Chapter 5: Welcome to Wolf Training
A nice chapter for you guys that I've been working on (along with other stuff) over the Easter Break. Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Balto or How to Train your Dragon. They both belong to their respective owners and this is just for fun, NOT for profit.
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(Hiccup POV)
Since I had to run back to the house to retrieve the axe Dad gave me, I was one of the last ones to get to the Arena. Luckily for me, Gobber just finished giving safety guidelines and was opening the gate. "Welcome to Wolf Training!" Gobber said as we filed into the arena.
The Arena was around a 10 feet deep pit with large iron clad doors housing stalls of captured wolves that we'll be trained with and supplies for training. The floors and walls are covered ice silhouettes of blasted Vikings. It was a grim yet awe-inspiring place for any future wolf slayer.
"No turning back." Astrid entered with a condiment stride.
"I hope I get some broken bones. I would be great for my tales of glory." Tuffnut said with a dramatic gesture.
"I'm hoping for some mauling, like on my shoulder or lower back." Ruffnut said gesturing at the desired places for the mentioned marks.
"Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it." Snotlout said before banging his fist against his chest.
"Yeah, no kidding, right?" I said in a sarcastic tone. "Pain. Love it." I looked at the others recruits turn to see me behind them and groan in exasperation.
"Oh great. Who let him in?" Tuffnut said annoyed.
"That doesn't matter now, does it?" Gobber said stepping between the Hiccup and the other recruits. "Let's get started! The recruit who does best will win the honor of killing his first wolf in front of the entire village.
"Hiccup already killed a Night Fury, so does that disqualify him or what?" Snotlout said as he and some of the recruits laugh and continued their chatter.
"Don't worry." Gobber throws a supportive arm around me as he ushers me along. "You're smaller and think differently. That'll make you less of a target. They'll see you as sick or insane and go after the more warrior-like teens instead." He stuck me in line with the others and continues on toward five massive reinforced doors emitting ferocious growls and snarling as whatever was inside could smell target just beyond its door. "Behind these doors are just a few of the many species you will learn to fight." Gobber swept his arms toward the gigantic doors as he passed by them accordingly. "The Deadly Nadder."
"Speed eight. Defence sixteen." Fishlegs said under his breath.
"The Hideous Zippleback."
"Plus eleven stealth. Times two."
"The Monstrous Nightmare."
"Icepower fifteen."
"The Terrible Terror."
"Attack eight. Venom twelve."
"WILL YOU STOP THAT?!" Gobber yelled with an annoyed twitch in his eye before he continued. "And...the Gronckle."
"Jaw strength, eight." Fishlegs whispered to the others.
Gobber pulls the first lever to the Gronckle door, raising the door exposing a barred cage within the prison and then gripped the second lever that was sure to make the cage completely open.
"Whoa, wait!" Snotlout tried to reason with him. "Aren't you gonna teach us first!?"
Gobber gave a pointed grin at me, knowing what he was about to say. "Well, I only have a bit of advice that has been passed down the Belches for years, 'tagal ayxakux awal' (*1)" pulls the second lever and a Gronkle stomps out of its cave, charging into the ring like a ragging rhino.
"What the hell does that mean?" Snotlout said as he and the other recruits scramble in every direction. Except for Ruffnut and Tuffnut who rush toward it, like pumped-up idiots.
"Learn while working" I interpreted for them.
"Today is about survival." Gobber said standing in the middle of the ring while doing strange hand gestures. "If you get blasted, you'll get frostbitten. Quick, what's the first thing you're going to need?"
"A healer?" I answered.
"Plus five speed?" Fishlegs said.
"A shield." Astrid answered as she already bolted to the nearest shields off to the side.
"Correct, Shields. Go." Gobber ordered. The recruits scrambled for shields scattered around the ring.
"Your most important piece of equipment is your shield." Gobber continued. "If you must make a choice between a sword and a shield, take the shield."
I raised the heavy shield and ran with it in time to see the Gronkle barreling in my direction, but zeroed on another target. Ruff and Tuff stand amidst a dozen shields. But only one has a skull painted on it. They both grab it.
"Get your hands off my shield!" Tuffnut yanked at it.
"There are like a million shields! Pick another one." Ruffnut yanked back.
"Take that one, it has a flower on it. Girls like flowers."Ruffnut uses the shield to slam Tuffnut in the face, yet he refuses to let go.
"Oops, now this one has blood on it." Ruffnut says with a grimace that shifts into a smirk. "But, it makes it cooler, gimme me!"
The Gronckle zeros in on the distracted twins. As it makes a sharp turn around them, purposely kicking up enough snow & gravel to bury Ruffnut and Tuffnut. The shield doing little to protect either of them and getting buried along with them. The twins' heads pop out the pile before they slumped and shivered from the sudden chill.
"Ruff, Tuff, you're out!" Gobber said as he hooks them out of the pile by their shirts and drops them in a heap.
"Aw, Man! This sucks!" they commented at the dusted themselves off and goes off to the side.
The Gronckle starts to swell up as it prepared another attack. The teens gather on the far side of the ring to avoid the beast much as possible.
"Those shields are good for another thing." Gobber continued teaching the others. "Noise. Make lots of it to throw off a wolf's aim." The teens scooped up their weapons and begin hammering on their shields. The Gronckle starts to deflate a little, slows down its pace, and shakes its head, at the clatter.
"All wolves have a limited number of shots." Gobber continued. "How many does a Gronckle have?"
"Five?" Snotlout guesses.
"No, six." Fishlegs says triumphantly.
"Correct, six." Gobber said with a cheery tone. "That's one for each of you!"
Fishlegs tiredly scurries around the ring and starts to slow down in his shield banging. "I really don't think my parents would…" and gets his shield blasted away by the Gronckle's snow ball.
"Fishlegs, your out." Gobber states as Fishlegs gladly runs out of the ring to join the twins.
The rest of the trainees seem to be fairing well, either constantly moving and/or banging their shields. Astrid in particular was bouncing on her heels, ready to dodge a blast. Snotlout dashes up to Astrid and starts talking to her. "So anyway I'm moving into my parents' basement. You should come by sometime to work out. You look like you work out."
She seemed to ignore him by cartwheeling away, but I look over to see an incoming Gronckle barreling toward their direction. Astrid avoided it with a cartwheel, Snotlout being distracted gets his shield hit and get blasted onto his back.
"Snotlout! You're done!" Gobber hooks the limp Snotlout and drags him off to the side with the others.
Astrid rolls out of her cartwheels and stops beside me. "So, I guess it's just you and me huh" I said trying to be smooth, but failing, epically.
"I guess, but not for long." She cartwheels away again and a split-second later a giant snow ball hits the corner of my shield and knocks it clear off of my arm, leaving me exposed.
"One shot left!" Gobber yelled to us.
Panicking, I raised the axe that was in my other hand. My hands are shaking and I wasn't sure if it was my nerves or adrenaline, buy I could have sworn that I had seen the green eyes again in the gleam of my axe head. I was so distracted by the strange piercing eyes that I didn't quite her Gobber shouting at me. When I snapped out of it the wolf was charging at me. I dropped the axe and ran in the opposite direction, but it was right into a corner of barrels of weapons.
It pinned me against the wall.
I struggled to loosen its grip on me or slide underneath it, but there was no way around its enormous body.
I saw its beady eyes glaring at me before it opened its maw.
I felt the all too familiar chill of the wolf's icy breath as it inhaled to blast me.
'I don't think that it will let me go this time.'
I heard a war cry and turned to see Astrid running toward the beast.
Before she did anything reckless, Gobber lunges in and hooks the Gronckle's mouth away from me, causing its head to jerk up and fire against its blast against the stone wall above Hiccup's head.
"And that's six!" Gobber wrestles the raging Gronckle. "Go back to bed, ya overgrown sausage!" He sticks one of his knockout darts into its arm and the beast falls limp before it's thrown back into his pen and locks gets in. "You'll get another chance, don't you worry." Gobber turns to the recruits. "Remember... a wolf will always," he turns pointedly at me. "always go for the kill."
He hoists me to my feet, dusts me off, and walks off. I looked to see Astrid still with her axe in her hands as she looked at me a little longer than the others before leaving with the other recruits. I then turned around to see the patch of frosting ice perturbing from the stone wall.
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A few hours passed by the time I was able to sneak off into the woods without anyone noticing or following me. I wasted no time getting to the Qugax Tanaa, starting the ceremonial fire in the pit, setting up my mat, and saying a chanting to connect me with the spirits.
"Umaagal qugax. Umaagal qugax. Umaagal qugax (*2)."
I continued the chant until I felt my spirit leave my body and ascend into the smoke above the hut. Then called upon the aid of the spirits.
"Aguun qugax. Aguun qugax. Aguun qugax. (*3)"
It was almost half an hour before I felt the additional presents of the spirits.
"So I'm not sure how to explain this, but I keep seeing there weird green eyes showing up everywhere. Is there a way that you can explain that?"
"Seek the shaman." The collective of voices responded while showing Gothi collecting berries.
"But I don't know where she is nor have the time to look for her." There has been times in the past that I needed to talk to Gothi about my heritage that either Gobber didn't fully know or my Dad refused to tell me. The last time that I tried to look for her, it took a week to have actually get to her and even then the answers that she gave was vague. "Is there any other way to get answers?"
"Retrace your steps. Seek the source."
Retrace my steps? I started seeing the strange eyes in reflections of metal after constantly seeing it in my dreams. So what triggered the dreams? I paused for a beat. The Night Fury. When it was pinning me to a tree, I passed or something and I started seeing the eyes everywhere after that. And seek the source? I have to go find the Night Fury again? This will be fun.
"I think I know what to do now. Thank you very much wise ones." I bowed until my head touched the ground and at that point my spirit was back down to earth and the fires had started to die out.
I set everything back where they were, put out the fire, and headed back to the site that I found the Night Fury.
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(*1) tagal = learn; ayxakux = while; awal = work. Very vague translation again. The source that I'm using doesn't have as much variety to working with sometimes, but I try.
(*2) umaagal = come in here (invisible); quagx = assistant spirit
(*3) aguun = help
And another chapter done! And I just want to know from you guys, was there too many native terms in this chapter? Do I have anything about the terms that seem off? I don't know.
Be sure to check out some of my other stories. If you're new to this story, please leave a review and let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is accepted, but not flames please.