Ghost's Fury Chapter 24: Tricks, Traps, and Tribulations, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 24, everybody! Just watched the first HTTYD movie with the fam, and I am FEELING the dragon energy! \.o./

The fire in the mouth trick we've seen in the second HTTYD movie, and yeah, I figure that for certain dragons it's more a matter of finesse. Also operating on the perception that Furies gain more shots as they get older and have more of a capacity—so Hiro only gets one a day (for now).

The Gronkle returned in the morning, startling Obake awake with its buzzing wings. Couldn't quite see it, could hear where it landed—

"Okay," he muttered after several minutes of groping for his torch and flint. "So if we decide to stay in this cave we're going to need an alternate light source."

Small wuff, answering huff—

Flinch as the cave was lit by fire from a dragon's mouth. Glance over—

"Now that is a clever trick," he said, observing how the Gronkle's mouth was flaming and licking around its upper jaw but not firing. Glance at Hiro. "Now why can't you do that?"

Hiro huffed, irritated—stamped his paws on the ground as Obake lit the fire, grounding himself—

The whistle made Obake start and scramble away, startled the Gronkle into closing its mouth—Hiro's mouth was glowing, as was his nose—

Hiro made that sort of half-snort that came from an aborted or held-in sneeze, coughed—

A plasma blast screamed across the cavern, loud in its echoing chamber, and pulverized a stalagmite across the way.

Obake coughed, the sort you did when your heart did one of those missed beats, looked at Hiro coughing and snorting. "We'll…have to work on that."

Hiro chatted with the Gronkle a little before the Gronkle went to sleep—at least, it seemed like it.

Obake, meanwhile, retreated to the opening overlooking the ocean, Hiro padding after him shortly afterwards. Sit next to him, chuff.

"Wondering if Yama's given up on hunting for those missing dragons and moved on to hunting me," he explained. "If I don't see a boat drift by today, I'm going with the latter."

Hiro huffed and sagged—probably guessing this meant dried fish again.

"Tomorrow he'll have run out of patience and moved on to the next thing," Obake assured him. "We can go out then."

Hiro perked up, made a sort of wuff noise at him.

"Ah, you like that," Obake noted. "Well, in the meantime—that fire in the mouth trick. I'm thinking the two main factors is the difference in fire and experience. The second one can be fixed easily enough, but the first…Gronkles basically fire lava blasts, and from what I've seen, Night Furies fire something between fire and lightning. It's designed to shoot long-distance, which means holding it in would be more advanced." Look down from his musings to see Hiro gnawing under a foreleg. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Wuff," Hiro noised, looking back up.

Sigh. "I suppose explaining the science behind it would be beyond you." Make a face at Hiro making a face at him. "And you seem the sort of dragon to try a thing first and ask the questions later."

Hiro barked, stood, steadied himself again, making sure his paws were firmly planted, summoned another plasma bolt—

Or tried to—the end noise sounded more like he was trying to clear his throat of mucus, ended up coughing again and produced a small burst of smoke. Huffed in disappointment at that and sat down.

Obake had other concerns. "One shot? That's it?" Blink at Hiro's nod and shrug. "Now wait a minute—I counted a lot more than that in previous raids—there'd have to be a whole flock of Furies—"

Hiro shook his head, tipped it in thought—looked at Obake, tapped himself, held up a paw, shook his head. Held the paw higher up, patted his head before lifting, nodded.

"Ah. It's something you grow into." When Hiro nodded: "That makes more sense." And yet another thing he'd have to puzzle through on this ridiculous scheme of so you think you can raise a Night Fury. Ah, and things were going so well, too.

But it gave him an interesting thing to focus on to fill the rest of the day—teaching Hiro the concept of numbers. And then having to edit the usual means of counting on fingers when he noted that Hiro only had four claws per paw.

He eventually tired of that little game, though, laid down and looked out over the ocean with a huffing sigh.

"Agreed," Obake said, leaning back on his hands. "The sedentary lifestyle doesn't suit me."

Well, perhaps that wasn't right—an active lifestyle, one that required running and jumping and anything above a brisk jog didn't agree with him, never had. He had been told that the more he moved the better he would feel, which had some merit—it just didn't extend to working up a sweat. Not in his childhood, and definitely not after healing from a dragon attack.

Glance at Hiro at that—again, he had to question his own logic. This had been a split-second decision that had spiraled off into a scheme that was getting dangerously close to the point of no return. If this ever came to light….

No. No, stay away from that, just think through things and be clever. Which, speaking of, he'd probably have to think about means to keep people away from this cave….

The simplest response to that was to make it look like he was utilizing some other place, preferably somewhere on the opposite end of the island, at least on the other side of the mountain. Make it desperately tricky to get into, so everyone thought there was something especially worth noting, laugh as they struggled at the wrong location. No, when it came to brute strength, he sadly missed the day they were handing that out.

Trickery, on the other hand, chicanery and cleverness and cunning—now that he had in spades.

It almost made him think that he was overthinking this—he had been able to outthink a whole room of chiefs and marshals starting from a very young age, dealing with the average intelligence of the Yokai would be a cakewalk in comparison.

Except that wasn't challenging. Except that thinking less of his opponent would result in them surprising and overpowering him. It was better to go in with every angle covered than to just cover the most basic and scramble when the other worked around that.

Momakase was a prime example—if it hadn't been for Mole's surprisingly useful sleeping spot, he would have been all over the island trying to lose her tail. Evading her like that would leave her wondering what he was up to, and with her stuck here instead of out on a raid, she'd be bored and itching to stir up trouble.

That would end badly if she crossed paths with him. For him, regrettably, not her.

There would need to be a way to lead a trail around and away from this cave and any paths he'd need to take, that much was clear. Maybe pick out a few likely false bases, drum up some paths between them…he wondered how hard it would be to train Hiro to help set those up….

Glancing at the dragon in question showed that he hadn't moved at all, still staring morosely out across the ocean.

Heart thudded painfully—poke the dragon. "Hey!" he barked—oh don't tell him, it was dead—

Hiro started, looked up at him in confusion.

"Don't scare me like that," he scolded, sagging back against the wall. "I thought you had died." Look the dragon over, noted he was getting that gloomy look he had after the incident with the Terrors. "Now what's wrong?"

Hiro considered this—pawed over one of the pebbles they had been using for the counting exercise, patted it and then himself, looking at Obake. Rolled two more over, drew a circle around those pebbles before looking at Obake again. Roll five more into the circle, draw the circle again, look back up at Obake.

"Ah," he noised, sitting forward—Hiro had done this before, this little exercise in trying to explain things to Obake. "How strong is a dragon's familial unit, I wonder."

Hiro sighed, looked back out over the ocean.

"I would be sad to see you go," Obake told him. "There's nothing left for me here, not really."

Twitch at that declaration—no, there had never been anything for him here, not really. A village that had hated him, a tribe that tolerated him for his ability to destroy things…he had put so much energy into pleasing her, only for it to never pay off, instead poured his energy into the first person who offered him the freedom he so desired. But that freedom had been yet another trap, now hadn't it? And a greater world that would fear him no matter what he did…what other options were there?

"I'm not living feral with a bunch of dragons," he decided abruptly, prompting Hiro to look sharp at him, startled. "No offense, but all conversations thus far have been painfully one-sided. Not that I much care, I just need more from such engagements."

Hiro cocked his head in the way Obake was beginning to feel meant the Yokai is acting crazy again. Fair enough, he was talking to a dragon.

"Yes I'm aware," he huffed. "We'll think of something. Or at least, I will."

And hopefully tomorrow would be improved.

The Gronkle went out again that night, did come back with fresh fish before leaving again. So that was going on his list of things he didn't know how to take.

In the meantime, though: early the next morning, sneaking down to the village, where he was certain the Yokai were becoming too lax due to a long break, steal several buckets and a few lengths of rope before scurrying off.

"Good boy," he declared upon returning to Hiro's hiding place—gave him a fish to distract him as he reattached the leash to his belt. "You finally got stay. Now come on, we have other things to do."

Hiro seemed intrigued, bounding after him, sniffing about as Obake picked out a few clearings close to the village and cleaned them of fallen debris, arranging some rocks in a circle in the middle before bundling up some of the choicer sticks and carting them back to the cave.

Hiro was more interested in the next step, considering it involved him.

"About this wide and this deep," Obake explained, using a stick to carve a circle in the still-damp earth. Hiro chuffed, set about at the task as Obake set up a small path to and from it, making it look like it was a space he frequented, rescued Hiro when he dug in too deep.

"It's called a pit trap," Obake explained, more for something to do while he was sticking sharpened sticks in the bottom of the hole, where water was already starting to puddle—at the very least, this would leave any pursuers miserable. "The main concept is someone blunders into it and falls in. Works nicely on boar." Or it used to, at least.

It was still enough to pique Hiro's interest—watched carefully as Obake crisscrossed sticks over it and then leaves as well. Spread leaves along the path too so it wasn't so obvious, collect Hiro and the rest of his tools and continue on.

By midday he figured he had wasted enough time outsmarting Yokai, moved on to his other intentions for the day—go to a beach, fill the buckets with sand as Hiro rolled around cleaning mud from his scales, retreat back to the cave, huffing at having to lift several pounds of deadweight with a dragon making curious noises at him.

"There's a point to this," he assured Hiro—and himself, he needed that reminder too. Made it to the cave, got near where the fire had been…build a little ring around the fire before dumping the sand next to it.

"Firstly, this smothers the fire in an emergency," he explained, tossing a handful on the freshly-lit fire to demonstrate. "Secondly…."

Hiro perked up when Obake wrote down the rune for Hiro.

"So we don't go through my whole supply of paper and ink," he said, wiping the rune out and writing it again. "Somewhat inspired by the ash."

Hiro warbled at that, wrote his name down—watched with interest after the first fish as Obake wrote a series of runes in the sand, including the three Hiro knew.

"Which ones are familiar to you?" he asked.

Hiro considered the line, copied down fish, Hiro, and Obake easily enough—patted under one of the other runes and gave a questioning huff to Obake.

"I suppose that's the next lesson," Obake decided.

This was a distracting enough activity for the next couple of days. Boulders-on-Hill didn't come back, which was mildly disappointing…and yet weirdly enough, Hiro was fine with that. he had been wanting some spare time with his Yokai without having to answer a zillion questions, like there was some sort of underlying stress skittering under his scales at the extra supervision.

He wasn't sure if he understood that—the point of the scheme was to show other dragons how to train a Yokai, he should be welcoming extra eyes!

Maybe it was because each one was a microcosm of what to expect when Older-Brother finally came.

This is still a bad idea, Imaginary-Older-Brother continued to insist. You don't know what he's up to—you watched him set up a bunch of traps and you still want to trust him?

Huff—yes, was that too much to ask?

Maybe. He'd be the first to admit that. watching Obake work with things, put things together, seeing how he looked at things and came to conclusions—there was something eerily intelligent about this particular Yokai.

Maybe that was normal—after all, you had to be either really smart or really stupid to fight dragons, which were the most awesomest of any living creature yes that was a word and if it wasn't one in Dragonese then maybe it was in Yokainese and who cared it fit.

And learning these things, supervising his Yokai and learning how it counted and how scribble-languages worked and how they made up for an appalling lack of natural defenses with just plain old cleverness. Even if training a Yokai failed, he'd have plenty to share with his flight on how to counter them.

Except he didn't like that idea as much anymore—Obake was obviously making an effort, a big one if Boulders-on-Hill was right and Yokai ate dragons. He showed that they could make the effort, if they just put their minds to it—it was only fair to meet them halfway, to reward them for doing so.

And yet….

Sigh, making Obake look up from the scribbling on dry-leaves he was doing—let's be real here, a good chunk of this was just him trying to distract himself from going totally stir-crazy while his wing healed, it had to heal he couldn't stand being a grounded dragon he'd go crazy—

"Wrr," he noised, when Obake scrubbed at his head between his ears, long not-claws curled up and kneading his skull. "Hey, stop that."

"I don't need you sulking again," Obake told him. "You'll be fine—you have a new life now."

Did he?

His mind ran back to a conversation with Boulders-on-Hill, about how happy she was to be away from her queen and how living alone on an island with Yokai on it was better than returning to her controlling nest—was this it? Was this the angle? Did Yokai somehow exert power over dragons, more subtle than any alpha?

Very subtle—as far as he could figure Yokai were persistent and clever, and that's what gave them the edge over dragons they needed. He needed to be cleverer, outsmart him and stay ahead—that's what Older-Brother would definitely caution. You know, if he ever got past the whole no this is a bad idea and focused on the let's iron out the kinks in this plan.

You suck at this, I'll have you know, he thought, glaring at the spot where he pictured Imaginary-Older-Brother sitting. Constructive criticism, please—and note that he's been with two dragons without killing them AND he let a bunch of others go.

Imaginary-Older-Brother lifted an ear-flap in skepticism. "Oh sure—and what if Boulders-on-Hill is right and he used to eat dragons? You really trust he won't get hungry and take a nibble sometime?"

"Oh shut up you're just reaching now," Hiro huffed. Looked at Obake when he lifted his paw away. "No hey not you that actually felt good do you know how hard it is to reach there?"

Hrff.

"Wha—oh hi," Hiro greeted, as Boulders-on-Hill came in and deposited a mouthful of fish. "How did hunting for the other Gronkle go?"

"Well I found him," she said, scratching behind her ear as Obake gingerly picked a fish up and examined it. "Tried to convince him to stick around, told him I had found a place that worked and that he shouldn't go back to his sucky alpha—didn't work, he said he was leaving and not stopping until he hit Dark Deep."

"Hit where?"

"Eh, let's just call it a very important island for Gronkles and such," she said, looking them over. "So how are things here? You two are looking decent."

"We've been doing well, thank you—and since you're here—over here on this side of the fire, I'll show you the secret to communicating with Yokai."

"I'm listening," she said warily, watching as he smoothed the sand out.

"Watch carefully," he ordered, writing out the squiggle for fish before chuffing at Obake. Obake glanced over, noted the squiggle, grabbed a fish and tossed it Hiro's way.

"This," Hiro explained, jabbing the squiggle once the fish was safely in his stomach. "Means 'fish' in the Yokai scribble language. If you make it in sand or dirt, they'll give you fish."

"That is very weird," she observed, eyeing the squiggle critically. "How does it work?"

"I'm not sure, but they've got a whole language built on this stuff—with it they can communicate without even seeing each other—it's really interesting."

"Hmm," she noised, peering closer at the scribble. "Hey, if I make this, would he give me a fish?"

"I don't know—I'm the only one who ever bothered trying this so…maybe?"

She made a pensive noise, examined the scribble again, painstakingly tried to imitate it….

Hiro huffed when she finished, redirecting Obake's attention.

"What, Hiro?" he asked—twitched when Hiro pointed at the second squiggle. Looked at Boulders-on-Hill critically—

"Scrub it out, do it again while he's watching," Hiro counselled. She huffed but did so, scrubbing out the squiggle before imitating Hiro's again. Look at Obake, who looked dumbfounded.

"Fish," Hiro said, nodding. Flick an ear when Obake looked at him critically—

Boulders-on-Hill was quick to snap the fish out of the air.

"So every time I make this squiggle he'll give me a fish?" she asked.

"He'll give a fish for a lot of weird things," Hiro assured her. "Sitting, laying down, rolling over…Yokai apparently like these things."

"Hmm," she noised, sitting down—looked at Obake sharply.

"Those he has to actually ask you," Hiro told her. "Don't worry, it's a work in progress, we can see about it the next time we go over it." Walk over to Obake, sit down, look at the fish sitting in the fire before looking at Obake, who seemed lost in some sort of deep thought.

"You just taught that dragon how to do that, didn't you?" he demanded abruptly, looking at Hiro. Hiro picked that apart in his head, decided it meant what he thought it did, nodded. "You—that's…."

Hiro tipped his head when Obake trailed off, watched him lace his front paws together and rest his muzzle against them, glaring at nothing and back in that deep thought.

"The fish are burning," Boulders-on-Hill said. "Doesn't he usually take them out by now?"

"I think we broke him," Hiro said, poking Obake experimentally with a claw. Obake flinched away, looking at him—made some sort of hissing and spitting noise when Hiro pointed out the burning fish, quickly fished them out and extinguished them—considered the crispy crunchy now-mostly-charcoal fish before looking at Hiro.

"Not even," Hiro said flatly.

Considering the fish broke in half when Obake tried pulling a piece off, he doubted anyone would eat that. it was a conclusion Obake came to as well, sighing as he tossed it back in the tame-fire for it to finish off.

"I blame you for this," he told Hiro as he put another fish in the tame-fire.

"That wasn't my fault," Hiro countered. "You just totally spaced."

"Maybe he doesn't think we're smart," Boulders-on-Hill said, considering, expression half-critical. "Maybe that's why they eat dragons—they think we're stupid prey, like boar or deer or fish."

"That's what I thought too, only without the dragon-eating bit," he said, looking at her—well, maybe with the dragon-eating bit, but he'd rather get past that. "I kind of want to test it on another Yokai, but I'm hesitant to just…you know, run out and try it."

"The little bit about how it's just him that thinks this way, not his whole flight."

"Yeah," he sighed, sagging a little, staring into the fire.

Boulders-on-Hill considered him. "You know, what you're doing here…I thought about it a lot while I was out, and…what you're trying here is world-changing." Shift a little. "World-changing things don't, you know, change the world in a day."

"Yeah," he said, lifting his head a little. Consider it before looking at her. "But it's changing my world, so…."

She waggled her head. "Sometimes that's all you can do."

Maybe—maybe that was what was important, even though he didn't really want to stop there—if he could just—big scale, he wanted to do this on a big scale—

But on a big scale was too big a thing to tackle—it would be like him going up against Mountain-King. Maybe Boulders-on-Hill was right. Maybe he needed to focus on getting a few dragons in his corner on this first. That way he had a team to take on this massive thing.

Dragons like his family and friends.

Sigh, sagging again—he missed them, all of them, but most of all Older-Brother and Older-Light-Fury. He missed his family, he missed his friends—he missed being in a huge flight of dragons, even if it did revolved around that jerk Mountain-King—

An echoing noise made all of them freeze, heads jerking up and tilted to better hear—

Dragons.

Hope squeezed Hiro's heart painfully—bolted for the cave entrance, made several good bounds before Obake tackled him and flattened him to the ground.

"No no let me see!" he protested, trying to wriggle out from under him. "I need to see if my brother's out there!"

Obake didn't budge, planted a paw on Hiro's muzzle to quiet him—Boulders-on-Hill seemed to share his sentiment, plastered to the ground as she was—

Glanced at them, minced to the cave entrance, peering around to see—

Scrambled backwards until she was on top of the fire, laid down to extinguish it.

"Hey!" Hiro barked.

"Shush!" she ordered, mincing over to them and staying flat to the ground, eyeing the entrance nervously. "That's my old flight!"

Her old flight—her old flight that followed a queen—

Older-Brother wouldn't be out there.

Sag into the ground, ceasing his struggle, trying hard not to start crying right there—it hurt, it really hurt, he wanted his brother back—his real brother, not the imaginary version he kept conjuring up….

Flatten his ears against the sounds of dragons dying.

What I'm doing is world-changing, he told himself, closing his eyes against their burning, cutting off another sensory input as he dug his claws into the ground. World-changing things don't change the world all at once.

But he wanted it to—he wanted to end this right now, stop it all before someone else got hurt—

Felt movement on his scales, rubbing back and forth—Obake, maybe trying to be reassuring but not knowing how—

Had scrambled to make sure he was okay during the last dragon raid too.

Huff, trying to keep the keening feeling in his chest from spilling out…finally managed to crack his eyes open, feeling the edges of the lids moisten even as he blinked rapidly to clear them—

Lifted an ear flap as the sounds of the raid finally faded. Look at Boulders-on-Hill—

Boulders-on-Hill was next to them, close enough to be nearly squishing them, trembling with her ears flat and her paws over her eyes, trying to block out the sounds of her old flock dying—

Hiro's heart broke a little as he realized how much worse this was for her.

"Boulders-on-Hill," he said quietly, moving his head a little—Obake finally picked himself up, letting Hiro sit up and paw at her. "Listen, it's…it's gonna be…." All right? Okay? Nothing about this was okay. dragons had just died out there, they could have done something—someone has to help—

But what could they do, really? One little Night Fury who had used up his shot for the day, a Gronkle tired from flying all day, and one cleverer-than-usual Yokai against two separate flights that wanted nothing more than to kill each other. They would have never been able to stop that.

And the injustice of that hurt.

Look at Obake, who was considering the scene in front of him—watch as he gingerly patted Boulders-on-Hill's side. She started—

"It's okay," Hiro told her. No it wasn't, but…he had to say something. "It's…it's not right, but…we can fix it. Somehow."

She looked at him, heartbroken, looked at Obake, sitting there like he didn't know what to do with himself—

Startled them both when she pawed Hiro around and curled up close around him and Obake.

"No too heavy," Obake wheezed, trying to push her off—she ignored him, sides heaving—Hiro crawled up on her back and started kneading.

"It's okay," he tried again, dredging up every memory of Older-Light-Fury and Nadder-Mother-to-Everybody he had. "It's okay. The world is broken, but we can fix it."

Her labored breathing started to calm, Obake finally managed to worm out from under her—

She finally opened red-rimmed eyes and looked up at Hiro.

"Whatever this is you're doing," she said thickly. "Whatever it is that stops this…I want in."

Hiro nodded. "Welcome aboard, then."