Chapter XXXV: Dealing With Dragons

As days passed, Rapunzel began having the strangest dreams. Sometimes they were pleasant, where she found herself flying gracefully through mountain ranges and over meadows and seas. However, some dreams were quite terrifying, such dreams included Hiccup turning her into the ugliest beast she had ever seen, to other dragons attacking her, to this mysterious Alpha taking control over her and commanding her to kill her friends. These dreams were more intense than the pleasant ones, and as the days passed, she grew more and more afraid of the plan to go and defeat this Alpha dragon.

Her friends noticed, but whenever they asked her if something was wrong, she'd deny it, or say that she was stressed out about her homework. However, Hiccup and Elsa had their suspicions that her growing anxiety had to do with their plans in the near future.

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Over in the Gryffindor dorm, Merida was having dreams of Jafar riding on the head of a six-eyed monster the size of a mountain. It had the power to release a terrible roar and literally inhale other dragons. When she brought this up to Hiccup he told her that he never heard of such a dragon, in fact the whole idea of Alpha dragons was pretty new to him, but he didn't tell her that it is something that she should or shouldn't worry about, and that unnerved her. It also didn't help that the beast kept haunting her in her dreams. Was there any meaning to these dreams?

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Toothless returned a week and a half later with three great dragons: a steel-grey Timberjack, a Monstrous Nightmare, and a Ukrainian Ironbelly. Jack was greatly impressed with the massive Timberjack and immediately bonded with it and named it Dagger after finding out about the razor-sharp wings. Merida took a shine to the rainbow-colored Monstrous Nightmare and named it Braveheart. The Ukrainian Ironbelly was left for Elsa, and she went with Valhalla for a name. Hiccup told Elsa that it was a fine name for the impressive beast, and was surprised to find that she picked a name based off of his culture.

Elsa then created three saddles of ice, which Hiccup transfigured into leather, but they didn't put them on right away, they needed to bond with their dragons first. Jack started by scratching Dagger's back, and to his pleasant surprise, Dagger started mimicking a cat's purr with friendly growls and started wiggling about on the ground in happiness.

"He says he loves that." Hiccup told Jack.

"Yeah, I can tell." He replied. When Jack stopped scratching, Dagger lifted his head and nuzzled Jack with a sweet purr.

"He also says that he just met you and he already loves you." Hiccup stated.

"Aww, he's sweet!" Rapunzel said.

"I guess so." Jack replied.

Elsa and Merida won the hearts of their dragons by giving them fish and giving them scratches. Braveheart took a little bit longer to develop any sort of affections towards Merida than Valhalla did for Elsa. It turned out that the Ukrainian Ironbelly was rather impressed with her ice powers.

Rapunzel was impressed with all dragons, but there was the matter that she didn't have a dragon for herself. She had been eagerly awaiting and dreading this day's arrival. This was the day she got to try out her dragon form, and as Hiccup raised the Dragonstone, Rapunzel turned to Elsa and asked: "Will this hurt?"

"Honestly, I felt only minor sensations." Elsa replied. With that, Rapunzel turned to Hiccup and told him: "Alright, I'm ready."

Hiccup tapped the Dragonstone and it sent a bolt of magic over to Rapunzel, she yelped when the magic struck her, but that was the only hint of discomfort she gave them during her metamorphosis, and her resulting dragon was something rather unusual, but elegant.

"Well now that is impressive." Toothless stated, and Hiccup translated with a voice of agreement. Rapunzel's dragon appeared as if a Deadly Nadder crossbred with a Skrill. Her body, including the tail and legs were that of the Deadly Nadder, but her wings came from the Skrill, she also had a few Skrill spikes running down her spine, and her head was an equal mixture of the two. Her head had the taper of the Skrill, but it was the size of a Deadly Nadder's, her eyes were set back further like a Deadly Nadder, however her eyes held the intelligence of the Skrill and maintained their green color, and unlike the Deadly Nadder, her teeth didn't protrude from her lower jaw; In fact her teeth were shaped like that of a Skrill and did not protrude through her mouth, and the horn between her nostrils was a size between both dragons. Her frill of spikes were the same golden color as her hair and were built like a Deadly Nadder's, and her overall coloration was an elegant shade of lilac with hints of pink, light green, and yellow. As unusual as her dragon was, she was quite pretty.

"Wow, what dragon is that, Hiccup?" Jack asked.

"I think she's a mixed breed of a Skrill and a Deadly Nadder." He replied as he circled around Rapunzel. Toothless approached Rapunzel and looked her over before stating: "Rapunzel, if you have the tail of a Deadly Nadder and the power of a Skrill, you might actually be one of the most powerful dragons around the world. You're definitely a mix breed of the two, that is for certain, and with that golden frill, you ought to be the envy of the Deadly Nadders, they are rather vain. I wonder if you can take in lightning like a Skrill."

Rapunzel tested her wings and tail by moving them, and she took a few steps. Her friends praised her on her beauty, and so did the other dragons. So she knew that she had no fear of becoming a hideous creature, in fact, when she checked out her reflection in the lake, she was more than inclined to agree with her friends, and in her excitement she jumped into the air and stroked her wings. The stroke generated lift, bringing Rapunzel into the air. She was so excited that she kept it up and quickly figured out the basic mechanics of flying. Hiccup quickly morphed into a Night Fury and joined her in the air with Toothless at his side, and Merida, Jack, and Elsa climbed onto the backs of their dragons and joined them.

Hiccup was about to give Rapunzel a flying lesson, but she hovered around Braveheart and Merida as the mechanics of Braveheart's flight was the closest to Rapunzel's. Valhalla also would've been a fair teacher, but Braveheart happened to be closer, and she was happy to be Rapunzel's teacher. She flew fast enough to stay ahead of Rapunzel, but slow enough to allow Rapunzel to study how she moved through the air.

Toothless pulled up beside her and told her: "Try raising the spines on your tail, Rapunzel, Deadly Nadders can throw projectiles from their tail for defense instead of using their fire."

Rapunzel focused on the muscles on her tail, and to her luck, she figured out how to raise and smooth the spines on her tail. She also felt these pores spilling a fluid on the spines. Rapunzel asked Toothless about the fluids and he replied: "The spines can be coated with a poison. The healthier the dragon is, the more control they have in coating their spines, and the more potent the poison can be. With enough practice, you can figure out how to keep from secreting the poison onto your spines."

As Rapunzel was growing more confident in her flying, Toothless and Hiccup ordered the other dragons to fly faster to test Rapunzel further, and to test themselves. As Rapunzel's speed increased, so did the other dragons, and they flew as fast as they could while maintaining control over their flying.

Rapunzel proved to be a strong, powerful, confident, and agile flyer, while her friends proved to be very competent riders, and when they landed, Rapunzel didn't want to return to her human form, and Merida, Jack, and Elsa didn't want to part with their dragons just yet. Hiccup, now human again, thought that this was a bit strange, but figured that staying with the dragons would give them more opportunities to do some more bonding. Plus Dagger relished it when Jack gave him a good back scratching.

As the sun was setting, Rapunzel figured out how to light a campfire, and Merida took the Dragonstone off of Hiccup and asked the dragons: "Lately I've been dreaming about this mountainous dragon with six eyes built for bashing and crushing. I've asked Hiccup about this beast and he's never heard of such a monster. Is this creature real or just a work of my imagination?"

"I'm afraid that this creature is very real. It is known as the Red Death, an Alpha species of dragon, and it is the largest known dragon capable of flight, although it is not very graceful, and despite the six eyes, they don't see very well; however, they are very tough to conquer, as they are sturdy enough to bash through rocks with ease; but with our talents as sorcerers and dragons combined, I believe that we can defeat a dragon like that." Toothless replied.

"Provided if the Alpha dragon we're fighting is in fact a Red Death." Dagger replied. Hiccup leapt up to his feet in sudden realization that he could understand the dragons as a human without the Dragonstone! The dragons weren't surprised; to them it made sense for the animagus to understand dragons when he himself had a Night Fury within him. Hiccup's friend's shared his surprise slightly. Nevertheless, the excitement was short-lived; the group had other things on their minds.

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In the days to come, and after Merida returned from the celebration of her sibling's conception in DunBroch during spring break, the group had dedicated their spare time to their dragons. Hiccup practiced riding Toothless to the point where they could almost read each other's mind or share the same embodiment. Elsa trained Valhalla to breathe fire on command and practiced aerial rescues in case one of her friends fell out of their saddles. Merida trained Braveheart to ignite only parts of her body so she could light arrows on fire and then shoot them. She practiced shooting targets her friends carried, and with some assistance with her telekinetic powers, the arrows almost always hit their mark. Elsa also did target practice on Valhalla's back, but she was throwing large icicles, which on occasion shattered the wooden targets her friends' dragons were carrying, luckily no one ever got hurt. Jack focused more on elaborate evasive maneuvers with Dagger and aerial rescues, which involved Hiccup leaping off of Toothless and Jack maneuvering Dagger underneath him for the catch. This worked most of the time but there were two occasions where Hiccup had to switch forms in order to save himself. After that the dragons were also trained to dive after their own riders in a rescue attempt.

As a dragon, Rapunzel learned how to throw her spines, control how much poison she put on them, evasive maneuvers, breathing fire, and during a mighty thunderstorm over the spring break, she found out that like a purebred Skrill, she could take in the lightning.

"Man, I feel so juiced!" Rapunzel exclaimed when she had charged up with so much lightning. She had to practice discharging it, but luckily, she had another thunderstorm to replenish the lightning she lost.

After seeing Rapunzel become such a powerful dragon, Hiccup admitted that he was a little jealous of her, but he told himself that he was a Night Fury, one of the rarest and most powerful of dragons. He was also a better flier than Rapunzel. She couldn't handle diving like he could, and it so happened that Night Furies were better swimmers than Rapunzel's mixed breed. They found that out after Rapunzel had a little diving mishap over the Black Lake. So Hiccup kept reminding himself that he should appreciate that Rapunzel had the makings of a good dragon. She will not be as great of a dragon as Hiccup, but she was still great at being the dragon she was; and after one day of intense training, Toothless, Valhalla, Dagger, and Braveheart came to a decision.

"You are ready to challenge an Alpha dragon." Valhalla stated.

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