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DreamWorks Dragons: Defenders of Berk

A Banished Beast

Chapter 10

Hiccup and Stoick lead the group back to the village, Stoick constantly looking at his son as Hiccup seemed distant. His eyes never lifted up from Toothless' back, the dragon in particular doing most of the work while Hiccup controlled the stirrup when they needed to change altitude or direction, which wasn't done in a while. The gang flew relatively straight onward to home.

"Hiccup," Stoick spoke up, catching everyone's surprise as nothing has been said in a while.

Hiccup's head popped up a little too quickly, indicating that his mind had been elsewhere and that usually led to irrational decisions.

"Yeah?" he replied now looking at his dad rather than the saddle.

"Is something wrong?" Stoick knew the answer to his question, but he wanted to hear what his son had to say.

"I don't know." Hiccup's eyes moved back down at the saddle. Toothless glanced behind him at his rider, but otherwise continued his flying with the other dragons behind him.

Stoick looked hard at his son, about to ask another question when Gobber placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Perhaps we could continue the discussion when we are on the ground." Gobber stated. Stoick sighed, but otherwise let the conversation fall.

"So, what are we going to do about the Banshee?" Astrid asked, trying to quickly change the mood from awkward.

"We can't do anything at the moment." Stoick replied.

"He's right; that thing went through a metamorphosis, we have absolutely no idea what it looks like now." Gobber stated.

"That's if it actually changed." Snotlout commented. They all just looked at him.

"What?" He asked, clearly clueless as to why all attention was currently on him.

"That's what metamorphosis means, Snotlout; to change into something else." Astrid spat out.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" Snoltout defended himself.

"Hey, yeah; I didn't know that either." Tuffnut joined.

"Didn't you know what metamorphosis meant?" Ruffnut asked her brother.

"No, do you?" Tuff questioned.

"Yeah," Ruffnut replied, glancing away a bit while her brother looked at her. "No,"

Toothless' body became stiff, his eyes going wide as his pupils shrunk down to their slits. He bared his teeth and began to growl, looking below him and beside him. Hiccup undoubtedly noticed this and placed his hand on Toothless' head.

"What's wrong bud?" he asked with a concerned whisper. Toothless shook his hand off and kept looking around.

"Okay, it doesn't matter if you guys knew what it meant or not, you know now." Astrid barked.

A small dot in the sky began to creep up on the gang from behind.

"Hey, that's unfair; you say its okay for them but complain to me when I admitted the same thing?" Snotlout started to argue.

"Okay, number one: you're a jerk Snotlout. Number two: you purposely do things to get under other's skin, so kind of deserve it. And number three: you're a jerk!" Astrid argued back.

The small dot grew steadily with a fast pace, flapping its wings up and down as it darted towards them.

"I think you already said that." Fishlegs commented.

"Well he's a double jerk!" Astrid replied with equal amount of fury as she had with Snotlout; not directed towards Fishlegs, but the simple fact.

Gobber glanced away from the fighting teens and tapped Stoick's shoulder.

"Uh, are you going to do something Stoick?" he asked. But when his friend didn't reply he leaned out to take a peek at what was dividing his attention.

Stoick was staring over at Hiccup, but more importantly, he was focused on Toothless and how the dragon was acting strangely. Hiccup was still trying to calm him down before he looked around as well thinking that Toothless was sensing another creature.

"Stoick?" Gobber called to his friend.

The figure behind them was a lot closer now; if everyone were to be quiet they would have heard its wings flapping in the wind.

"Wait," Stoick hushed his friend, still looking at Toothless. Hiccup turned his attention to his father, his eyes showing confusion and fear.

Suddenly, Thornado began to act up, growling as he shifted a little in his flying pattern. The other dragons began to do the same, catching the attention of their arguing riders and quieting them.

"Hey, what's wrong with Hookfang?"

"Stormfly, what's wrong girl?"

"Meatlug?"

"Barf and Belch are going crazy again." Tuff stated.

"Yeah but that can be good sometimes." Ruff added with a mischievous smile.

"Oh yeah, heh heh heh."

Ah echoing scream emitted from behind them, each rider going stiff at the sound and immediately twisting around to look behind them. By the time they did though, it was too late. The Banshee was already at arm's reach of Stormfly's tail, zipping past her and her rider, past the other frightened dragons and riders and heading straight for Toothless.

Toothless dodged to the right just in time before the Banshee had the chance to make a kill blow to his neck; however, it did manage to strike a good hit on Hiccup. The whole thing happened in slow motion for him; the screech, the sudden movement from Toothless, and then the torn tissue that stretch across his left cheek from one of the Banshee's teeth.

Toothless roared at the thing as it continued flying forward before expertly looping up and around to come back again.

"Hiccup!" Stoick yelled, witnessing what had unfolded and seeing the new cut that was bleeding quite a bit on his left cheek.

Hiccup blinked a couple of times, his hand came up to his face feeling the scared skin. He was a bit shocked for everything happened so fast. The sound of the Banshee's scream freed him from the mental confusion and back to reality. He and Toothless dodge again as the Banshee came back, narrowly missing them once more. Toothless dived downward towards the trees while the rest of the riders and their dragons stayed up… along with the Banshee.

The beast stopped in the air, hovering just above the altitude the gang was. It hissed at them while the dragons roared and growled back.

"Fishelgs, I thought you said that thing was allergic to sunlight?!" Astrid shouted.

"It was! Metamorphosis, remember?!" Fishlegs answered her.

The Banshee in question was a different color than it previously was. Instead of being a dark brown, blackish color, it was leathery skin was now copper, a few almost transparent patches holding a darker contrast on its wings. The wings themselves were wider and longer, stretching the whole way down to its hips where a separate set of wings began. Similar to that of a Night Fury's, the Banshee had a small flap of skin coming out from its hip, curving down and making up what it didn't have before—a tail. Seeing the thing in the position it was now, it looked like an ancient ghoul with a boney frame and large, gray, over hanging teeth.

The Banshee breathed in deeply and then let out its horrifying screech, the dragons and Vikings holding theirs ears or hovering unsteadily. Fortunately for them, the screech was short lived and not as powerful as they remembered.

"Everyone, fire!" Stoick shouted the command. The dragons began firing at the Banshee, the beast itself dove downward into the trees.

"After it!" Astrid yelled and they all dove down to follow the thing.

Toothless and Hiccup weaved in and out of the tree trunks, flying as fast as they could while staying in the air and not crashing into the obstacles.

Toothless turned left only to stop immediately as a white substance fly right past his face and landed on a tree. A scream jeered both of their attentions to the left.

Little time was giving to act as the Banshee crashed purposely into Toothless, their claws digging into each other as the Banshee attempted to pry Hiccup off of the saddle. The heap crashed to the ground, spinning and twisting as they slid across the surface. Hiccup was flung off of Toothless as Toothless himself finally came to a stop. The Banshee flew up and landed in between Hiccup and Toothless. It turned around and roared at Toothless before shooting a ball of its web. It hit Toothless just as the Night Fury was getting up, sticking to the side of his body and growing over the rest of him until it touched the ground. Toothless roared as he struggled to get out of the trap, his tail wiping around frantically as he failed to break through the substance.

The Banshee turned back to Hiccup who was just now getting up, dizzy and unsteady on his feet. The sound of Toothless alerted him to the danger and he whipped around to see the events unfold.

"Toothless!" he shouted.

The Banshee raced towards him and he screamed, running the opposite direction. The dragon shot a web towards Hiccup, hitting him just as he turned around to peak behind him. Hiccup was flung against a tree, the substance growing over him like a live creepy vine. It attached itself to Hiccup's body and to the trunk of the tree, preventing any movement from the boy whatsoever.

Hiccup grunted as he tried to push his way out, but every attempt was futile. He couldn't move, he couldn't get away, he couldn't hide.

The Banshee ducked down low to the ground before jumped at him, catching hold of the tree with its large, sharp claws and curling its tail around the trunk as far as it would go. But before it got to do anything, a bolt of fire was shot at its back; the thing hollered in pain and climbed up the tree, curling around to roar angrily at the one responsible.

Astrid and Stormfly dove down towards them, Stoick, Gobber and Thornado right behind her as well as the other dragon riders.

"Get away from my son!" Stoick shouted angrily as they raced towards the Banshee.

The Beast flew up from the tree and screamed at them. Hookfang and Meatlug fired at it, Stormfly shot her spines, and Barf and Belch fired the final blow to make the Banshee fall down onto the ground. It wiggled there for a bit and then got up, dashing back up into the sky to let out its screech; this time full blast.

There was nothing holding it back as the scream reverberated through the air and pierced the eardrums of those around it.

The teens and the adults clasped their hands against the side of their head; eyes tightly shut from the pain that pulsated through their minds.

One by one, they fell unconscious; one by one, they succumbed to the darkness.

To be continued…

A.N.

Sorry it so long for me to write this. Today I had a few guest coming over and it was pretty busy from then on.

I'm a bit surprised with this chapter as I hadn't expected to be this long, but I LOVE it!

Anyway, thanks for all of the review guys! And sorry for any missed typos.