made it man!" shouted Tuff as he thumped a sweaty Snotlout on the back, causing the last untouched chilli chicken wing to fly across the table onto the floor.
Snot didn't really care about the lost wing, as his attention shifted to the remaining jug of milk. He grabbed it with both hands and chugged it down as fast as was humanly possible without drowning himself, the rest of it dripping down his chin and on the table. He needed as much of the milky fatness his stomach could handle to coat the red raw tissues on the inside of his mouth and throat.
He paused to take a few ragged breaths half way through, only to be greeted with thumps of commiseration from total strangers as they congratulated him on his valiant effort.
"So close! Great try, man!"
"You have my respect, bro! That was awesome!"
"Never seen a guy blow flames before! Truly wicked!"
"We're coming back to watch you do it again!"
Snotlout rolled his eyes at that one. He secretly felt like he needed hospital attention. He was sure his throat had split. He gasped and let his forehead fall forward and hit the table, as the crowd continued to push up close around him.
An excited Tuff made his way through his new found friends, pausing to smirk and wink suggestively at the blushing girl he had danced with earlier, before slamming a t-shirt in front of the semi-comatose black haired truckie.
"Look at this, Snot dude!" he spoke excitedly. Snot lifted his head slightly and partially opened one bleary and watery eye.
"You didn't get the winner's prize...but you still won an awesome shirt for trying!"
Snot's head thumped back onto the table, as he gave a weak 'thumbs up'. Ruff picked up the shirt and shook it out, turning it around to see what was on it. On the front, it had a cartoon of a man's face with his mouth opened wide and flames pouring out, and the words 'On Fire!' written over the top. On the back of the shirt was a smirking chicken flapping its wings, and the words 'The Chicken Kicked my Butt!' underneath.
"Cool dude! You should totally wear this!" exclaimed Ruff, shoving it in Snot's face. He pushed her away as he sat back up, retrieving the half empty milk jug and literally pouring it down his own throat.
"Ewww!" yelled Ruff as she jumped back to avoid the milk spattering everywhere. "You can keep that to yourself, thanks!"
"What? Don't you know milk is good for your skin?" teased Tuff. "Cleopatra used to bathe in it!"
"And she probably smelt like week old yaks milk!" shot back Ruff, throwing the t-shirt at him.
"Well, you already smell like week old yaks milk, so what's the diff?" Tuff shrugged, as he effortlessly caught the shirt and stepped back a few paces from his glowering sister. He glanced sideways and noticed the girl from before. He suddenly grabbed her and pulled her in front of him, causing her to squeal. He held on tight to her arms and hunkered down behind her slightly, still holding onto the shirt.
"Protect me!" he begged as he laughed, keeping her locked in front of him.
"Stop using that poor girl for your own evil deeds and come out and fight me like a man!" demanded Ruff, her eyes narrowed as she took on a fighting stance and waved him towards her.
"NO!" shouted Tuff, before he stood up straight and pulled the girl beside him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders instead. "I'm a lover, not a fighter!" he told the girl before surprising her with a sloppy kiss to her blushing cheek. He let go of her and winked at her, "Call me!" he cocked his finger at her with both hands, then turned and fled out of the diner, using the mass of people still surrounding Snotlout to his advantage, to hamper Ruff's pursuit of him.
Snot looked up surprised as his friends abandoned him in his hour of need. "Hey!" he tried to call out, but all that escaped was a tiny squeak. Snot rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.
Someone offered him a glass of ice cold water, which Snot gladly accepted. He tipped his head back and drank it in one sitting. Standing up to leave, he stuck his hands up in the air in a victory wave as the crowd cheered him on. He was the Snotman after all! It had been a very tight finish, but he still felt like a winner...a winner with a very sore throat, but still a winner!
When he left the diner, walking with a swagger and heading for his truck, his swollen lips were stretched half way across his face. Some of the crowd had followed him out and he waved good bye to them as he looked for the twins. He soon found them, as he saw a grinning Tuff strolling towards him with a struggling Ruff hanging over his shoulder. He soon lost his smirk when Ruff managed to kick a foot straight into his family jewels, and Tuff's face screwed up tight in pain as he doubled over and dropped to his knees, Ruff bouncing back off him as he fell.
Ruff flipped her long braids back off her face, as she growled at her brother rolling on the ground, "That'll teach you to get cocky with me, you troll-faced shazbutt!"
She saw Snot and instantly her scowl changed into a winning grin, "Hey, Snottykins! How are ya, champ?"
He tried to talk, but ended up coughing instead. "Still can't talk yet, huh?" Ruff sniggered as she thumped him on his back. He shook his head.
"Never mind, Snotty. You ended up with a great t-shirt anyway. You should totally wear it." She went to pick up the shirt from the ground where it fallen beside her groaning brother. She gave him a little kick then nonchalantly strolled back to the other suffering male.
"You got chilli juice all over your clothes anyway," she pointed out the mess to him as he glanced down to see what she was looking at. The front of his shirt looked like an explosion of chilli sauce and curdled milk had hit him full force in his chest. What wasn't covered in hot goo, was sticking to him with sweat.
Ruff wrinkled her nose as she leaned in a little closer to sniff. "And you don't smell so pretty anymore, neither," she told him stepping back and waving a hand in front of her face with a not-so-subtle huff.
Snotlout frowned as he turned to sniff himself, and nearly gagged at the end result. He headed off to get cleaned up. When he came back all freshened up and wearing his new shirt, with his mouth starting to feel more normal, he was surprised to find the twins still waiting for him. He assumed they would have been gone by now. They were racing to the Edge after all.
He waved to them and jumped in his truck, starting it up ready to continue his trip. He drove out with the twins close behind. He was surprised but shrugged his shoulders without too much thought. His throat was still a bit rough, so he couldn't ask them about it.
Snotlout had been driving for about half an hour, and noticed the twins were still following behind him. Which was odd. But he didn't really have time to think about it, as he was feeling a little distracted by his rumbling gut. He ignored it, but the sensation kept coming back. Suddenly he felt a bubble rise up his throat and he burped, feeling his chilli-hot breath leave his mouth. He grimaced at the sensation. His stomach grumbled again, more violently this time and Snotlout groaned at the stabbing pain, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.
Suddenly, his eyes bulged out of their sockets, and he urgently pulled his truck over to the side of the road, not even caring that he was blocking part of the laneway. He leapt out of the cab, without stopping to turn the engine off first.
"SHH...IKES!" he yelled, as he leaped and ran to find a suitable bush beside the road.
The twins immediately noticed Snotlout's truck pulling over, and his burly figure racing towards the bushes. They could clearly see his belt buckle was undone, with his jeans dropping down his legs as he ran, his white naked backside on full display to them.
Ruff slowed down their truck, as they both laughed hard at the sight. "The moon's out early tonight!" cackled Tuff, as he pointed out Snot squatting behind a not-quite-big-enough bush.
Ruff pulled over slightly in front of Snot's truck, and Tuff leaned out the window, "Hey Snot! Did thE chicken bite back?" he yelled to a red-faced, grunting Snotlout.
"GIVE A MAN SOME PRIVACY!" Snot screamed.
"NO WAY! THIS IS TOO MUCH FUN!" hollered back Tuff, leaning further out of the window.
"OH! DO YOU WANT A PIECE OF THE ACTION? I'LL GIVE YOU A PIECE..." threatened Snotlout, before he stopped to groan as another wave of pain contracted through his gut.
"IS YOUR TAIL ON FIRE?" laughed Tuff, knowing full well what happens after hot stuff goes in...it has to come back out...with all the heat still intact.
"GIVE ME SOME PAPER!" demanded Snotlout, realising he was in trouble.
Tuff disappeared inside the cab and came back out a moment later, waving a roll of toilet paper at the distressed man in the bushes.
"DO YOU WANT SOME OF THIS?" teased Tuff, unrolling a few sheets and rubbing it up against his stubbled cheek. "IT'S SUPER SOFT...JUST PERFECT FOR SORE BUTTS!"
"JUST GIVE IT TO ME!" growled Snotlout loudly, stretching his hand out almost desperately.
Ruff giggled behind him as Tuff pretended to pout. "BUT WE'VE ONLY GOT ONE ROLL LEFT! HOW MUCH ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR IT? TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS?"
Snotlout's eyeballs nearly fell out of his head!
"TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR COTTON PICKIN' MINDS?"
Tuff laughed maniacally. "OH? FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS THEN? IT'S THE ONLY ROLL IN TOWN!" he teased, picking a few sheets off slowly and then letting them flutter down to the ground below. He opened the door, and stood up with one foot on the seat and the other on the doorframe to get higher.
"WHAATT? ARE YOU INSANE?" roared a desperate man, his backside on fire. There was no way he could just walk away from this. He needed that paper!
"THE PRICE IS ONLY GOING TO GO HIGHER SNOTTY!" teased Tuffnut, winding some of the loo paper around his arm, then up over his head.
Snotlout paused for a moment, then, "FINE! FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! NOW GIVE ME THE PAPER!" he begged desperately.
"OKI DOKI!"
Tuff jumped out of the cab with the paper in his hand, then climbed up the side of Snotlout's still rumbling truck, perching the roll of paper on top of the hood in plain sight of a speechless black haired man. He then agilely jumped down, and back into his own truck. He closed the door and leaned out the window laughing hysterically as Ruff got them back on the road.
Snot screamed a string of obscenities after them that made even Tuff blush.
"Woah dude! Serious anger issues!" he said to Ruff, jerking his thumb out the window to the squatting, angry young man.
"I hope he doesn't get a ticket for littering!" commented Ruff, as they both laughed.
A couple of hours later, the twins were sitting in the next dingy diner with Hiccup and Astrid, happily chatting with the pair, when in walks Snotlout who frowned furiously at the twins. He had a towel thrown over his shoulder, and his wash bag in his hand as he slowly and painfully, walked gingerly into the building, wincing as his butt cheeks chaffed together. The four friends stared silently at Snotlout as he walked past them to the counter to retrieve the shower room key.
The twins turned to look at each other, sniggering before bursting into laughter, falling up against each other till tears rolled down their cheeks, and they had to hold each other up to prevent themselves falling on the floor. Astrid and Hiccup were bewildered as they glanced at each other. Hiccup shrugged 'I don't know' to Astrid as they stared at the hopeless twins and the severely disgruntled Snotlout.
Hiccup started to ask, "What was that all about?" then hesitated. "Never mind...I'm pretty sure I don't want to know."
Astrid narrowed her eyes at the two, as she indicated to Snot with a jerk of her thumb. "I assume that has something to do with you two jokers."
Ruff and Tuff finally separated from each other and sat up, still chuckling.
"Yup! And two of our favourite friends," said Tuff nonchalantly as he casually pulled out two small bottles from his side pocket and plonked them on the table. "One to start..." he spun the first bottle around so the young couple could read the label, 'Super Hot Chilli Burn Sauce', and see the skull and crossbones on the front.
"...and one for the finish..."
Tuff spun the other bottle around as well to show the label. 'Fast acting Laxative'.
Ruff cackled evilly, "The man's gonna wish he was sitting on ice, so he can put the fire out!"
Just then Snot walked past on his way out the door to a cold shower. He shot daggers at the twins, and yelled, "AND DON'T THINK YOU'RE GETTING YOUR FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS EITHER!"
This caused the twins to howl in laughter and slap the table hard till they finally fell off their chairs and collapsed on the floor, banging their heads together on the way down.
"Owww!" said one from the floor, invisible behind the table.
"But that was so worth it!"