A/N: Thank you so much to all who reviewed! Thanks to you guys, Dead by Dawn will continue! Dani- get an account and post that story! Little hint: Google translate will be your best friend for this chapter! Y'know, unless you speak fluent Spanish. =D

Dead by Dawn

Chapter 14

The Answer

"Well, your fever's not even a fever anymore. It's dropped back down to normal temperature," said Camicazi, her hand on Hiccup's forehead. She grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse. "Your pulse is also back to normal."

Hiccup was sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed, resting his chin in his hand. "I told you I felt fine," he said.

"Well, I wouldn't say you're in the clear quite yet, but at least you're awake and your fever's dropped," said Camicazi, shaking her head in disbelief.

"What in the world is that?" mumbled Luna from the window. Hiccup slipped out of his bed and staggered over to the window, with Camicazi close behind him.

"What is it?" Hiccup asked. Luna looked down at Hiccup.

"I thought you were supposed to be dying," she said.

Hiccup shrugged. "So did I."

"Well, not all green spurs are poisonous," said Camicazi. She turned to Hiccup. "I'm starting to think you weren't actually poisoned from the start. You probably just got one of those really fast-moving infections that only last a few hours."

Hiccup shrugged again. "Or heat exhaustion. Both are entirely possible." He turned back to Luna. "What do you see?"

Luna squinted out the window. "Uh... I can't quite see it yet, but it- GAH!" Luna ducked her head just as something small and blue zoomed past her, right where her head had been. The little blue blur smacked into the wall at 500 miles an hour. It's head made a dent in the wall, splitting the wood in some places, and it slid to the floor.

"Brightclaw?" gasped Hiccup, straightening up, not even realizing he had started to fall. For the first time ever, the little dragon didn't immediately move, seeing as it had knocked itself out for a minute.

A few seconds later, the little heap of Terrible Terror unfolded itself and shook it's dented little head. Then his dizzy, bright yellow eyes focused on Hiccup, and the ambush on the bedroom's wall seemed to leave the dragon's muddled mind.

Brightclaw sluggishly crawled over to Hiccup, who bent down and carefully picked him up. The poor little dragon was shaking like a leaf. There was a small cut on his muzzle from his attack on the wall, but there was a large cut on his back from something else.

"Brightclaw, what happened?" gasped Hiccup.

"S-s-s-sh-sh-sh-sh," was all the little dragon could say. It was truly terrified.

Luna looked out the window and gasped. "Oh s***!" she muttered.

"What? What is-" Camicazi gasped as she looked out the window.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Hiccup walked over to the window and saw what was wrong: there was a flare heading straight up into the air. The flare was made of two separate fireballs that swirled around each other in some fiery dance. One was blue fire... the other fireball was green. "What does that mean?"

"It means we need to get out of here," said Camicazi.

At that moment, Brightclaw, who had been curled on Hiccup's shoulder, finally found the voice to scream. "SHADOW!" he screamed as he shot off Hiccup's shoulders and flew up to the rafters.

"I'm afraid you're not going anywhere," said a silky, feminine voice from behind them. Hiccup, Camicazi, and Luna all straightened up, and slowly, slowly, turned around.

Behind them they saw nothing. But that was when the fire suddenly went out, engulfing the room in darkness. However, a moment later, from somewhere in the shadows, a fireball was shot. It landed right in the fire pit, which erupted in fire. But not normal fire. It was black fire.

The black fire did nothing to illuminate the room; in fact, it just cast more shadows.

"Looking for me?" came the voice again. A ghostly shadow drifted from the darkness. As it came closer, Hiccup and Camicazi backed up into Luna, who was already backed as far into the wall as possible. Camicazi pulled out her sword, and Hiccup would have done the same had his sword not been all the way across the room, with a deadly shadow between them.

The shadow stopped about 5 feet away from them. Then something happened that would haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives: the shadow itself began to consolidate. It rose off the ground like some demonic oil, drawing in shadows around it, forming a strange hellish black mist.

Suddenly, a pair of bright, blood red eyes appeared in the fog. The rest of the dragon followed. Hiccup had only ever heard legends about this dragon.

"Shadow dragon," he whispered, all the color draining from his face, his voice weak from raw fear.

"Hello," whispered the dragon menacingly. She smiled evilly. "And goodbye." She lunged.

xxx

Earlier

"Well, the west side was a bust," said Snakebane.

"And that's why we're at the north side now," said Quiver, speaking slowly as if talking to a child.

"Would you two shut up?" moaned Toothless.

"Drift, do you see anything?" Stormfly called down.

"No, I- WAIT!"

All the other dragons practically came to a dead stop in midair. Snakebane actually ran right into Toothless. Toothless ignored Snakebane and drifted down closer to Drift. "What do you see?"

"I saw a cave! And I thought I saw something go into it!"

"Ooh, let's check it out!" exclaimed Snakebane. Snakebane had fully recovered from Brightclaw breaking his rib. In fact, the broken rib had already healed, which just goes to show that dragons are fast healers.

"Yeah, can we check it out?" asked Quiver.

Toothless looked to Stormfly, who shrugged. "I don't see why not. It couldn't hurt, and maybe whoever's down there can tell us where we can find a Moondew flower," said Stormfly.

"Alright," sighed Toothless. "Let's go."

The group descended into a clearing. "Hey, I recognize this place," said Toothless. "Hiccup and I crash landed here after we got struck by lightning!"

"You told me about that!" exclaimed Stormfly. "But... didn't you say that some Vine Dragon that lived in a cave up here attacked you?"

Toothless paled a bit and went straight into military mode. "Alright team, gas and sparkers at the ready. We'll go up to the entrance of the cave, and if whatever's in there tries to kill one of us, all the others open fire! Everyone understand?"

Snakebane sat bolt upright, looking up in a way that made him look like he was crossing his eyes. "Yes sir, Gummy!"

After everyone took turns whacking Snakebane, they slowly crept forward towards the vine covered cave. When they were about 10 feet away from the entrance, something in the cave moved. Slowly, a dark figure stood up and slowly shuffled towards the opening and out of the cave.

Once the dragon came into the moonlight, however, the whole group let out a sigh of relief and swallowed the gas in their throats. This dragon was old; so old, in fact, that almost every single one of it's scales were gray. There were still a few dark green scales, showing the color the dragon once was. The dragon had a catfish-like face and catfish-like whiskers, and bright yellow eyes. This dragon was actually called a Catfish dragon. It yawned, showing off all of it's missing teeth. Any teeth that still remained were dull and yellow. Ick.

The dragon's old, bleary eyes focused on the group. "¿Quién eres y qué quieres?"

Toothless, Stormfly, Quiver, and Drift just flat out stared. After a minute, Toothless broke the silence. "WHAT did he just say?"

To everyone's surprise, Snakebane said: "What are you guys talking about? He's speaking plain Spanish, duh!" Snakebane turned back to the Catfish dragon. "Hola, gusto en conocerte. Snakebane mi nombre, y estos son mis amigos. ¿Qué te llamas?"

"Mi nombre es Tomás, y no me importa quiénes son tus amigos!" snapped the dragon. "¿Qué estás haciendo aquí, en esta hora de la noche?"

Snakebane turned to the others. "His name's Tomas."

The other four dragons watched the conversation like a tennis match, so shocked that Snakebane could understand this dragon that they didn't even notice their jaws hanging open! A moth even fluttered around in Drift's mouth for a while, and he didn't even notice.

Snakebane shuffled awkwardly. "Bueno, mis amigos y yo estamos aquí tratando de ayudar a un ser humano enfermo en nuestro pueblo. Si no encontramos una cura para él antes del amanecer, entonces él va a morir! Estamos en busca de algo que se llama una flor Moondew. ¿Has oído hablar de ellos?"

Tomas paused for a second. Then he seemed to remember something. "En realidad, sí, he oído hablar de flores Moondew antes! Incluso he visto entonces cuando florecen!"

"He says he knows where the Moondew flowers are," Snakebane said to the group. "Así que, ¿dónde están?"

"Yo los he visto antes en una cueva en el lado oriental de esta isla muy! La cueva está justo por encima del agua, y tiene forma de luna creciente. Si no me equivoco, es incluso llamada Media Luna Gruta!"

"Um..." Snakebane turned to the others. "Any of you know where Crescent Grotto is?"

Time froze. The world stopped spinning for Toothless. He felt the entire weight of the world being lifted from his shoulders. They knew where the cure was! They could save Hiccup! Toothless felt like smacking himself with his tail repeatedly for not realizing it earlier.

"I know where that is," whispered Toothless.

"Mi amigo parece saber exactamente donde está! Muchas gracias por tu ayuda!" exclaimed Snakebane.

"¡Espera! Tengo una pregunta!" exclaimed Tomas.

"Sí, ¿qué es?"

"Quiero saber cómo el negro a escala dragón de ojos verdes que tiene la cicatriz en su pecho."

"Toothless," said Snakebane, "he wants to know how you got that scar on your chest."

"What scar? I don't have- THOR'S GOATS WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?" Toothless had a scar on his chest, right above his heart. It was in the same place Hiccup's scar appeared in.

Snakebane turned back to Tomas. "No tiene ni idea."

Tomas just shrugged. "Es mejor estar fuera de salvar lo humano enfermo. Si se está muriendo tan rápido como usted dice, entonces me temo que puede tener tan sólo unas horas a la izquierda."

"Muchas gracias por todo!" exclaimed Snakebane. All the others took to the air, but Tomas had something to tell Snakebane.

"Espero que usted y sus amigos van a tener éxito en salvar la vida del niño. Buena suerte, púrpura Uno!"

"¡Gracias!" called Snakebane as he jumped into the air and started to catch up with the others. He called me the Purple One! Why does everyone call me that?

"Una púrpura!"

"¿Sí?"

"¡Ten cuidado! Y cuidado con la Bestia!"

Snakebane was puzzled. "What does he mean by-"

"SNAKEBANE GET THE HELL UP HERE!" shouted Toothless.

Snakebane shot up into the sky and caught up with the others. "Toothless!"

"What? What is it?" asked Toothless as he glanced down at the scar on his chest that hadn't been there earlier.

Snakebane, panting from the effort of trying to catch up, gasped: "Tomas told me something that I think you'll find important!"

"Don't keep me waiting," growled Toothless.

"He said: beware the Beast..."

A/N: Like I said before: Google translate is your best friend. And does anyone else find it ironic that Snakebane, the dumbest one in the group, can speak Spanish? How random is that?

I tried to find out the name of the dragon that can turn people inside-out, but when I deciphered what it said above the picture in the Dragon Manual, here's what I got: ECHDREMLE DAGERWUS. Say it out loud, and you'll get it. If you don't get it, it'll be in the next a/n on the next chapter. R&R! That threat is still active! O= By the way, I fixed the typos in the previous chapter. =)