Chapter XXXVI: The Red Death
Merida hired Elsa to make her a fireproof suit of armor of ice and Hiccup transfigured it into leather, and it also came complete with a hooded jerkin from Rapunzel with a cloth hood. Merida's friends didn't want her hair to be seen because of its intensity. Merida wanted it so Braveheart could ignite herself if she wanted to without fear of burning her rider. She also got enough arrows to maintain a full quiver for a while. So fireproof and armed to go, Merida was ready for fighting. Jack peeked in on her and had told her that she looked like the greatest warrior-sorcerer-princess to grace the land.
"Aw, thank ye, Jack. Ye don't look so bad either." Merida replied.
Elsa had fashioned him a leather jerkin and a grey hooded robe with a drawstring meant to protect and help conceal him. With his hair being white, it was also rather reflective, and even a dragon with poor vision would be able to follow the light reflecting off of his hair. With the full outfit on, he looked a bit like a hired assassin, but the cutest assassin that eyes have ever befallen! After all, he was a twelve year-old boy.
Before leaving the room, Merida suddenly got the mental image of a massive wall of fire, and in her head she heard this terrible roar of anguish and fear, along with what appeared to be the sound of tearing leather. Whatever it was, she was hoping that her friends weren't in the middle of that fire.
They went and met with their dragons and Ravenclaw friends who were all set to go. Rapunzel, a dragon already happily greeted them with a few musical trills. The trills that followed as her friends put the saddles on their dragons sounded happy and optimistic. Hiccup was the only one who could understand them, but he couldn't tell if Rapunzel was just talking to herself or not.
After saddling up, the friends took flight following Hiccup, as he had positioned himself as the group's navigator, and they were heading over to Dragon Island.
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They had to stop a couple times so they could eat and drink, especially the dragons, but there were no words to be exchanged. They were going into a dangerous battle and they needed to maintain their focus on that one thing, as failure would surely be deadly.
After stopping once they continued on their way thinking about how to draw out the Alpha dragon, well, if they were right in their assumptions, Jafar would be in this dragon's lair, and if Jafar felt threatened by their arrival, then surly he would send out the dragon to get them.
For attacks, Jack planned on using Dagger's speed and sharp wings to slice through the hide of the beast and to tear its wings if it ever got airborne. Rapunzel and Merida planned to take out its eyes with spines and arrows if they could. There was always a chance the beast might blink before either arrow or spine struck its eyes. So without sight of its own, it would have to rely on an outside pair of eyes, and that would be its rider, and if the beast proved to be difficult to blind, then Jack and Elsa would conjure up a snowstorm to help conceal themselves, and they would hopefully down the beast.
Hiccup's plan relied on some very key details. He needed to be in front of the maw of the dragon and after recalling what Toothless did to a Terrible Terror; he hoped to use Toothless to ignite the gas inside the beast before it could breathe fire. Dragons weren't that fireproof on the inside, and Hiccup hoped that would lead to the Alpha's downfall.
So far everything was set to go, but there was one drawback.
Somehow, the Hairy Hooligans had found the island before they had and were setting up for an epic battle with the nest, and to help find the place, they had chained up a Deadly Nadder on one of the boats.
With wide eyes, Hiccup maneuvered his small fleet onto the island but out of the Vikings' sight.
When they landed, Jack hopped off of Dagger and asked Hiccup: "What is going on here, why is your tribe on this island?"
"King Fergus was there when I figured out the location of this place. He must've sent word to my village about this place. My tribe has been looking for this nest for a very long time, and defeating it will finally put an end to the raids we've been suffering. Okay, we'll let them draw out the Alpha, and then we'll help them defeat that monster. We can also use them to pose as a distraction for the Alpha. In the meantime, we must work fast and get that thing in the air. I don't know what they'll think if they catch one of us riding dragons, and my dad will recognize your faces. Now, one of us should get on a boat, it appears that my dad used a Deadly Nadder to navigate here, and one of us should rescue it." Hiccup replied.
"I can do that, as the village nuisance, it was my duty to pick a few locks." Jack announced.
The sounds of catapults firing echoed over the island and the boulders collided with the mountain, opening a great hole into the side of the mountain. A moment later a huge flock of dragons took flight, fleeing the island without bothering with fighting the Vikings.
There was a moment of silence, until the sound of insane laughter echoed through the mountain, and it began to rumble.
"Oh Dad, you have no idea what you've gotten yourself into." Hiccup said to himself.
"Into the air everyone!" Merida exclaimed, and they followed her into the air as the volume of the laughter increased, and to the horror of Vikings, sorcerers, and dragons, it was a Red Death; but not just any Red Death, this was the mountainous monster Merida had seen in her dreams, but at this point, she might as well call them visions, and the resemblance was uncanny, and as predicted, there was a rider, shrouded in black robes and armor, but there was a telltale parrot and a golden staff shaped like a serpent to tell the identity of this rider. It was Jafar astride the Red Death!
As Vikings were retreating to their ships, the Red Death exhaled a great stream of fire, igniting them with one breath!
Jack maneuvered onto the ship, and with quick hands, he freed the blue and yellow Deadly Nadder, and took flight again on Dagger.
"Jack, start giving that beast some scars!" Elsa commanded. Dagger flew underneath the Red Death and used a sharp wing to slit open its belly, drawing blood, but to Jack and Dagger, it appeared as if a waterfall of blood was gushing from the Red Death.
"Alright Dagger, now we need to get that thing in the air. Let's start going for the rider." Jack spoke. He commanded the wind to blow him off of Dagger's back and he stole Jafar's staff right from his hand, and Jack commanded the wind to bring him back to Dagger.
"What, my staff! Gone! No!" Jafar shouted.
The Timberjack caught his rider and veered away from the Red Death to let the princesses have a go at it.
Elsa, Merida, and Rapunzel were teamed up with Valhalla leading the way. She breathed a stream of fire at the shrouded Jafar, and he had to run down the Red Death's back in order to dodge the attack. With Jafar weaponless and distracted, Merida and Rapunzel moved in to blind the beast, leaving the Vikings below to wonder why these dragons were fighting this colossal monster.
Rapunzel and Merida continued to fire at the Red Death's eyes with spines and arrows. Rapunzel took out one, Merida took another one next to it, and Elsa fired an ice projectile to take out another eye on the other side of its head. After that, Toothless flew in powering up his greatest plasma blast ever. Upon contact, the plasma knocked the Red Death on its side!
"Up, you fool, up! Iago, retrieve my staff!" Jafar ordered. Without his staff Jafar was powerless, but he still had his massive pet. The Red Death extended its wings, pieces of rock and piles of ashes fell from the old creases of its wings, and with heavy strokes it took to the air.
"Alright Dagger we're up again." Jack spoke. He steered Dagger to meet the wings of the Red Death and make tears within the massive wings. Hiccup and Toothless joined up with them to fire plasma through the wings, but Toothless needed to reserve some of his shots.
While flying, Rapunzel caught sight of Iago flapping madly after Jack and Dagger. She maneuvered over to him and snatched him up with her talons.
"NO!" Iago screamed as Rapunzel carried him off with a small roar of victory. As she flew, Iago begged to not be eaten.
Elsa and Valhalla flew up to Jack and Elsa said: "Jack, I'm feeling a little bored, warm, and flurry-ous."
"So am I!" He replied, and together they conjured up a blizzard, and in the meantime, the Vikings began scraping their ships in order to get home once the flames blew out.
"Faster, we're losing them in this blizzard!" Jafar ordered the Red Death.
Braveheart and Merida flew in and landed on the back of the Red Death to face Jafar. As Braveheart dug her claws into the Red Death's hide, she ignited her jacket of flames and roared at Jafar as Merida readied an arrow. Jafar cursed to himself, and suddenly vanished.
"What the… he's gone! The coward!" Merida exclaimed. She gently nudged Braveheart to get back into the air.
However, Jafar wasn't gone for long, he soon reappeared on Dagger's back, catching Jack off guard, and he snatched back his serpentine staff. He raised it to strike Jack with a nasty jinx, but he up and jumped out of his saddle, provoking Dagger to follow him in a steep dive! Jafar had nothing to grip on, and so he disappeared again.
Soon, Dagger caught Jack and leveled out, but they were unaware that they were close to the Red Death's head; and so the Red Death inhaled, pulling in Jack and Dagger.
"HELP!" Jack shouted as the suction drew them nearer to the Red Death's cavernous maw.
Hiccup and Toothless flew in and blasted the beast's head and Elsa threw a large snowball at it, thus breaking the Red Death's suction and freeing Jack and Dagger.
"That was a little close for comfort!" Jack exclaimed.
The friends and dragons flew in formation again and led the Red Death into a dive. Down they went struggling to stay in front of the head, they could all hear Iago screaming in terror from Rapunzel's talons. Then, it inhaled again, Hiccup steered Toothless around and the Night Fury fired a plasma blast in the great maw of the Red Death, and it caught on fire!
"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" Hiccup shouted, and the dragons scattered as the Red Death plummeted to the ground, it tried to catch itself with its wings, but the tears in them grew ever larger rendering the wings useless, and after letting out a final, terrible roar, the Red Death hit the ground with a great explosion that incinerated the rest of the dragon!
The Vikings below looked back at the island in shock, but they were just grateful that the massive creature was no longer a problem. No wonder the dragons raided them, that monster was big enough to eat other dragons!
The dragon riders and Rapunzel regrouped on the other side of the island, and all of them were relieved to find out that while they were covered in snow and ashes, they were fine.
Jack held up the serpentine staff, and Rapunzel held up her prisoner, Iago.
"Well it's obvious who the rider is, but at least we have the spoils of holding his minion." Jack stated.
"I thought you had his staff?" Elsa questioned.
"Yeah, about that, he suddenly appeared behind me on Dagger and snatched it back. I had to jump from my saddle to dodge a blow that he was prepared to give me. So we might as well see what the parrot has to say." Jack replied.
"Let me go, let me go! You have no idea who you're messing with!" Iago shouted.
"Hold on, pretty bird, ye see, we have the power over your fate. Ye better start talkin' if ye want to live." Merida told him while pointing an arrow at him. Iago let out a frightened squawk and squealed: "Alright, I'll talk, I'll talk!"
"What business does Jafar have with the Red Death?" Hiccup snarled.
"It's not Jafar who's your problem, it's his boss who has it in for you all!" Iago snapped.
"Alright, who is this 'boss' an' why does he have it in for us?" Merida asked.
"Don't ask me any more questions about this prophecy, this master didn't even give Jafar the full details about it. Only the Dark Master or the entity that chose you to have your powers can tell you about this prophecy. All I can tell you is that the master is plum mad at you for getting the Dragonstone before Pan and Jafar could last year, and now Jafar is going to have to beg for mercy when he tells the master that you guys have trained dragons and, not only that, but you've killed the Red Death." Iago added before they could ask him anything else.
"What should we do with him now?" Elsa asked.
"He's been cooperative, and I think that he could use a better companion than Jafar. Let me take him, I may just learn to love his feisty demeanor." Merida replied.
"You want to keep him?" Jack questioned.
"Hey, I'd be happy with that, she's a princess after all." Iago replied as Merida took him from Rapunzel's talons.
Hiccup looked to Rapunzel and said: "I wonder what your mother Gothel would have thought about seeing you out there."
"A word to the wise, kids, Gothel has been working for the Dark Master for centuries." Iago stated. The friends exchanged glances, and Rapunzel stepped back in shock as Iago went into detail about how Gothel had saved Mor'du from a frozen heart with a kiss. Needless to say, Rapunzel felt betrayed after hearing this and they were all disgusted when Iago had told them that there was a union between her and Mor'du, Merida was especially nauseated, the thought that anyone could love the demon bear was just plain wrong. However, when everything was said and done, they flew back to Hogwarts. This time, Hiccup flew by his own wings.
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So, this was the climax to the second year, starting next year, the story would have to undergo some serious changes. Perhaps some original chapters and more character developments are in order.
Now go on and tell me what you're expecting!