Author's note: What! Chapter delivered in a timely manner?! What has the world come to?! Hope you enjoy!
Stoick's perspective
The helicopter search party was due to return in a couple of hours, the field the police used as landing pads was prepped and the Hoffersons and I were called into the tent that was setup as a temporary mission control. I'd offered to let Garret, his wife and Astrid's younger brother to stay the night in my house and they'd gladly accepted. We'd stayed up late, discussing the tracks and boot prints Astrid's brother had spotted. But when tiredness overcame us we went into our separate rooms and slept, but dreams of our missing children plagued us.
"Right, you lot, come in here!" the officer from the previous day pulled us into the tent. A table and a few chairs stood in the center, maps and diagrams covering the table. He gestured to the chairs, sitting down in his own. We sat down, eagerly eyeing the map to see if they'd found anything else.
"So I guess I'll get started with the basic stuff. We haven't found them." He said solemnly.
"Then why did you get us in here?" I asked feeling farther annoyed.
"Because the search party that went through the forest found something on the track that circles the plantation." He replied, us leaning in for more. He turned to his laptop, clicked a few times then spun it 'round for us to see. Displayed on the screen was the sandy road I'd only driven down a couple of times.
The officer pointed to the image. "This picture was taken yesterday evening. Look at these truck tracks." He ran the tip of his pen over the tracks, us having to lean in to see them clearly. "Now compare them with the ones we found by that canyon yesterday." He pulled up another image and displayed them side-by-side. "Both sets of tracks have the same patterns and are the same width apart. Now you may think this is just a coincidence, but we checked the CCTV footage from the camera at the entrance to the plantation, and the last vehicle to go through, other than our search quadbikes, was a large black off-roader. We checked the make and model, finding this pattern in the tracks to be made by the standard wheels this vehicle comes with. We asked a people who'd seen this off-roader before to come forward and we got a very useful lead. An elderly couple said they'd seen it a few times in the town, mostly stationary, but driving around occasionally. So we can assume the drivers of this vehicle had something to do with you children's disappearances."
The man closed the photos and brought another one up. It was off the same road, the same tyre tracks running through it. We all starred questioningly at the officer. He smirked and said "Look closer." We all crowed around the laptop, trying to get a better look at the image.
'Would you just explain?" Garret growled.
"Right, yes, sorry. See this patch of blackened sand?" He pointed to the bottom of the picture. "This colour is produced by ash from a fire. You told us your daughter had a run-in with a dragon and that she had to go on daily walks to bring her strength back up, right?" The Hoffersons nodded. "Well we're assuming that they stopped as she wasn't feeling well. It may have been getting late and they didn't want to walk back in the dark, so they lit a fire. While resting we're thinking the people in the off-roader kidnapped them then drove through the woods. But for some reason the vehicle stopped halfway into the forest and decided to back out again and drive off. We don't know…"
The radio on one side of the room buzzed and flickered to life. The officer walked over and picked up the handset.
"Yes, anything to report? Over."
"We've found something officer. Over." The radio buzzed, the sound of a helicopter's engine coming through. As the voice of the pilot came through it immediately caught our attention.
"Go on."
"We continued to fly around the edge of the search area and we spotted a formation of rocks with something that looked man made at the bottom. Upon closer inspection it appears to be a makeshift shelter dug into the ground, with ripped up fabric as a roof. We've searched inside and found a backpack with some empty food containers, water bottles and interestingly, a pocketknife. I've just sent you some photos. Over."
The laptop buzzed, more photos coming up on-screen. The officer opened the one with the pocketknife.
"Hang on, that's my son's knife. I gave it to him for his birthday a few years ago." I said, pushing the others out the way.
"That's not all we found. There were some different vehicle tracks leading away from the shelter. We followed them, but it appears as through there was a sand-storm recently and they were lost. Over and out."
The radio died down. "We'll inform you if anything else comes up. Right now I need to go through these pictures."
"Thanks for everything you've done so far, sir." Garret's teary-eyed wife said.
Narrator's perspective
The scene was bleak as Astrid raised her head, vision distorted from her unconsciousness. She held her head as she stood up, leaning on the rock for support. She blinked several times as a gust of wind swept dust into her already watering eyes. She rubbed them and turned her head to the sea.
All signs of the massive dragon were gone. The waves rolled onto the beach, sea-life continuing with whatever they normally did. The cliff-top was bare, the hundreds of dragons that had filled the air were no-where to be seen. The occasional tranq dart littered the grass, the imprints of the fallen dragons still clearly visible in the vegetation.
Astrid took a step forwards but immediately felt a stabbing pain in her gut. She keeled over onto her knees, stomach convulsing as her last meal made an appearance. Her reaching ceased and she rolled over onto her back. Her chest pounded and her breathing was shaky, but she managed to get to her feet and extend her wings.
"Now remember what Hiccup told about how to take off." Astrid spoke to herself with her head low.
Astrid kept her wings out as she steadily picked up her pace, eventually reaching a full-on sprint. She flapped her wings down. Her feet lifted off the ground as she climbed higher, trying to circle the area that Valka must've landed.
"Turn my body in the direction I want to go, balancing with my tail will come with practice." She muttered, remembering when Hiccup half-taught her how to fly.
She flew over to the forest, which was where the tracks created by the tank led. After narrowly avoiding some trees, she landed and walked along the path created by the vehicle.
After 10 minutes of walking, she came across what appeared to be an outpost used by the Dragon Trappers. Refrigerated boxes were pilled up around one tree, a net covering half of them, presumably to stop animals from stealing them.
"What do we have here?" Astrid opened up a box, finding packets of raw beef and bacon inside. The next had more meat in it and the third had what looked like a sheep skull stored inside. Astrid turned away from the boxes and looked around some more. A tarpaulin was strung between four trees and covered a small kitchen area, just some simple camping stoves and workbenches. Astrid continued 'round the makeshift outpost, reaching the centre of attention.
Maps of the coastline were spread out along a folding table, two large crosses along the satellite images of the coastline. Astrid picked one up, looking more closely at one of the crosses. It seemed to be the section of cliffs where the dragons had been captured, the coves and rockpools matched up perfectly. The next cross was placed on the other side of the map. She used the map's scale and found it to be about 400 kilometres away. The terrain around this point she didn't recognise, but it appeared to be a large circular construction with smaller rectangles inside.
She rolled the map up and looked around the outpost again, this tie for a knife and compass. After searching through a leather briefcase, the compass was acquired. Now all she needed was a knife in-case she got lost on the way back and had to cut an animal for food. The netting covering the boxes around the tree yielded this. She strapped the leather pouch around her waist and prepared to take off again, this time back to the cliffs.
Astrid sprinted, extended her wings and took off. Up through the canopy of the forest and into the open air. The salty sea-breeze gusted against her, causing the occasional stumble or loss of altitude. Finally, she reached the place where the dragons, and more importantly Valka, had been captured. She took to the air again, surveying her surroundings and looking for the place she and Valka flew in from. From there she would hopefully find the map they drew in the sand and hopefully that would show her the way back to Hiccup and Eret.
From this high up the tracks made by resting dragons were clearly visible, creating a line away from the cliff.
"Well it's a start." Astrid flew low, following the clumps of foot prints. Around the point at which she estimated they'd drawn the map, she landed and searched around the rocks and sand dunes.
About 50 metres off the path Astrid was flying, a faint glint caught the girl's eye. Upon closer inspection, it was the flask that Valka had been drinking from after she'd had the fit when the big dragon was controlling her. It sounded like there was still liquid in it, so Astrid unscrewed the top and chugged the contents into her parched stomach. Then she proceeded to immediately vomit it back up.
"Valka, how do you manage to drink that stuff? It tastes like honey brussel sprouts with tofu." She spat the rest of the liquid out, then looked down at the map they'd drawn only hours early, probably. Time is hard to judge when you're unconscious.
The map and compass she'd taken from the outpost allowed her to match-up the coastlines and gave her a good idea of where the bunker was. Only problem now was that the sun was going down and it was a long flight. Astrid shifted the knife to around her back so it didn't stab her side while she was flying and took a run-up before taking to the sky.
She'd lost her bearings a few times when she landed to catch her breath, but the compass lined her up again. The sky was now pitch black, save for the moon shining some light on the land below her. She estimated the time was around 9:00 PM when she landed outside the bunker.
The lights were on inside, Eret and Hiccup sitting at the table with a beer in hand. Astrid rapped her knuckles on the windows, both of them turning to face her. Eret got up and walked over the door leading into the garage. Astrid pushed aside the cloth covering the entrance to the vehicle storage space and went inside.
"When did you wake up Hiccup?" Astrid asked as she placed the map, compass and knife on the table.
"Sometime yesterday." He replied.
"Just after you and Valka left. I've told him all Valka told you about why she disappeared and why you 're dragons." Eret added, Hiccup winking from behind him.
"What do you mean yesterday? How long was I away?" She asked.
"You left yesterday around 11 AM, and it's 10 PM now, so more than a day." Eret spoke, taking a swig from his beer.
"WHAT?! I was out for a day! How did this happen? That means she was taken yesterday!" Astrid cried while pacing the room.
"Astrid calm down. And where's my Mum?" Hiccup said.
"We reached the coast where all the dragons were, then this giant dragon rose from the water and hypnotized all the others, Valka included. Then nets started firing and dragons were being tranqed and Valka was captured. She was captured by the Dragon Hunters." Astrid sobbed, tears beginning to fall from her eyes, "I was thrown off her back then was knocked out by the fall. When I woke there was no sign of the dragons, or Valka. I found a temporary outpost and took this map."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. My mum was captured by some dragon hunters and you found this map to their base?"
Astrid nodded, adding, "Not just some dragon hunters, the Dragon Hunters."
Eret handed her a glass of water, which she drank quickly.
"Well, I guess we need to go get her. Eret, you're up."
Author's note: I think we are definitely nearing the end of this story, but probably 4 or 5 chapters to go, maybe less. I hope I'll be able to stay on this better upload schedule, which should mean there'll be one chapter every 4 weeks. Please review and tell me what you think.