New chapter and it's a long one!
It was early in the morning on the Isle of Berk, the sun just barely high enough for the Cove to begin to light up. All eight of the multiverse travels were still asleep, at least until Shadow shifted in his sleep and his wing slightly uncovered two of the humans.
Rune groaned as the sunlight hit his face and Lok yawned whilst rubbing his eyes, questioning, "Ok, what the hell did I sleep on? My back feels like someone roundhouse kicked me." Hearing this with his new hearing, Shadow grumbled and shifted slightly, holding onto them a bit tighter whilst mumbling with half-awake clarity, *Five more minutes...*
Lok looked out of Shadow's embrace and saw the Cove, remarking, "Hm, so this wasn't a weird dream... Honestly, not the weirdest place I've woken up..." After a pause he shrugged, grabbed Rune, and managed to shove Shadow's paw off of him, dragging himself and Rune out of Shadow's grip, "Anyways, new day, new bullshit to deal with!"
"Ugh, wait, what the hell?!" Rune said as he was dragged and Lok let him go, Rune standing up next to Lok. Shadow, now more awake than before, raised his head to look at Lok as he grumbled, *What's weirder than waking up against a dragon?*
"Waking up underwater to a Barracuda looking you in the eye and a stingray thinking you have snacks," Lok answered and Shadow opened his mouth to respond, only for Rune to glance at them in concern and ask, "Um guys, why are they glitching out?" Upon hearing this, all three of them glanced down at Carpy and Trook, who had yet to wake up.
Their bodies were dissolving into fractal noise which was being pulled in every which way like two kids fighting over a piece of paper, their bodies flashing multiple colors in a single second, somewhat similar to the effect from Into the Spider-Verse. After but a few moments, the glitching hit an apex, and suddenly, they seemed to disappear into thin air. Shadow jumped upright, staring in horror and shock whilst yelling, *WHAT THE FUCK!?*
Lok stared at the spot where they disappeared with a slightly perturbed expression, "Hm, that may take the cake though... What the fuck was that." Rune looked around, trying to see if they'd just moved position but found nothing before he spoke, "Where the hell did they go, they just disappeared?!"
Lok looked around at his companions, asking in concern, "You guys aren't bout to dematerialize like that, right?" Then paused and looked down at himself, "Wait, nothing's wrong with me, right?" Rune glanced at him in worry and fear over this glitching happening to all of them, telling the other human, "I hope not and you look fine for now."
*Did they just get Into the Spider-Verse'd?!* Shadow basically shouted in shock, the last movie he'd seen before ending up here replaying itself in his mind. The 'glitching' fit, or at least Shadow thought it did. Lok hummed to himself and spoke, "Hm, I knew I'd regret not seeing that movie..." If what happened next hadn't, Shadow most likely would've said something about that.
Ash, from the tree he was in, opened his eyes and peered down into the Cove, asking, *Did something happen? Wait, where's-* Before the little dragon could finish, Shadow suddenly began to glitch as well, screaming and hitting the ground whilst withering in pain. Shadow yelled, *FUCK FUCK FUCK!* After a few moments it stopped, but thankfully unlike before Shadow was still here, left panting and in pain on the ground.
*Fuck me, that felt like a meat grinder...* Shadow whimpered and took a deep breath, whilst Ash fell out of his tree with a shout of, *OH HOLY SHIT WHAT JUST HAPPENED!* After a moment, the little dragon glided down into the Cove and came up to them, whilst Lok looked at the still recovering Shadow, "Yeah... That was... Very strange."
Rune just rubbed his head as he tried to wrap his brain around what was happening, whilst Ash's eyes went wide as a perturbing thought went through his head, *Wait a minute, are we getting fucked around with by demons?*
*I don't know... but that felt like... well... ow,* Shadow told him whilst getting up onto his paws whilst Rune turned to Ash and told him, "Please, I think we have enough worries and fears right now without you bringing up demons." Lok chimed in as well, "Why is it always demons with you? When we first met you thought you were a demon and now you think they're fucking with us?"
Before Ash could speak up, suddenly Rune began to glitch as well and Shadow used his body to support the human until they stopped glitching, thankfully remaining here just like Shadow. *Demons, they're everywhere, everywhere!* Ash said seriously and Rune eventually spoke, "Holy shit, I do not want to go through that again!"
Shadow snorted, *No kidding!* And after a moment, Lok spoke up and tried to point out something positive, "Well, at least you didn't get blipped out of existence." Shadow glanced at him with a grim look, *Not yet.*
*Do we need some holy water or some shit?* Ash asked as he shuffled in place next to them, whilst Shadow continued, *If this is like Spider-Verse, we might just be on a clock... Although going off the logic of another movie probably isn't helpful.* After a moment, Lok remarked, "That's ominous..."
"So what do you think happens when the clock reaches zero?" Rune asked nervously and then, suddenly, Ash began to glitch just like the others. Meanwhile, at the top of the Cove, Rory began to wake up and glanced down at them just in time to see the tail-end of Ash's glitching, the little dragon remaining behind.
*What..?* Rory groaned and shook their head, "What was that?* Meanwhile, Ash had jumped in the air and landed with a thud whilst screaming, *FUCK OFF DEMONS I WILL SHANK YOUR ASSES!*
*You ok, Ash?* Shadow asked in concern and Ash looked at him with a shriek, *WHAT DO YOU MEAN AM I OK, THERE ARE DEMONS AFTER US!* Meanwhile, Lok remarked, "Considering what's been happening? Probably not."
After a moment, Shadow remembered that Rune had asked what would happen, and decided to tell them, *If this is like Spider-Verse, we'll continue glitching until... until we disintegrate; I really hope this isn't like Spider-Verse,* The last part was a fearful whisper to himself.
"I really regret not watching that movie now..." Lok remarked and Ash said, *Ohhhh, I do not want to disintegrate.* After a moment Rune added, "So by disintegrating you mean death, dammit I wish I paid more attention to that movie." Lok turned to Rune and told, "At least you've seen it!"
Ash glanced at his tail barb in thought, *Will paralysis work against demons?* Rune glanced at him with a serious look, "Can you please stop with the whole demon thing, it's not helping."
* Demons, the Spider-Verse? Lord, what now, * Rory thought to himself and then yelled down to them loudly, *What the hell is going on?* They dropped down from the top rim of the Cove, hitting the ground rather hard. * Ow, ow that was a hard landing... *
"Carpy and Trookay glitched out and disappeared out of thin air," Rune said in a calm but scared tone, whilst Lok pointed to Rory, "Well, at least one more person slash dragon is accounted for..." Suddenly, at the top of the Cove, they could see Leor glitched as well but like Carpy and Trook, Leor disappeared in the blink of an eye.
This happened as Rory glanced around, *They're just gone?* The Stormcutter noticed the two missing people and then noticed Leor's disappearance firsthand. "Oop and another one's gone," Lok added whilst Ash shouted, *OH SHIT!* Rory just stared and said one word, *Fuck.*
Ash suddenly began to scale Shadow, climbing onto the Ender Dragon's back and glancing around in fear as he spoke, *Is this going to happen to all of us?* Rune seemed like he was praying it wouldn't but had also realized it might happen to all of them.
"Well, considering the fact that three of you already went through it and are still here probably means it's something you can stop," Lok spoke up, trying to find a potential solution to this situation, "The two that poofed were asleep when it happened... Maybe it takes active will to resist."
*Active will... Well, Carpy didn't seem at all thrilled to be in the literal world of Dragons,* Rory remarked and tried not to scoff too hard, *I guess there's no telling, but we're still here.* Meanwhile, Ash narrowed his eyes and looked around whilst asking, *Is there anyone named Will here? And how do we 'activate' them?*
Next to glitch, at the same time, were Rory and Lok. It took only a few moments but the glitching stopped and they were still here, Shadow asking them in concern, *You two okay?*
"Yep! Just dandy; It only felt like every atom in my body was trying to quantumly entangle across space and time," Lok told him as he recovered from it and Ash looked at him, saying, *HEH? Those are some big words, that's not comforting.* Meanwhile, Rory shook their head very hard and said to Lok, *That... roughly sums up the experience yes; So that just leaves us.*
"Well, I'm just going to hope that was a one-time deal..." Lok said and paused before continuing, "Hm, it's gonna be a fun time explaining to the Berkians that we met why we're suddenly three members short." And at the same time, Rune also spoke, "What should we tell Hiccup when he gets back? He's going it notice two missing dragons and a human."
*The brain cells have been shared,* Ash remarked.
*I don't know, we'll... think of something,* Shadow said to answer Lok's question, and Lok shrugged whilst answering, "Eh, we can probably say they flew away; Busy with... Stuff." Rune looked at them and pointed out one thing, "But how are we going to explain why they never come back?"
Suddenly, with no warning, the wind died down and all sound around them just... stopped. It was completely silent except for their voices, they couldn't even hear their footsteps. *Ah, shit more demon stuff again?* Ash questioned and Shadow groaned, *Oh no, now what is it.*
"Hm... You may have a point this time," Lok said to Ash, conceding that with how freaky things were getting it may actually be demons. *Stay close now...* Rory growled lowly as they felt prickling all over their body, *I don't like this; Somethings weird ...*
Suddenly, a human appeared behind Rune, the new figures facial features matched with the suit and tie made them look like the G-Man from the Half-Life series. After a few moments, they spoke, "I'm sorry for interrupting but I believe you all would like explanations, yes?"
*…is this the demon?* Ash asked and Rune turned around in shock at the voice, "Wha- holy shit!" Rune fell back and hit the ground, watching the new figure in shock. Lok quickly picked up a small rock and lightly threw it at the entity's chest, but it passed right through them as if they weren't even there. *Can I shank 'em?* Ash asked.
"Sorry for scaring you!" The entity apologized and Lok looked him up and down before speaking, "Hm, a weird hologram?" Ash, meanwhile, looked over the entity's suit and remarked, *Huh, this is one dapper demon.* Rune got up and stared at the entity cautiously as he asked it, "Who are you?"
*A ghost?* Shadow theorized and Lok went to touch the entity. Ash went to touch it as well and Rory barked at them quickly, *Ash, you stay; Stay back, this thing is all sorts of wrong.* Ash stopped but Lok didn't, and their hand went right through the entity's body, to which Ash remarked, *Hmmmmmm ghost demon.*
"I'm not exactly a physical being; You can't harm me, and I can't harm you, so that's comforting for all of us," The entity told them and Rune retorted quickly, "Not even in the slightest." As Rune was looking around for a weapon to defend himself with, Lok looked the entity over and spoke, "Hm, so you have a sense of self-preservation? That's a trait normally only associated with beings who are mortal in some way."
Shadow takes a step back, growling and growing annoyed at the lack of information, *Ok, answers, now?! What the hell are you?*
Lok turned to himself and said, "Ten bucks says fourth-dimensional being, not a particularly powerful one though; Theoretically for someone in the fourth dimension, moving us through time like this wouldn't be all that hard." Ash glanced at Lok, asking, *Why do you always use big words?* And Rory asked the little dragon, *'Dimension' is a big word?*
"If you all would let me explain, I have a perfectly... well, somewhat logical explanation for this and myself," The entity spoke up with a slightly forceful tone, growing annoyed about the conversation derailing from his explanation of very important things.
*Fourth is a big word,* Ash remarked to Rory and Lok, and Lok said, "That's even more concerning." Ash just replied with, *Hah, people say that to me a lot, dunno why.*
"Okay then let's hear it," Rune said to the entity rather nicely, gesturing for the stranger to talk. Rory turned to Shadow and told him, *Shadow, please sit on Ash; Or, something, I'd rather hear answers than him right now.* Shadow, however, did not move, keeping his eyes on the entity.
"Also, we need a name; So if you don't spill one I'm just gonna start calling you Quadro," Lok said to the entity and Ash pipped up, *Why not Bill or something? Maybe Garry? Oooooooo or Jacob.* After a few moments, Lok hummed and continued where he had left off, "4th dimension being... And Bill sounds too much like Bill Cipher who I very much hope Quadro is nothing like."
"Will you two please stop talking so we can hear what they have to say?" Rune asked Lok and Ash. The entity watched them and choose now to butt into the conversation, trying to prevent them from giving him a weird human name, "A name? I haven't given myself one but I supposed The One Who Hopes, or just Hope, will do."
*Hmph, that's a funky name, I like it,* Ash said and Lok spoke up, telling the entity or rather Hope, "Hm, I guess you made your choice on names, but in the words of Nick Fury, 'I recognize the council has made a decision but given it's a stupid ass decision I've elected to ignore it.'"
"Yes, now that I can speak, let me explain just who and what I am; Also why your here... And a few other things," Hope sighed and rubbed their head, "Sit down, this might take a tiny bit."
*'Sit down' and 'tiny bit' don't go together,* Ash pointed out and Rory just grumbled to Shadow, *Sit on him, a lot bit.* Lok turned to Hope and gestured to them to start, "Lay it on us, Quadro; And make it snappy. I don't particularly like being held hostage and used as a plaything for some 4D rando who probably has nothing better to do in their society except fuck with those of us in the 3rd dimension."
Ash gave Hope a wide-eyed look, *Start your monologue funky ghost man.* With that said, Ash flopped over Shadow's head as the Ender Dragon hesitantly sat down. Rune reluctantly sat down, leaning against Shadow, and Lok laid on the ground with his hands supporting his head just enough to look at Hope.
"Your not my hostages; Ok, let's begin with some comforting news, you're not dying from these 'glitches' as you call them... In fact, those ones you experienced are the only ones you'll experience," Hope explained to them and Ash remarked, *Well, that's good at least.*
Rune let out a sigh of relief before remembering something and asking Hope, "Wait, then why did Carpy, Trookay, and Leor disappear?" Hope just replied with, "I'm getting to that." Ash nodded and also chimed in, *Jacob the ghost bitch has slow funky words.*
"Sometimes, when you move someone from one universe to another their atoms don't properly settle in the new universe; At around twelve to eighteen hours in the new universe, they will experience a glitch where their atoms will try to decide whether to ground themselves in the new reality or return to the old one," Hope explained, "Those that disappeared have simply returned to their original universe, most likely to their original form too."
Rune asked, "So you're saying that those three returned home while we're still here; Does that mean that we are accepted into this universe?" Hope nodded and explained, "Yes, you all have stayed and your atoms are now grounded in this dimension; You will not glitch again."
Shadow sighed deeply in relief, slightly relaxing as he heard those that disappeared were not dead, they are his friends after all. *Thank gods they didn't get killed,* Shadow said in relief and Rune spoke up, "Yeah, I don't think that would have settled well with any of us if they just died like that."
*Makes as much sense as anything else I suppose... which leaves us saddled with this 'plan'* Rory said and then Ash blinked slowly, thinking of something and eventually speaking up to ask, *What would happen if I glitched while stabbing someone's ass?*
"Why is that your question?" Rune asked Ash who just replied with, *Knowledge.*
Hope glanced at Ash with an amused expression, "Probably nothing, the glitch only affects the atoms of those who've moved universes." Meanwhile, Lok turned to Ash and told the little dragon seriously, "Ash, stop talking about stabbing people's asses or I'll shove you up Quadro's." Ash just continued unphased, *But like, would my tail barb phase into their ass and then solidify? That would be fun!*
*Lok, I don't think you even can, this ghost guy, Hope, is seemingly untouchable,* Shadow pointed out the flaw in Lok's plan, whilst Rune facepalmed at Ash's silly behavior.
"We are getting off-topic, I have more to explain before I leave you to your devices-" Hope spoke up, trying to continue, but Lok and Ash continued speaking. Lok turned to Shadow and said, "I'm not calling him Hope; He had his chance to pick a decent name, so I'm gonna call him Quadro." Meanwhile, Ash narrowed his eyes at Rune and asked simply, *Do you want this tail up your ass?*
"Can we talk about this after they have finished explaining everything?" Rune asked Lok and Ash, whilst Shadow shook his head in annoyance and slammed his head into his paws whilst grumbling to himself, *We're never gonna hear actual explanations for all this if we keep going like this...*
Rune let out a sigh in agreement, "At this rate with those two we'd be lucky if they allow Hope to finish another sentence." Hope looked like he agreed with the two, and finally Lok and Ash turned back to the entity. "Ok, yeah. Quadro, finish up," Lok told Hope with a gesture to continue and Ash spoke up, *Don't rush the funky ghost demon.*
Now free to talk, Hope gestured to the group as he spoke, "I am an entity created from all of your anger over the Hidden World, granted it is much more scientific than that but that is the simplest explanation I can go into without you all having an understanding of multiverse quantum physics."
Ash blinked and asked, *So you're a funky ghost-demon made of spite called Jacob?* Meanwhile Rune pointed to Hope and said in a disbelieving tone, "So wait, you're telling me that our pettiness over the Hidden World created you?"
"More out of hope than spite, deep down, even if you do not realize it, you all still hold a tiny nugget of hope for a better end for this universe, born out of love for How To Train Your Dragon," Hope explained further and then Lok perked up, asking the entity, "Wait, that implies you have a full understanding of multiverse quantum physics? Ok, spill, that's a really interesting topic."
*NOOOOOO NOT MORE LONG WORDS!* Ash cried out and collapsed onto Shadow's neck dramatically, whilst Rune agreed with Lok using a nod and looking towards Hope in case they did go into it. Shadow took a deep breath and spoke to the group, *Lok, please, we can ask for a lecture on multiverse quantum physics AFTER the vital explanations of what the hell is going on,* He turned to Hope, *And we will be asking, cause I wanna know more about that.*
"Oh hush you big baby, the words that they are using aren't really that big," Rune told Ash who replied with, *They are massive words, with lots of girth.* After a second Rune responded, "They are just powerful words that carry a lot of weight and meaning behind them," But all Ash said was, *No, they are girthy words.*
"Ok, you're complaining about the word fourth but throw around girth like it's nothing? You are wildly inconsistent with your vocabulary," Lok said to Ash, who took a moment to reply, *Girth isn't a word, none of these are words, these are just noises that I am making with my mouth, does this count as a mouth? I don't know, but still, not words, noises, girthy noises.* Ash puts his wings over his head in order to protect himself from any demons he may have summoned with his words, and Rune just chuckled at the little hybrid's antics.
Hope was just amused, "We will have to see about that explanation of multiverse quantum physics; Anyways, let me continue where I left off." After a moment of pause, Hope continued, "I was created out of your hope for a better end for this 'story' if you can call it that, as well as bitterness over the Hidden World; My purpose is to allow you all to change the end of the Hidden World, so, I brought you all over to this universe."
*...well then,* Rory said with a slow blink, *I sure as hell won't turn down that chance.* After a moment, Rune spoke up and asked the entity, "So wait, what happens to us after we change the ending of the third movie?"
"After the third movie ends, if you succeed, I will give you the option to return to your home universe or stay in this one; However, if you fail, I won't be able to offer the same choice," Hope explained calmly and Ash spoke up, *…well at least either way most of us get to be fucking dragons.*
After a moment, Rory spoke, *But what about our universe now? We're years ahead of the third film, are we just going to be missing the whole time?* After Rory finished speaking, Hope immediately picked up the conversation, "You will most likely return to the same point in time you were taken."
" Oof that's a hard choice, either return home and go back to my same old boring life but see my family again or stay here with these characters and show that I grew up loving and start a new life, " Rune thought to himself and then spoke up whilst rubbing the back of his head, "What happens if we fail?"
Hope shrugs and tells them, "If you fail, you are just stuck in a world where The Hidden World happened." Ash looked disgusted, *Ewwwwww.* Rune hummed to himself and said, "Well then, I guess we only get one shot at changing the future of this franchise."
After a moment of silence, Lok spoke up, "So, we return to the same place where we were taken from, same body and all? Hm, you sure this isn't just some elaborate dream of someone in a coma?" Hope fixated a serious glare at the human and said with as much force as he could, "This is not a dream, if you die here, you are dead forever; Even if the others succeed, you will not come back, I am nowhere near that powerful."
"Anyways, I cannot offer the same choice if you fail is due to, again, multiverse quantum physics; Bringing you all here required every last bit of energy I could gather to open eight tears between universes, and the only way to get enough energy again is by a massive shift in this universe's timeline, specifically the Hidden World not ending the way it did," Hope also explained, so they knew why he couldn't just send them back right now.
"So real stakes with real consequences, this is just another reality with similar rules to ours," Rune spoke up suddenly and Hope nodded at him, just saying, "Exactly." Suddenly, Shadow grumbled to himself, *Oh thank fuck I didn't try to jump off a cliff to learn how to fly.*
"This is going to be a lot harder with us being down three members," Rune pointed out and Hope spoke up, "I had no idea how many of you would remain behind or get sent back, which is why I brought as many people over as possible."
"Well, we're stuck in the middle ages with notoriously violent Vikings, dozens of new kinds of poisons and illnesses, and hostile climate; Weirdly enough, the giant fire-breathing reptiles seem like the least of our worries," Lok spoke up and Ash snorted at Hope's words, *Oh yeah, you brought over so many people.*
"Based on Hiccup's age, we're still a good 4 or 5 years away from the ending... And we gotta at the bare minimum survive until them," Lok spoke up and then Rune added onto it with, "While fighting off all the villains that come throughout those 4 years; We might be able to pull this off if we play it smart."
After a moment, Hope spoke up, "I would've put you around the time of the second movie if I could, but unfortunately when in time you ended up in the timeline wasn't as precisely controlled as I'd like; I managed to narrow it down to before the Hidden World and just after the first movie, but otherwise I had little control over the exact time."
"Well that's dandy," Lok said and Ash remarked sarcastically, *Oh this is going to go so well...*
"Well, at least this gives us time to prepare," Rune pointed out, trying to be optimistic about their situation, and after a moment Shadow spoke up, *And at least we didn't end up during the beginning of the first movie or long before.* Rune turned to look at the dragons and said, "I would have pitied you guys if that was the case." Shadow stomped his foot and complained, *It... Would've... Sucked.*
"Any questions before I depart?" Hope asked after Shadow quieted down, and Rory spoke up after a moment, *Hmm... do you know if we'll be able to get the rest of the humans talking with dragons? As lopsided as our crew is, we're stuck playing charades without one of the humans around; Which, I can probably manage well enough, but wouldn't that make it easier to divert the course of the franchise?*
"When are you gonna give us that multiversal physics lesson?" Lok asked and then Rune also asked cause he really wanted to know the answer to one question, "Just one; What caused some of us to become dragons while others remained human?"
Hope turned to Rory, "Arourallis, or Rory, I can only say that it is completely possible for the other humans to learn proper Dragonese, Berkian or not; Although it would be challenging." Hope turned to Lok and continued, "Lok, I cannot appear very often, more multiverse quantum physics, so I am afraid that lesson will have to wait."
Shadow sighed under his breath, *Aw...* Lok sighed and then pointed at Hope, "Damn it; You can't put it off forever though."
Rory perked up and began to speak, *Wait- oh they don't have to learn to speak it, just understand! Like District 9! It'll still be hard, but not as hard as getting them to make dragon noises; Dragons probably understand them just fine already.*
Hope turned to Rune, "And Rune, well, to be honest... that was up to multiple factors; Subconscious desire to be a dragon or other species, having enough multiverse energy around you to do so, and a few other things."
Rune nodded as he understood most of what Rune said, whilst Shadow raised his paw as a child would in class, *But how is what type of dragon we become chosen? I thought with how much I've wanted to be a dragon, specifically a Night Fury, I'd end up as one; But I'm an Ender Dragon.*
"Oh you wanted to be a Night Fury, that sounds cool, but in hindsight might have made things more complicated if Hiccup found out," Rune spoke and Shadow hummed, *True, it probably would've; Although it might've been a good way to technically disprove Grimmel, or at least convince Hiccup that Grimmel might be lying...*
"Well, as cool as it would be to be a dragon, and useful to be more survivable, I'm glad I still have hands," Lok remarked whilst Ash turned to Shadow and asked, *The idiot that was going on about how 'oh Night Furies can't survive the cold yalllllll'?* Shadow nodded and answer with a snort, *Oh yeah, that idiot.*
"Ha, Grimmel, what a joke," Lok said and after a moment Shadow spoke up, with a half-joking half-serious tone, *Honestly we might not even need to fight him, some simple logic and we could probably take him down with little difficulty, both his claims and his 'plans.'*
"Maybe, but we can't get cocky because we are laughing at his skills in the movie; This is the real world for us now," Rune pointed out and Shadow nodded, *True.*
"Good point, the people here have skills developed a lifetime we have no ability in," Lok spoke up and Rune said to him, "We have skills but they aren't relevant for this time." After a moment, Lok answered, "I meant relevant skills; We're at a huge disadvantage, if we wanna survive we need to level the playing field, or better yet, tilt it in our favor."
After a moment of silence, Hope answered Shadow's question, "As for why you ended up as the breeds you did... well, I had no control over that, best I can theorize is that the timeline influenced your subconscious to pick the best form for the tasks ahead of you; But that is only a theory." They clapped their hands together and asked, "Anyways, any more questions before I leave?"
*I can't think of any more questions,* Shadow said and turned to the rest of the group, asking them, *Can you all think of any?*
*Shbsgwnsksiush words are hard,* Ash suddenly blurted out and Rune turned to say, "I think Ash is having a meltdown." After that, Rune turned to Hope and answered them, "I don't have anymore questions." Lok also spoke up, telling Hope, "Yeah, no more questions; Quadro, you are dismissed you fucker."
*Auf wiedersehen Jacob bitch ghost,* Ash told the entity, who just ignored him and spoke to the group as a whole, "Well, if that's that, I will be taking my leave; I can only appear for so long in this dimensional plane." Before Hope could disappear, he realized something and spoke up again, "Oh, before I go, I can help you with one thing."
"And what's that?" Rune asked and Hope looked directly at him, telling him that, "Hiccup and the Riders will be here in about thirty minutes, maybe an hour; So, you may want to think of what you're going to tell them to explain the disappearance of Carpy, Trookay, and Leor."
"Yeah, that was what we were kind of talking about before you showed up; Best I got is that they were taken away which is true in a sense," Rune answered the entity, whilst Shadow whispered to himself, *Well, shit. Ok, no freaking out.*
Hope looked over all of them and nodded, "With that said, I will be leaving now; Goodbye all, I wish you luck in preventing the Hidden World's ending." And then, in the literal blink of an eye, Hope was gone as if they had never even been there. Sound quickly returned to normal, the wind picking back up.
*Tschüss bitch boy,* Ash said to the now long-gone entity, and then a pause of silence fell over the group for a long moment, then Shadow turned to them and asked a bit worried, *Ok please tell me you guys saw that and I didn't just hallucinate that entire encounter?*
*Nope, the funky ghost-demon was real,* Ash told Shadow, who sighed in relief over the fact that they were not going crazy, the Ender Dragon saying, *Oh thank gods, I'm not going crazy.* Then, after a pause to remember all the shit he's done with his life, he amended his previous statement, *Crazier.*
"Um no, you were not hallucinating Shadow, we all saw it," Rune also added for the benefit of the Ender Dragon's sanity, and then said to the entire group, "So we need to figure an excuse for the disappearance of three of our members before the riders show up."
Meanwhile, in the woods of Berk roughly twenty minutes or so away, Hiccup, Toothless, and the rest of the Riders and their Dragons were all slowly making their way on foot to the Cove. A lot of them were still waking up and thus decided not to risk riding a dragon whilst tired, as that could only lead to disaster.
"Man, Hiccup, did you have to wake us up this early in the morning to do this?" Snotlout complained as he crossed his arms, and Hiccup glanced back at him to say in an unbothered voice, "Yes, Snotlout I did. There are five new dragons with three humans! This is huge, other people who are friendly with Dragons..."
Hiccup then sheepishly rubbed his neck as he thought about the earlier morning, "My Dad... also may have heard of this and wants you all to tag along for safety, as well as for them to come back with us so he can meet them."
"It's so cool! We've never seen any of those dragons before! They're whole new species!" Fishlegs excitedly told them all, practically shaking over the desire to run to the Cove and study all of the new dragons he'd seen last night. After Fishlegs quieted down, Astrid spoke up in concern, "I'm more worried about their Riders, are you sure we can trust them? They appeared out of nowhere."
"Relax Astrid, I'm sure that these strangers won't be a problem, and if they are I'll protect you," Snotlout told Astrid in a very stoic and flirtatious manner and if Hiccup hadn't rolled his eyes and spoke up just after, Astrid would've hit him. Hiccup told Astrid in a sure and comforting voice, "Look, I'm pretty sure we can trust them; They ride Dragons, just like us, they didn't seem to be armed, they wanted help getting one of their dragons out of the Cove... I don't think they mean any harm."
Toothless thought Hiccup was far too trusting and Astrid apparently thought so as well, Astrid telling the one-legged Rider, "Hiccup, that may be true, but you trust easily, that could backfire on us." Toothless nodded in agreement with Astrid, and Hiccup shot an annoyed look at Toothless.
"Maybe that's what they want you to think before they take you and do some unholy experiments," Tuffnut spoke up and began to go on a rant, which was typical for the Twin, and Astrid looked like she was debating if she could get away with knocking the two Twins out and leaving them behind.
"Oh come on, you too bud?" Hiccup asked Toothless, who grumbled and answered even though Hiccup wouldn't understand the words, *My job is to keep you alive, and you don't make that very easy.* Hiccup rolled his eyes, he didn't need to understand the words to get their meaning, "I can take care of myself bud, I'm not five."
*Yeah, you're worse; At least toddlers are afraid of giant flaming reptiles, you have no survival instinct,* Toothless told him calmly and Hiccup just sighed, mumbling to himself as he turned back to Astrid, "Thanks so much for your support on this, bud." After a deep breath, Hiccup told Astrid, "Me trusting so easily got a friend in Toothless."
Astrid did not look impressed as she spoke, "That's a dragon, are they even capable of deceiving people or tricking them?"
"I wouldn't underestimate a Dragon, Astrid," Hiccup half-joked before saying in a more serious tone, "Also, if Dragons can't deceive people, there were five Dragons there and they didn't seem threatening in the slightest."
"Yeah but your trust has nearly got us killed or blown up several times now," Ruffnut spoke up and Hiccup raised an eyebrow in their directions, asking them in a disbelieving tone of voice, "Ruffnut, you and Tuffnut are responsible for how many of those 'nearly blown ups'?"
"Too many to count my muchacho," Tuffnut answered for his twin and Hiccup gestured to the two as he told them, "See, totally not the fault of my trust then; You two nearly blow yourselves up on a weekly basis."
Astrid grumbled under her breath over the Twin's antics, asking Hiccup in a whisper, "Is it too late to drop them in a well for the next fifty years?" Hiccup turned to her and simply replied with, "Yes." And with that, Hiccup turned to Fishlegs.
"Fishlegs, you have a book to write down info about those new dragons in? We need to get notes on them so we can add them to the Book of Dragons later," Hiccup asked the larger Dragon Rider, who pulled out a book with some blank pages and held it up so the others could see; Fishlegs answered Hiccup happily, "I never leave home without one!"
"Which of the new dragons are you most excited to look at?" Hiccup asked and Fishlegs quickly answered, "Well, there was that one that looked kinda like a Night Fury! It's the closest thing we've seen to Toothless yet! And that really big one, it's the biggest we've seen besides the Red Death!"
"I wonder how much damage these dragons can cause," Ruffnut questioned and Tuffnut spoke up quickly and excitedly, "Oh I bet that the big one Hiccup was talking about could level a village with just one breath of its fire."
"Focus everyone! We're here for a reason, and we aren't looking to level the village," Astrid told them and Hiccup spoke up as well whilst glaring at the Twins, "No destruction with the new dragons." Ruffnut and Tuffnut both looked at the two with pouty faces, Ruffnut telling them, "Oh your no fun."
Hiccup turned to Fishlegs and said, "I know, those are the ones I wanna take a look at too." After this, Hiccup glanced around and realized the path up ahead would be difficult to traverse during wintertime, and the conversation seemed to have woken up most of the group, so he asked, "Alright everyone, let's get on our dragons and fly to the Cove."
Quickly, all of the Riders climbed on their Dragons, Hiccup taking a little longer in order to not slip. He climbed on and hooked his prosthetic into the saddle, opening the tail fin and whispering to Toothless, "Let's go bud." And with that, the entire group took flight, quickly heading for the Cove...
Back in the Cove, the group was planning as best they could. Rory thought to themself, * Well, great. Three of our numbers are gone, Hiccup and co. are on the way, and we need an excuse quick. * After a moment of thinking, Rory spoke up, *Alright, we need a cover; Two dragons and a human are gone, easy to say they just had an emergency and needed to go home, right?* After a pause, they also added, *Or we woke up and they were gone, and that's what we think happened; There isn't a trace of them, so we could swing just about any story.*
Ash stretched his wings and looked up about, saying, *It would be easier to say we don't know what happened, at least with that it would be hard to slip up with the story, if we fabricate a whole new one we might get it wrong or something.*
"Can we just say they spontaneously combusted?" Lok suggested, "I mean, it's not all that far from the truth; Probably not gonna do any favors to calm their nerves." Rune, hearing this, turned to him and asked, "Are you crazy, that would make things worse as they will start to ask questions; Questions that we can't answer less we reveal the truth to them, and I don't we are ready for that yet."
Ash snorted at Lok's suggestion, *I'd love to see the look on their faces but we probably shouldn't panic anyone.* Ash looked disappointed at that.
Shadow, meanwhile, suddenly thought of something and his eyes widen almost comically as he backed up a step, *Wait... Why the fuck did the ghost entity thing look like the G-Man from Half-Life?! Why did it take me this long to realize, I've played Half-Life hundreds of times!?* The Ender Dragon shouted in shock, confusion, and plenty of other emotions.
"Wait, you didn't notice that? I just thought it went unspoken," Lok said whilst Ash spoke up, *I dunno what Half-Life is, but we literally came from a discord server, let's not think about it too hard.* Rune looked at Shadow and said to him, "Okay yeah, I've noticed that but can we save that conversation for perhaps later."
"Anyway, either come up with a better plan or I'm just saying we didn't know them and they flew away," Lok spoke up and looked between them, and Rune eventually said, "I think them flying away would be a good reason and we don't know where they went is a good excuse."
*Maybe... It could work but we need to be sure,* Shadow said with a little nervousness, and Rory spoke up, thinking out loud, *So, best we've got is 'they left for who-knows-where while we were still asleep. we'd better act concerned, ask if they've seen anyone.*
"Alright so we should probably start on our acting so we can be on point for when they arrive," Rune told them and Lok added on, "We can just say we'd didn't actually know them that well, that we just kinda met them on the road."
Ash made an attempt at looking devastated, dropping off of Shadow and onto the ground whilst beating his wings, *Oh no! The people that we absolutely don't know at all have disappeared! We have completely no idea where they went!*
Shadow turned to Lok and Rune, now the only two who had been in the village, *Ok, I wasn't in the village with you all, I need a recap of what exactly happened so I don't slip up.*
"Hm, Kay nearly mauled me," Lok said after a moment and Ash stopped acting, telling Lok, *L.*
"We ran into Trookay, Kay and Carpy and went to the forge and met Hiccup, and Toothless and asked them to help us get you guys out of the cove; We chatted for a bit and made it here, Trookay had a little freak out on the way but nothing serious; Oh yeah Hiccup got a little suspicious of us but he seems to trust us," Rune explained in more detail and Shadow nodded and asked, *Ok, what story did you tell Hiccup? About where we are from?*
"Ummmm, shit I don't really know, Carpy was talking to him while I handled Kay," Lok spoke up and then Rune remembered something and told the Ender Dragon, "I think I remember saying that we are from the mainland and we were driven off due to us being friendly with dragons."
*Ok, we can work with that,* Shadow remarked and after a moment, Rory spoke up with an idea that they had just had, *And we could pretty easily blame homesickness; It's not even a lie.* Rory shrugged, *They could be here any moment, and we all have to keep focused; Their dragons understand us, so we can't exactly mouth off.*
*Oh yeah... wait, the other Dragons can understand us, I totally forgot, that might be a problem,* Shadow spoke up in answer to Rory's idea, *What if we say something un-dragon like?* Ash glanced at the Ender Dragon and simply said, *Kill 'em.*
"Toothless would probably relieve you of your head," Lok said casually and then went on to muse, "Hm, do you think Night Furies are like jaguars? Killing blow by crushing the skull in their jaws? Or do you think they're more like Leopards and kill by the neck."
Rune ignored him and told Shadow, "Just chalk it up to cultural differences since you are from the mainland." Shadow was going to nod but then had a question, *Do Dragons even have cultural differences by region?* Rune shrugged and answered, "You'd suspect as they are pretty intelligent in this show so who knows, it's possible."
*Well, dragons understand humans right? We can just say we've been around humans for a long time,* Ash suggested. After a few moments of silence, Rory spoke up, *Well, we have some plausible deniability; Shadow and I can claim we weren't raised with our own kind, and Ash was abandoned for being a hybrid; So, we're more socialized with humans than 'our own' kind.*
"Hopefully the whole idea of hybrids aren't suspicious," Lok added and then Shadow spoke up, talking in Rory's direction, *That could work, maybe say we were raised by Humans? That way if we screw up and do something too Human, we can write it off as having been raised by Humans; Which, actually, isn't a lie.*
*Well, for me, Scuttleclaws and Speed Stingers are both pretty small so… it could work,* Ash said to Lok and a moment of silence overtook the group once again before Rune spoke up, "So we pretty much got our story now we just need to stick with it for this to work."
*Maybe we should have an escape plan should this go south?* Shadow suggested to Rune, *Cause there are like, over ten of them and only five of us; You and Lok are unarmed and the Dragons in our group haven't fought in our new bodies.*
*And even if we can fight, Toothless would be an issue, Night Furies are tough,* Ash said seriously and Lok spoke up, "Worst comes to worst, we tell them the partial truth, that we're time travelers."
Shadow turned to Lok and told him, *I think universe travelers would be more accurate of terminology.* Lok answered with, "More accurate, but also harder to explain." Shadow nodded.
*So long as we're polite we might be able to recover from a slip or two, so no threats,* Rory said with a note of finality and Ash scoffed, telling them all, *No threats, you guys are no fun.* Rune turned to Ash and told the little hybrid, "If your want to be placed in a body bag, I'm not stopping you, but that's something that you should do without everyone being in potential danger."
Lok spoke up, "I mean, I'm not opposed to figuring out if a Night Fury kills more similarly to a leopard or jaguar, my hypothesis is a jaguar." Rune looked over at him and told him that, "Yeah, but I would rather not lose another member of our squad right now since we already just lost three a couple of minutes ago."
Lok shrugged and then suggested a new idea, "Hm, should we all say we're from the same place, or from all over and ended up meeting up? It may make cover stories a bit easier since we don't all have to keep the exact same story." Shadow hummed, *That could work.*
Ash nodded and said, *And it would be easier since I tend to say stuff in random languages for the fun of it.*
After a moment, Shadow had an idea and spoke up, *Alright, so, escape plan idea; Arourallis, you can grab Rune; I'll grab Lok and Ash, and we both bolt, head west, I think Dragon Island is west.*
"The only problem is how do we plan to outrun a Night Fury, and the other dragons are not slow by any means," Rune pointed out and Lok suggested an idea, "Scratch its pressure point, and escape while it's down." Ash, hearing Rune's words, snickered, *Except for Meatlug, she got that name for a reason.*
Shadow suddenly spoke up with a hum, *Maybe with my size and weight I could pin Toothless to the ground? Or at least delay him for a while, Arourallis can take the rest of you and I could circle back around.* Lok looked at him and told him in a serious tone, "Bro, Toothless is gonna crunch your skull, or death roll your neck; Juries still out."
*Can he even fit my skull in his mouth?* Shadow asked whilst thinking about it, uncertain and also feeling slightly sick at that mental image. Rune spoke up with, "I don't think so but who knows with how overpowered he is."
After a moment, Lok told Shadow, "If a jaguar can do it to a cayman, I don't doubt a Night Fury could do it to you; Doesn't need to fit your whole skull, Jaguars don't, just enough to cranch." At the word cranch Shadow slightly shivers.
*And what about the eyes? One blast to the eyes or down the throat and you're out,* Ash suggested and this gave Shadow an entire, the Ender Dragon quickly speaking up and suggesting, *Wait, Toothless's prosthetic tail fin, one precision shot of fire and he's down for a while.*
Rory rolled their eyes and spoke, *How about we just don't antagonize anyone and we probably won't need to run for the hills? We're lost and weary travelers that just want someplace to call home, and we've found people like 'us'. Just play the part and don't get too specific, and we should be fine.*
*Yeah...* Shadow began to answer before his eyes widened as he thought of something, *Wait, ghost entity said they'd be here in how long again?*
"Probably very soon," Lok remarked and Shadow looked up, looking just to be sure... and sure enough, flying towards the Cove were five dragons with six humans, the Dragon Riders and their Dragons. *Or right now,* Shadow corrected Lok.
*Ah, come on, already?!* Ash asked in shock and Shadow turned to tell him, *Ghost entity said like, an hour or something, we've been talking for a while!*
Rune glanced up at the flying and slowly descending dragons, "Shit it's now or never." Shadow looked around the group and told them with a slight waver in his voice, *Ok, everyone, stay calm, try not to slip up, let's do this thing.* Then, the Ender Dragon proceeded to whisper to himself, *Ok, don't forget the backstory we're going with, don't forget it, don't.*
Lok, hearing this, questioned Shadow, "Wait, did we ever decide a single-story besides mainland refugees friendly with dragons?" Shadow realized they hadn't and quickly hissed at the group, *Too late, just fake it until we make it or whatever.*
The six Dragon Riders and their five Dragons descended into the Cove, landing only a few dozen feet away from Rory, Lok, Rune, Shadow, and Ash. "Hi!" Lok shouted to the group whilst Ash eyed the newcomers warily, raising his tail barb slightly, to which Lok noticed, "Ash, stop threatening the friends."
Shadow gently used his tail to lower Ash's tail, giving him a stern 'do not risk a fight' look; Toothless eyed Ash warily and Rory hissed at the little hybrid, *Ash, absolutely not.* With that said, Rory turned to the other dragons and greeted them, *Oh, we've heard of you! It is good to finally meet.*
Hiccup raised a satchel of supplies from where he sat on Toothless's back, calling out to them happily, "Hey! I got you some supplies!"
Lok and Rune went up to him, Lok remarking, "Oh shit! That's awesome! Thank you so much." Rune nodded alongside him, adding, "Thanks, we really appreciate it."
Hiccup climbed off of Toothless's back and moved closer to the two humans before glancing at the group of five, noticing the missing three and asking, "Hey, wasn't there another one of you, a girl? And where did two of the Dragons go?" Hiccup tried not to feel disappointed over the disappearance of the one that looked like a Night Fury...
"They flew away," Lok answered with a shrug as Ash hissed, stepping closer to Shadow and telling the new dragons, *They took off, I dunno why.* Rune decided to explain further, faking a side sigh and speaking, "They flew off this morning before any of us woke up; We think that they might be flying home."
" Would now be a bad time to ask Hiccup about Night Fury killing blows? Probably, " Lok thought to himself.
"Oh," Hiccup answered and then he remembered what the others said about him trusting too easily... But might very well be telling the truth, and he decided to trust that they were, at least for now. "That sucks, are you all ok?"
Lok nodded and answered, "Yeah, we're fine, those of us still here at least; I think the others got a bit homesick." Ash silently looked away and Rune spoke up, adding on as well, "We're dealing with it but it's still a big blow to us all losing three members of our group." Shadow nodded as the two humans spoke.
Toothless eyed the five new individuals in suspicion and Rune returned that look with a blank one of his own, cutting that look as Hiccup walked fully up to the two humans and held out the satchel of supplies, telling them, "Here you go."
Rune nodded to Hiccup in appreciation, "Thanks." Lok, being closer to Hiccup, took the supplies and told him as well, "Thank you so much; Also, I don't think we've been introduced to the rest of your merry band back there." As Lok said this, he gestured to the group behind Hiccup.
"Oh, yeah," Hiccup said and gestured to each individual as he spoke, "You already met Fishlegs and Meatlug; There is Astrid, Stormfly, Tuffnut, Ruffnut, Barf & Belch, Snotlout, and finally Hookfang."
"Sup," Snotlout said and Tuffnut waved, just telling them, "Hey." Astrid, however, eyed the five new individuals and observed them silently. Ash eyed Astrid and Toothless, his quills rising as he looked at them.
*Ash, do we need to put you in time out again?* Rory growled to the little hybrid and then turned to the bigger group, *Please, forgive him; He's basically a baby still.*
Lok chuckled under his breath and whispered to himself, "That's the understatement of the century," Then, he thought to himself, " Fuck that may have looked weird. " Meanwhile, Rune lost his composure slightly over Rory calling Ash a baby.
Ash, who had moved to near Lok, whipped around to Rory, growling, *I'm not a baby!* Lok then leaned down and scratched Ash lightly, "Aww, look's like this little guy is having a tantrum again." Ash snarled and headbutted Lok in the legs, although Lok managed to not fall over and Rune snickered, Ash growling at them, *SHUT UP.*
Hiccup looked at the interaction between Ash and Lok, and asked, "So, um, do your dragons have names? I can't remember if you told us them or not." Shadow took a deep breath whilst hoping this wouldn't end in disaster, and Ash growled under his breath, *I'm not anybody's.*
"Oh, they do, ankle-biter here is Ash, the big guy over there is Shadow, and the other big man with four wings is Rory," Lok introduced the dragons and Hiccup smiled, asking the non-Berkian, "Nice! Can we look at them? We've never seen them before."
"Sur, be my guest," Rune said calmly and Lok also answered, "Sure! Go right ahead; May I also check out yours? Dragons are such fascinating creatures." Ash, meanwhile, stepped closer to Shadow as he was uncomfortable being looked at as an animal even though he technically was one.
Hiccup began to approach Rory, who gave a little bow at the earlier introduction and spread their upper wings. Hiccup reached a hand out to Rory, whispering slowly and calmly, "Hey there..."
"Ten bucks says Ash is gonna try and sting someone," Lok whispered to Rune, who replied with, "Oh he's diffidently is going to try." Hiccup heard the whispering and remember Lok's earlier question, turning around and answering him, "Oh? Yeah, after this we'll introduce you to our Dragons; They are... a little distrusting of new people." Hiccup refrained from rolling his eyes at Toothless's continued suspicious stares.
Lok looked straight at the glaring Night Fury, replying to Hiccup with a light chuckle and some words, "Yeah, I can tell." Rune, seeing Toothless's stares, whispered to Lok in a joking manner, "Heh, wonder what he's thinking."
Hiccup turned back to Rory and reached his hand out again, and Rory felt this was going to be strange considering the situation. They moved slowly and planted their new weird nose in Hiccup's palm, the Stormcutter finding it strange due to being a human mind in a dragon body, but they told themselves in their mind, * Play the part, play the part .*
Fishlegs, meanwhile, walked right up to Ash and leaned down, "Aww, hey there little guy." Shadow glared at Ash and told him, *Do not sting him.* Ash, however, snarled in pure rage and leaped onto Fishlegs, climbing on top of his head and knocking his helmet off.
Lok was laughing and Rune was barely holding back his own laughter, saying, "Oh, now you done it, Fishlegs." Ash, however, shouted loudly, *FUCK OFF.* Shadow, realizing Meatlug and the other dragons might have an issue with Ash's current actions, quickly plucked Ash off of Meatlug, telling the other dragons, *Sorry! Sorry! He's, uh, a baby, yeah.*
Shadow dropped Ash onto the ground next to him and Lok said to Ash, "Aww, come on, you having a temper tantrum?" Rune, meanwhile, turned to Ash and whispered, "Nah, more like a midget with a temper." Ash, hearing and seeing all this, howled as loudly as he could whilst spinning around to face all of them, *FUCK ALL OF YOU!*
*Doesn't matter, keep it away from Hiccup or I'll blast it,* Toothless told Shadow, who nodded with a roll of the eyes and replied, *Sure, whatever helps you sleep better at night.* Hiccup, hearing the growl from Toothless, turned around to speak, "Ah Toothless, it's alright, Fishlegs is fine; Right Fishlegs?" Fishlegs nodded.
Ash snarled and then yelled at Toothless, *I'LL STAB YOUR ANUS!* Rory turned around and hissed at Shadow and Ash, *Manners! * Rune his head in amusement at the dragon antics.
Toothless stared at Ash with wide eyes and a blank expression before asking Shadow in disbelief, *Ok, excuse me, but did that tiny ass thing just threaten to stab my ass?* If this was a less serious situation, Shadow would've laughed at Toothless's expression but he didn't, quickly telling the Night Fury, *He's like uh, the Humans call the stage of life a teenager. Pent-up aggression and such, disrespecting authority...*
Shadow turned to Ash with a glare and finished, *Not listening to others when they say to not cause a scene.* Ash turned to the Ender Dragon and snarled loudly, *I WILL STAB YOU TOO!* Shadow rolled his eyes and turned to Toothless, telling him, *Again, like a teenager.*
*So he's like a tiny Snotlout?* Toothless asked and Rory answered with a roll of the eyes, *Based on the look of this 'Snotlout', probably.* Ash, however, did not like being compared to Snotlout and shrieked accordingly, *DO NOT COMPARE ME TO THE HOG-LOOKING HORNY ASSHOLE OVER THERE!* Lok had to hold back a laugh over the shit Ash was yelling.
*Try lighting him on fire, or throwing him, that's what Hookfang does,* Toothless gave them some tips with a shrug.
Hiccup, who had not paid attention to any of that, turned to Fishlegs to ask, "Fishlegs, can you get a sketch of... Uh, Rory here?" Fishlegs pulled out his notebook with an excited nod, answering him with a short, "Sure thing!" Rory snorted but humored Fishlegs and stretched out in order to show off all of their fancy bits and pieces, wondering why their tail vane couldn't move but ignoring it, *Heh, this'll be a first; Course I have to be a whole other species for someone to want to draw me.*
Ash mumbled under his breath, *Get a sketch of Toothless's asshole while you're at it, I wanna stab shit.*
Snotlout and the Twins walked up to Shadow, looking over the Ender Dragon. "Woah he's huge!" Ruffnut remarked and Tuffnut spoke up excitedly, "Imagine how much damage he could cause!" Snotlout, seeing an opportunity, tried to brag, *Imagine how cool it would be for this dragon to have me riding on it.*
Lok looked at Snotlout and told him, "I don't think he'd take kindly to you trying to ride him." And not one second later, Shadow glared at Snotlout and told the short Rider, *Try to climb on me and I'll send you into the Cove pond faster than you can say 'Oops'.*
Snotlout chuckled nervously at the glare of the orange-eyed Ender Dragon, "You know what, I think I'm better off riding Hookfang."
Hiccup looked over Rory, curious and a feeling of familiarity that the one-legged Rider couldn't shake, "Looking at you, you... feel familiar but I just can't place where I might've seen you before if I ever have." The one-legged teen shrugged and wrote it off, "Maybe it was in a book or something."
Shadow's eyes widened as he realized Hiccup might be being reminded of Cloudjumper, even if the young Rider himself didn't realize it. Rory realized the same and decided to avoid fucking up the timeline more, staring with as much innocence as they could muster and mused aloud so that the other dragons could hear, *You seem... familiar too? No, more like someone we wanted to meet...*
Lok spoke up, "Anyways, I don't think we've introduced ourselves to the rest of you, I'm Lok and the other human is Rune, and we've introduced the dragons; Pleasure to make your acquaintance." Ash grumbled and climbed up Shadow, staying on the Ender Dragon's back.
"Oh, hush you," Rune told Ash, who replied with a quick, *Fuck off.* Lok looked over at Ash and said to the little hybrid, "Ash, stop being a brat." Ash turned to him and said as well, *You fuck off as well.*
"Stop being a brat or you get no dragon nip for a week," Lok told the hybrid, who whined, *Awww but I want the dragon drugs.* Lok simply told him, "Then stop being a brat." Rune whispered to Lok, asking, "Are you that's smart, giving a toddler drugs?" Lok whispered back, "No, but it's the only thing that makes him even remotely calm."
"Fishlegs, did you finish your sketch?" Hiccup asked Fishlegs, turning to the larger Dragon Rider, who nodded and held it out, answering, "Yeah, just about finished."
"Nice! I wonder what this species of dragon is called?" Hiccup questioned as he looked over Rory, removing his hand from the Stormcutter's nose, and Lok answered quickly, "Stormcutter." Hiccup turned to Fishlegs and asked him, "Alright, Fishlegs, you got everything down?" Fishlegs nodded and continued to write in his book.
Ruffnut spoke up and gestured to Rune, "Uh, I think that guy already mentioned what it was." Hiccup chuckled nervously and ran his hands through his hair as he answered, "Oh... yeah, sorry, all the new dragons are kind of distracting."
" Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit; What are we gonna say when Stoick sees Rory? " Lok thought to himself as he realized Stoick would not have a good reaction to seeing another Stormcutter...
"Anyways, should we look at the big one next or the small one?" Hiccup asked and gestured to Shadow and Ash as he spoke, and Lok answered Hiccup as Rune began to move over to Shadow, "Probably Shadow cause Ash will try to shank your ass with paralyzing venom."
Hiccup nodded, "Yeah, and if I go near the little one right now, Toothless might... uh, have an issue with that." Toothless nodded and said, *Understatement of the fucking millennia.*
Rune approached Shadow and asked, "Hey Shadow, mind if I climb on?" Shadow glanced at him slowly and thought before replying slightly deviously, *One ton of fish by the end of the year and you got a deal.* Rune glared at Shadow as he heard the deal, which he thought awful, but the human sighed and nodded anyways. Shadow lowered a wing for him to climb up, which Rune did, climbing up to his neck and resting atop the Ender Dragon's head just between the horns.
Hiccup carefully approached Shadow and reached his hand up towards the Ender Dragon's snout, speaking calmly, *Hey there, big guy... I'm not gonna hurt you...* Lok spoke up from nearby, telling Hiccup, "You don't need to be nearly as careful around Shadow, unlike Ash he won't try to stab you for breathing the wrong way." Rune also spoke up, adding, "Or mentioning his size."
Ash sniffed and just said, *I don't stab, I shank.*
Shadow took a deep breath and mentally told himself not to freak out over meeting Hiccup in person, and lowered his head so Hiccup could touch his snout. The one-legged Rider touched the Ender Dragon's snout gently and ran his hand down it, curiously observing the dragon.
Shadow must not have hidden his expressions well enough as Lok faked a cough and whispered, "Fanboy." Rune also whispered the same from atop Shadow's head. Toothless glared at the Ender Dragon and told him calmly, *Make one wrong move and I'll blast you.*
"You getting a sketch of him?" Hiccup asked Fishlegs, who nodded vigorously, and thus Hiccup turned to Toothless and told him, "Toothless, be nice." Toothless did not let up his glare and Ash said to Toothless, *Finally, someone as vicious as me.* Toothless looked at the little dragon on Shadow's back and said, *No, your just crazy; I'm just protecting my suicidal twig.*
Shadow took a deep calming breath, making himself look as harmless as he could as he thought to himself, * Do not. Freak out. You are only talking to Toothless, who've you had an obsession over for YEARS, who is technically threatening you. * With that, Shadow took another deep breath and promised the Night Fury, *I won't hurt him, I promise.*
Ash told Toothless calmly, *Not crazy, also...* Ash then turned to Astrid and said, *Hot twig.* It took all the will in Shadow's body to not choke as he gave Ash the 'what the hell did you just say' eyes.
As this conversation was going on, Hiccup was completely unaware and asked Rune, "So, what kind of dragon is Shadow?" Rune paused for dramatic effect and then answered, "He's an Ender Dragon." Hiccup was curious and asked Rune, "Oh, an Ender Dragon? Why is his species called that?"
Meanwhile, Toothless had a disturbed look on his face and barked at Ash, *You just said what!?* Ash glanced over at Shadow and gave him a look that meant he thought Shadow was thinking the same of which he was not, before the little hybrid sauntered over to Toothless and patted the Night Fury on the back with one forearm. *You'll understand when you're older,* Ash told him.
Rune was nervous over Hiccup's question, as he couldn't exactly explain it came from a video game, "Well it's because of the stories that they are referred to; The stores usual refer to how they are these strong dragons with a devastating purple fire the melts skin and burn down villages, when you see on it would mean the end. So because of this, they are often hunted back home."
Meanwhile, Toothless pinned Ash with one paw and Ash howled, twisting about and yelling, *FUCK YOUUUUUU!* Shadow gave Toothless pleading eyes, asking the Night Fury, *Please don't murder Ash for being weird.* Toothless smirked and just said to the Ender Dragon, *Don't worry, not gonna kill him, just rough him up a bit...*
Hiccup was completely oblivious to this and asked Rune, "Oh cool! Can we see a demonstration of the fire? Maybe Rory's fire, if they have any, as well?" After a moment, Rune shrugged and answered, "Well sure, but it's mostly up to the dragons if they want to do it."
*Fuck you,* Ash growled at Toothless, who retracted his teeth and picked Ash up by biting on the scruff of his neck, the location where parents would grab their children to make them go limp. Rune really wanted to grab his phone and take a picture of it but knew he couldn't.
Hiccup turned to Rory and Shadow, asking them, "You want to demonstrate your fire?" Shadow turned to Toothless and told him, *If I demonstrate it, keep a close eye on Hiccup. My acid is very highly corrosive and if Hiccup is nearly as suicidal as you say...* Yeah, best to not let Hiccup get melted by Ender Dragon acid this early in the timeline.
Ash went limp but grumbled up at Toothless, *You're going to get a tail barb up the ass for this.* Toothless growled back through a closed mouth, *We'll see, tiny.* With that, Toothless vigorously shook the little dragon before letting go, sending Ash flying into the cove's pond. Ash yowled and flapped his wings.
Shadow sighed and lightly shook his head, *And Ash got yeeted, again.* Rune couldn't resist, he did his best impression of the Wii Sports Announcer and said to Toothless, "Nice throw!" Ash, from the lake, screeched at them, *STOP FUCKING YEETING ME!*
The Twins snickered and Snotlout laughed whilst leaning onto Hookfang, and Hiccup turned and scolded Toothless in disappointment, "Toothless! Don't throw little dragons into lakes!"
"Ah, beautiful; Enough to make a grown man cry," Lok said and mimed clearing a tear from his eye, before turning to Hiccup and telling him, "Don't worry, he deserved it." Shadow sighed and used his tail to get Ash out of the lake, wrapping it around the little hybrid and lifting him up and out before letting him go.
*Don't be sorry, he deserved it,* Rory said to mostly Toothless, before speaking to everyone, *Now, for fire... it might not be a good idea for me to do it here, might set something on fire...*
Lok looked at Toothless and told him, "Nice one." Ash, hearing this, growled weakly and told everyone, *Fuck all of you, tail barbs up the ass for everyone.* Lok just said to everyone, "Watch your butts everyone, the toddler may try to stab them." Ash screeched, *SHANK, NOT STAB!*
Shadow turned to Toothless and told the Night Fury in case he hadn't heard amongst the Ash yeeting, *And my acid is, well, very dangerous; If I do it, keep Hiccup very far away from it.* Toothless glanced at him and nodded, replying, *I was planning on doing that anyway, but I appreciate the heads up.*
Shadow brought his head down towards Lok and whispered to the two humans, *We need to be careful, we're talking to each other too much and the others might grow suspicious of how well we're communicating.* Lok looked back at him and whispered, "And you literally whispering to us isn't suspicious at all?"
However, before Shadow could reply, Snotlout spoke up and taunted Ash, "Heh that little thing? I doubt that it could actually do anything besides roar and squeak." Lok turned to watch with an evil smile, thinking to himself, " Oh this is gonna be good ." Shadow sighed and remarked, *Oh boy here we go...*
Ash froze up in place, turning towards Snotlout with a dead look in his eyes, *…what did he just say?* Snotlout, lacking the ability to read the dangerous ground he was treading into, taunted Ash again, "Ah did I hurt your little itty bitty feelings?"
Shadow slammed his paw into his snout, whispering, *Oh boy...* At the same time, Lok's evil grin grew and he said much lowered the Shadow, "Oh boy!"
Ash took a few steps closer to Snotlout, tail, wings, and quills raising slightly as he remarked, *I have made quite a few threats here today, I think it's time I act on them.* Hiccup had been staring at the face-pawing Ender Dragon before turning around and realizing the situation, speaking up, "Um, Snotlout..."
Ash suddenly leaped forward, shrieking as he bowled Snotlout over. Ash waved his tail around, making multiple attempts to sting Snotlout whilst yelling, *ASS-SCAR FOR YOU, YOU BASTARD!*
Lok turned to Hiccup and whispered, "So, you're about to get a demo of the effects of a very special kind of dragon venom; Non-lethal, don't worry." Snotlout screamed and ran around, trying to get Ash off, nobody trying to help him.
"Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!" Snotlout yelled in repeat and Ash managed to knock Snotlout over, stabbing him in the leg with his stinger and triumphantly stomping on the short Dragon Rider's face as they become paralyzed and couldn't move. *HAHAHA FUCK YOU, HOG-FACED BASTARD!* With that yell, Ash bit Snotlout's nose and then began to scoop up dirt to put in the teenager's hair.
"Well, we're about to witness the effects of the venom of a speed stinger dragon!" Lok finished saying as all that went on, and Hiccup turned to ask for clarification, "Is he gonna be ok?" Rune leaned back on Shadow's head, arms crossed as he answered Hiccup, "Oh yeah just the effects of Speed Stinger venom kicking in."
"After injection, the victim ends up in a state of stiff paralysis for a few hours before making a full recovery," Lok clarified and Hiccup had to be sure just in case, asking, "So he'll recover just fine?" Rune nodded and answered him, "Yeah, in a few minutes to an hour the venom will wear off."
Hiccup glanced at Snotlout and resisted the urge to smirk, he believed the shorter teen deserved this but he would never say that out loud, so he just replied with, "Well then I guess it's alright then."
"I have a few hypotheses on how it works, but I won't go into them here," Lok spoke as Ash finished putting dirt in Snotlout's hair and switched to dumping water from the lake onto Snotlout's hair, then clawing up the boy's pants and turning to ask, *Should I give him an ass-scar anyway?*
Shadow glared at Ash, *No.* With a deep breath and sigh, he asked the others, *Can we get on with the fire demonstration?*
Rune got off of Shadow and picked Ash up by the scruff of the dragon's neck, telling him, "Alright you had your fun time, time to go to the corner." Ash grumbled and asked, *Why not?* Rune delivered an unamused stare, "Cause you've gone far enough, no need to scar someone especially in that kind of way."
The Twins were laughing at Snotlout's misfortune and Astrid hid a smirk, whilst Hiccup stared at the interaction between Rune and Ash, asking, "Huh, weird. Your talking to your dragons very well, must have known them for a while then right?"
Shadow resisted the urge to say 'told you so' as saying it would help no one. Lok quickly answered, "Yeah, at this point, we can pretty much tell what they mean intuitively." Rune gulped as he realized his slip-up, also answering Hiccup, "Y-yeah we had this little bugger here for long enough that we practically know what he's going to say." Lok nodded and continued the conversation, "Especially Ash; He does this a lot, at this point, it's just routine."
"Oh well, that makes sense," Hiccup said and then clapped his hands together, "Anyways, do you want to do the fire demonstration?"
*I'll just get this over with,* Rory muttered, towering over basically everyone except Shadow. Rory reared back and the thing in their neck contracted as they lunged their head forward, opening their jaws and howling a stream of fire across the Cove and into the lake.
Hiccup stared with wide eyes and turned to Fishlegs, "Woah, Fishlegs did you see that? Make sure to make note of it." Fishlegs also stared with wide eyes and answered Hiccup, "Yeah, I'll get that."
Rune also stared wide-eyed at the display of dragon fire, muttering to himself very quietly, "Woah, that's my first time seeing a Stormcutter use its fire and first time seeing a real dragon use its fire breath."
Shadow took a deep breath and remarked, *My turn I guess.* Shadow turned to a clear spot of the Cove, taking a deep breath and feeling a slight shift in his chest before he spat the purple acid fireball at the spot. It hit and exploded in a decently sized cloud of burning acid mist, which lingered there for now.
"Woah, it's a cloud of acid... I wonder how much it burns," Hiccup questioned in shock and Shadow shrugged his wings, *I'll show you.* Shadow saw a fish in the lake and used a slap of his tail to send it flying, the fish landing just within the cloud. Quickly, the flesh on the fish melted and left behind only bones.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut stared with wide eyes, Ruffnut spoke first, "That..." Followed by Tuffnut, "Was..." And then they both shouted at once in excitement, "Awesome!"
Lok turned to Hiccup and answered his question, "A lot." Hiccup moved one foot forward towards the acid and Rory saw this, *What- no.* The Stormcutter blocked Hiccup's path with their tail to keep him from going closer, *Oh some things never change... Fledgelings I mean, they're the same whether they're human or dragon.*
"I'm trying to figure out a good way to bottle it, It's such a fascinating substance," Lok said to Hiccup, and Rune turned to Lok and told him, "Save the science stuff for later, alright pal?"
Hiccup, seeing the expression on Rory's face, told the Stormcutter, "I wasn't going to touch it!" After a moment, he continued, "At least, not with my hands." Rune gave Hiccup a skeptical look whilst Toothless shoot a thankful one at Rory.
As the acid cloud dissipated and thus become harmless, Hiccup turned to Fishlegs and asked, "Anyways, Fishlegs, got everything written down about Shadow and Ender Dragons?" Fishlegs nodded and held up his book, showing sketches of both Shadow and Ash, "Yeah, I also got quite a bit about whatever Ash is."
"I don't think Toothless will let me look at Ash," Hiccup stated sadly and then whispered to himself, "At least right now." With a deep breath, he turned to Lok and Rune and asked them, "So, you want to see our dragons?"
"Yes," Rune said whilst growing a little excited, and Lok spoke up in excitement too, "Oh, very much yes."
Hiccup smiled and walked over to Toothless, gesturing to the Night Fury as he spoke, "This is Toothless, he's a Night Fury and my best friend; Have you heard of Night Furies before? Seen any?" Lok and Rune moved closer, Lok bending down to get a slightly closer look at the dragon.
"We heard of them but never seen any besides him," Rune said and Lok nodded, speaking up and adding, "Sorry, this is the first Night Fury I've seen; I've seen similar dragons, but never a Night Fury." Hiccup looked a little disappointed but shoved it down, focusing on the task at hand and telling the two, "Ah, ok... well, he's the only Night Fury on Berk; He fires explosive plasma blasts and is the fastest dragon on the island."
"The fact he's fast is easy to tell; Aerodynamic as hell," Lok pointed out and Rune spoke up, "Yeah, that actually has me curious, how can a creature like Toothless, a Night Fury, be able to produce plasma and especially at such a controlled scale."
Hiccup shrugged and answered, "I don't know how he does it, still trying to figure that out." Hiccup turned to Toothless and asked the Night Fury, "Hey, want to show them a plasma blast?" Toothless grumbled but charged one up and fired it at the Cove's walls, his signature screech accompanying it.
Shadow resisted the urge to geek out over the plasma blast, whilst Rune cheered, "Man, that was satisfying to watch." Lok ran over to Toothless and tried to peer into his mouth whilst saying, "Amazing, I've never seen anything like that; I've seen plasma before but how does it get propelled like that?"
Toothless bucked his head and threw Lok off, and Hiccup told the Night Fury, "Toothless, be nice, Lok is just curious." Lok, from his position on the ground, spoke up whilst scratching the back of his head, "Nah, that my fault; Got a little over-eager there."
Rune walked over and held a hand out to Lok, telling him, "It's alright, your not the only one here who's curious to find out how it works." Lok took his hand and pulled himself up, looking back over at Hiccup and Toothless.
Ash snorted at them and mumbled under his breath, *Buncha nerds.* Tuffnut and Ruffnut, meanwhile, proceeded to walk up to Lok and Rune, looking them over before Tuffnut proceeded to ask, "What's with the weird clothes?"
Shadow faked a cough and whispered to Rune and Lok, *Mainland.* Ash, meanwhile, rolled his eyes and told them, *You guys ask a lot of questions.*
"We're from the mainland; It's a big place, there's a large variety of clothing," Lok answered them and Ash spoke up again, *Yeah, and most of the clothing looks fucking ugly.*
*Ah, sorry about them,* Rory half-whispered to Toothless, *Like eager little hatchlings, out of their mind with the cold; Didn't prepare for this at all, poor things.* Toothless lightly nodded; Ruffnut, meanwhile, looked them over and said, "Yeah, but why are you wearing something that you look uglier than Snotlout?" Snotlout let out a muffled noise from where he lay paralyzed.
*Rude to compare them to hog-face over there,* Ash said and Lok glanced down at himself and his detail-less black clothes, speaking, "Ok, while I'm no fashion icon, my clothing doesn't have enough detail to be labeled as either good or bad."
Shadow grumbled to himself and whispered in a hushed tone so no one else heard, *Thank gods I no longer need clothes.* Lok turned around and whispered to the Ender Dragon, "You not a fan of the color black?" Shadow glanced, unsure if Lok was talking to him or someone else, *Hm? If you're talking to me, I'd say a good chunk, maybe half of my old clothes were black.* Shadow definitely didn't hate the color.
"I literally own nothing but black t-shirts and black jeans; Literally," Lok whispered to him seriously and Shadow nodded before going back to observing the entire group; Hiccup was a little amused by the direction of the conversation and shrugged, telling the two non-Vikings, "Well, If you want to know more about Toothless, I'll answer what I know; But if you want to see the other dragons, you'll have to ask them and their Riders."
Lok spoke up, "Question about Night Furies; How do they prefer to make killing blows? Through the skull or by the neck?" Ash snorted and told Lok, *Sus.* Hiccup gave the question-asker a weirded out looking, wondering why that question would be asked, but he shrugged and answered, "I don't know, most of the times I've seen Toothless attack he mainly uses his claws and plasma blasts."
"Hm, fair enough. I guess with a blast that powerful, why get up close eh?" Lok spoke and Hiccup nodded with him, agreeing; Rune spoke up and pretended he didn't know who or what these specific dragons were, "I'm interested in the blue dragon with the orange spots."
Hiccup nodded and turned to Astrid, asking her, "Um, Astrid, you want to show Stormfly to Rune here?" Astrid considered it and then shrugged, "Hmm, I guess it can't hurt." With that said, she walked over to Stormfly and patted the Nadder on the side, telling Rune and Lok, "This is Stormfly, she's a Deadly Nadder."
Stormfly squawked in agreement and flared out her wings, as Rune and Lok approached the Nadder. Rune looked Stormfly over and complimented the Nadder, "She's an impressive dragon." Stormfly preened at this whilst Lok looked her over, and then asked Astrid, "Hey, those tail quills, are they projectiles or for close-range strikes?"
"Projectiles, although if you get close she can smack you with them," Astrid explained and Lok hummed, remarking, "Hm, fun." As Lok moved to scratch the Deadly Nadder, Rune asked Astrid, "Nice, how about her fire?"
Stormfly attempted to twist her neck around to stare at Rune whilst showing off the quills on her tail, the movement making Lok unable to scratch her. Astrid explained, "Short-range, bolt-shaped, and it seems to be the hottest dragon fire we've found so far." Lok hummed and looked at Stormfly, asking, "Damn, mind a demo?"
Rune looked Stormfly over in amazement and curiosity, "She reminds me of those parrots that I've seen, prettiest birds in the world." Meanwhile Stormfly, upon hearing Lok's request, flared her wings in excitement and tilted her head up, shooting a bright bolt of white-hot fire into the sky.
"Damn, amazing," Lok remarked and turned to Astrid, "Do you know what the fuel source is? I've actually seen fire quite similar to it before." Meanwhile, Shadow's eyes widened as he realized that due to not being a regular 'How To Train Your Dragon' dragon, he might not be fireproof; The Ender Dragon hoped he is fired.
"I don't know, you'll have to ask Fishlegs," Astrid told Lok and Fishlegs spoke up slower than usual when it came to dragon knowledge, "Eh, we don't quite know yet, we've been doing research on all the dragon's fire."
*Nerds,* Ash said, Rune gave the little dragon the bird whilst keeping his arms crossed so no one else saw and Lok glared at the little dragon, *Whaaaat, you know it's true.* Lok mouthed the words 'I will yeet you' at the hybrid and said hybrid mouths back 'fuck you' to Lok.
Shadow, meanwhile, mumbled to himself in a way he hoped the other dragons wouldn't hear, *Plasma blast, oxygen-acetylene if to be believed; Nadder fire is magnesium something, I think...* He'd spent way too long looking on the wiki, and now it was paying off. Lok spoke up, "The fire looks like magnesium; It's a kind of soft metal, it burns extremely hot and extremely bright."
"Yeah, I think it burns over 1000 degrees; Hot enough to burn through steel," Rune said and Lok nodded, adding, "Like an oversized welding torch."
Lok then moved over to Hookfang, pretending he didn't know as he asked, "Hey big guy, so, who's your partner?" A few moments later, Snotlout popped up next to them as the Speed Stinger venom mostly wore off, the shorter Dragon Rider telling Lok, "Oh he's my dragon and only the coolest Vikings can ride him."
*Great, hog-face can talk again,* Ash growled and Snotlout delivered a nervous look in his direction, whilst Lok looked at Hookfang and patted his shoulder, telling the Monstrous Nightmare, "Damn, my condolences."
Hookfang snorted but decided he wouldn't let the opportunity to swat Snotlout with his tail pass by, so one tail-swat to the legs, and Snotlout was on the ground. *This one's mine little twig, best to look elsewhere,* Hookfang told them and Ash whispered to himself, *What is it with dragons and calling people twigs? Saying 'fuck you' to them is better.*
Lok removed his hand and looked at the residue left on it after the pat, he knew it was Monstrous Nightmare gel but what exactly is that made of, "Hm, what's this stuff?" He smelted his hand and questioned, "Napalm?"
*I think it's a kerosene gel, I can't remember,* Shadow whispered so the others wouldn't hear, at the same time Rune whispered to Lok, "It's kerosene." Ash looked between Shadow and Rune, telling them, *Same fucking brain cell.*
"Hm, yeah makes sense, identifying flammable substances by scent is not my strong suit," Lok whispered and then spoke louder, "So, is this stuff flammable? Smells like it." Snotlout nodded and Ash whispered to them again, *Why not? It's a good skill for committing arson.*
Lok shrugs and whispers to Ash, "I normally just use thermite." Rune whispered to them as dozens of ideas went through his head, "I wonder what we can use this for..." Ash pipped up with a whisper of, *Arsoooooooon.* Lok whispered to Rune, "Oh, I have dozens already."
Shadow sighed and thought to himself, * This is going to be a long day, just wait until they get to Barf & Belch. * And as if magic or Shadow's luck, Lok moved on towards Barf & Belch, asking the Twins, "So, is the double head normal or does this guy, or eh, these guys just have a case of polycephaly? I've seen a few two-headed snakes, but never two-headed dragons."
* And onto the explosions we go, that didn't take long, * Shadow thought to himself as Tuffnut spoke up, "Oh this is normal, though I would love to see a two-headed snake," And Ruffnut spoke up in agreement, "Yeah that sound really fun." And then Lok told the Twins, "Go to Florida, you'd love it."
"Florida? Heh, where's that?" Ruffnut asked and Lok answered, "A long way south, and west; It's a lawless land, full of insanity, the weirdest things you can imagine, and more happen in Florida." Hiccup looked interested and seemed to make a mental note to write that down.
*Ugh, not Florida, people blow themselves up trying to microwave microwaves over there,* Ash remarked and Rory turned to Lok with a hiss, saying to Lok, *Why, why would you tell them about Florida?! Of all the places in the world, Florida?*
Lok just turned to Rory, smirked, and shrugged his shoulders with his hand out in an 'eh why not' look. Rune smacked Lok on the back of their head, remembering the fact that the Vikings don't know about the western hemisphere or that the Earth isn't flat, beside the Twins if the Hidden World is to be believed.
Shadow sighed and whispered to himself, *If the timeline is a pond, we might've just chucked a big ass boulder in it by telling Hiccup about Florida.*
"Sounds like my kind of place," Ruffnut spoke up, and then so did Tuffnut, "Yeah, I can't wait to go there!" Ash just said, *Ugh, Florida.*
Lok heard Shadow's whisper and whispered to him, "Isn't that the goal?" Shadow whispered quickly with a heated glare, *Yes, but of all the ways I'd thought we'd do it, Hiccup going to Florida was not one of them!* Hiccup glanced between Lok, Shadow, and Rune in slight suspicion.
"Yeah, Florida is a wildland; I lived there for a while, it's nuts," Lok told the Twins and Ash saw Hiccup's look, the little hybrid growling to Lok under his breath, *Great, now you got twig boy noticing our sus-ness!*
Rune pinched the bridge of his nose as the stupidity of the two groups became present, "Ugh I need a drink." Ash, hearing this, swiveled around to stare at him and ask, *I want some booze as well or dragon nip.* Rune gave a stern glare to the dragon who was mentally thirteen years old, telling them no with a shake of the head.
Lok however... "You want some dragon nip?" He offered to Ash, pulling some out of his pockets and Ash smirked, *Awww yeah.* Ash rushed over and took the dragon nip, falling over whilst saying, *Mmmmmmm drugs.*
"Crazy little dragon here, ain't he?" Lok said to the others as Ash began to roll on the ground, slurring his words, *Is this wat fukin Vegas feels lik?* Rune sighed after watching Lok give Ash dragon-nip, muttering under his breath, "Fucking idiot."
"It'll keep him calm for the next few hours; It's a calculated maneuver," Lok told Rune, who whispered back, "Yeah but now you are going to get him addicted and he's a minor the last I checked; It's not going to end well." Lok looked at him directly and whispered back, "Also, they were going to ask about the mainland at some point; It's better to get it out of the way organically than to have to come up with lies on the spot; This way, it's on our own terms."
Hiccup glanced between Rune and Lok, eyes narrowing as he realized those two had been whispering a lot... The two continued to whisper as Ash stumbled up to Shadow and headbutted them, asking, *Have yu ever been high msir shadeow?* Shadow glanced down at him and shook his head, *No, I avoid stuff like that.* Ash narrowed his eyes and thought hard with his drugged-up brain, eventually asking, *Is it becuz of all dos PSA's? The 'don't do fukin dwugs kids' ones?* Shadow didn't answer.
Hiccup finally decided to ask Lok and Rune, "So, ah, what are you two talking about?" He gestured to them and Rune gestured for Lok to explain as he didn't feel like trying to. Lok answered quickly, "Eh, the mainland is a touchy subject for Rune; He has had a lot of bad experiences back there and doesn't really like to talk about it."
*Like fukin Florida?* Ash asked as his small wings flopped around loosely, *Dat place is a fukin fever dweam I'm tellin' you.* After a moment, Shadow quietly told Ash, *I've never been to Florida.* Ash turned around with a stumble, staring at the End Dragon and telling him, *Well never fukin go der okay? Not fukin Florida.*
Lok whispered to Shadow, "You're actually missing out, especially the keys." Rune also whispered, adding, "Landscape is nice, weather is good, the people fucking lunatics."
Hiccup stared between the two humans and eventually decided to let it go, at least for now. If it happened again though... "Ok, I ah, won't ask any questions about it for now," Hiccup told them and Lok nodded, replying with, "Yeah, we've all been through a lot of shit down there; You don't end up flying north for weeks on a whim."
Hiccup turned to Ruffnut and Tuffnut, asking, "So, you want to show them what Barf & Belch can do?" Tuffnut seemed to perk up about this, saying as he walked over to the head he rode and patting it, "Oh yeah, this is Barf." Ruffnut pat the right head and spoke, "And this is Belch."
*Mmmmm the boom booms,* Ash remarked, still drugged up. Lok walked up to pat the two-head dragon as the Twins explained. "This head barfs out a green toxic gas," Tuffnut said and gestured to Barf and Ruffnut continued with the other head, "And this head belches out sparks and light the gas." And Tuffnut finished it off with, "And it causes an epic explosion!"
"Ooh, explosive gas? Very interesting," Lok remarked and Barf & Belch natter warily, spreading their heads wide apart in order to get a better look at the new human. Barf huffed out some gas and Belch produced some threatening sparks, but the human still stared. They saw this as interesting, and possibly also an interesting new toy. They shot forward and slunk their heads around Lok, batting him back and forth using their noses with a warbling laugh.
Lok laughed at the twin-headed dragon's antics and Rune laughed as well, getting a bit out of the bad mood he'd been in due to the earlier whispers. Rune remarked, "Looks like you just became their new toy." Ash snorted and flopped onto the ground, watching with half-lidded eyes. Shadow also just watched, tapping his claws a bit as staying completely still for him was basically impossible.
"So, you guys mind showing off your fire?" Lok asked and Barf & Belch both said at the same time, *Fire? Fire?!* Excited and caught up in all the newness, Barf & Belch abandoned their new 'toy' and ran, sprinting on open sand spewing their explosion gas in a massive arc over the lake before making it explode.
"Nice, I always loved a good explosion," Rune said as Lok looked with wide eyes at the blast, smirking and saying, "Yeah, that's cool." Ash glanced at it and remarked, *Mmmm good boom booms.* Rune saw this calm Ash and made a mental note to no longer keep Ash away from dragon nip.
"So, you want to see Meatlug now, or do you have any questions about Barf & Belch and Zipplebacks?" Hiccup asked the two humans as Ash crawled over to the lake, looking in and questioning, *Is that a fish-* Instantly, the little dragon tipped over and fell into the lake with a slight splash.
"Oh shit!" Rune said and began to run over to pull Ash out, but Shadow got to the little hybrid first, wrapping his tail around them and lifting them out of the water so Ash didn't drown. Ash just looked at the Ender Dragon and questioned, *Hrrm why yu yankin me about? Buy me a dwink first mdude.* Ash then began to flail about in Shadow's tail-grip, *DONT YU FUKIN DARE!*
Lok, wanting to keep Hiccup distracted, asked, "Yeah, about Meatlug, I was wondering: how does she fly? According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way she should be able to fly." Rune came back up beside him and whispered to Lok, "Really, the bee joke, you don't think that's a little mean for her?"
"Tell me you weren't thinking the same thing," Lok whispered back and Rune replied with, "Yeah, but I wasn't going to say it."
Fishlegs spoke up as soon as the whispers died down, "Oh, well, Gronckles flap their wings at a much higher rate than other dragons; She can't really glide, but she can easily hover and is very maneuverable!" To prove Fishleg's point, Meatlug trundled around and as soon as Lok turned his back to her, Meatlug bit down on the scruff of his shirt and picked him up, flapping hard enough to hover a foot or two off the ground. * Ha, * The Gronckle thought.
"Well, this is certainly fun; I've seen other animals that fly through similar methods, it's fascinating..." Lok spoke up and then asked, "Anyway, please let me down." Meatlug snorted in satisfaction and dropped a few inches at a time until Lok could get his own feet on the ground, only then did the Gronckle let go and turn to Shadow and Rory.
*Some crew you got,* Meatlug told them, eyeing the two dragons suspiciously, *This one's wrappings don't taste right, how can they stand the stuff? There's more sheeps' fluff around here than Berk knows what to do with.*
Shadow glanced at Ash in concern as he realized the little dragon was no longer awake, *I think he passed out.* Shadow turned to Rune and whispered a little worried, *Can you please make sure I haven't accidentally strangled him? I don't know if I'm holding him with my tail too hard... it looks like he's breathing...*
Rune came up to Ash, who was still being held by Shadow's tail, and the human put his fingers to the side of the hybrid's neck to check for a pulse. After a moment, they found the right spot to check and spoke, "Yeah he's alive, just unconscious." Shadow nodded and whispered to Rune, *I think he passed out from the Dragon Nip, I'll just carry him for now.* Rune nodded and went back to the others.
Lok rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Meatlug, asking, "You don't have poison or anything I should be worried about from that, right?" Hearing this, Hiccup answered the question, "I don't think she has any poison." Lok nodded and said to himself, "Ok, good, one less thing I need to immunize myself too."
"So, I think that's all the dragons, right?" Hiccup asked and when no one said otherwise, he turned to the five newcomers sheepishly and said, "Um, I have to ask you five something; My Dad may have heard me talking about this group and he wants to meet you... he's also Chief of the village and island."
Shadow glanced at Rory as Hiccup spoke, thinking to himself, * Oh shit this can't end well... *
"Oh, politics? How fun," Lok sarcastically said and then grew more serious with a shrug as he spoke, "But I get it, random people land on your island, some suspicion makes sense."
Rory, meanwhile, swallowed hard as they heard Hiccup's words, not looking forward to the upcoming encounter. * Maybe... playing giant scardy-cat could work to make a different impression from Cloudjumper? * Rory thought to himself and then spoke up in a whisper, *I think I have an idea, if anyone has a problem; We just need to be on our best behavior.*
Lok looked over at Shadow and the sleeping Ash and questioned the Ender Dragon, "Is Ash ok? He couldn't handle his weed?" Shadow nodded, * He's good, just passed out.*
"Well, um, he wants to meet you all in the Great Hall; I'm pretty sure Shadow and Rory will fit through the doors, they're very big," Hiccup spoke up and they all turned to look at him, Rune answering first with, "Alright then, let's go, don't want to keep the big man waiting." Lok nodded and also said, "Yeah, let's head out."
*Wait, um, do we go on foot, or do you want to, uh, fly...* Shadow spoke up suddenly, for some reason he wanted them to ride on his back again, something he'd never thought he'd want. However, Lok turned to Rory and asked the Stormcutter, "Mind giving me a ride so I don't need to pay Shadow's outrageous tax?"
Rory snorted and answered, *Fine by me. Sit farther back, hold one of those spines; You aren't exactly Val- er... You know who yet.* Rory crouched low, arching a wing just right to make a sort of step up to their shoulders. Lok quickly hopped on, "Yeah, I won't try standing just yet."
"Mind if I hope on too, I've already got to pay Shadow a ton of fish just to sit on him," Rune spoke up and Rory sighed, holding their pose a bit longer, *Alright, same rules; And easy on those scales! Damn, it's weird how loose my skin is up there, betcha I can wrinkle up like a cat.*
As Rune climbed up Rory, Shadow grumbled to himself, *Maybe I should lower or just cut the fish-tax altogether...* Meanwhile, Lok laughed and whispered to Rune, "You got cold feet on paying your taxes? Be careful, I can't imagine how brutal the draconian IRS would be."
"I'm going to pay, but I don't want to pay even more for just a five to ten minute flight," Rune explained and Lok glanced at him, asking, "I still don't understand how you plan to pay that." Rune just said in reply, "Not my fault that he wants to tax me like the American health care system." Lok remarked to himself that, "You'll be in fish debt for the rest of your life! It'll be like the grain quotas in Maoist China!"
"Simple, use the dragons to help, they are excellent hunters; I'll just pay them a small portion of the fishes they catch until I reach one ton," Rune explained his plan and Shadow sighed, speaking up, *You don't have to pay the fish tax.* Rune glanced at him and asked, "Thanks, but are you sure? We had a deal." Shadow just nods and says, *I can catch my own food.*
As soon as Rory's passengers quieted down and were secure, the Stormcutter said, *I think we can find the village proper, so let's go!* Rory ran a few dozen steps with their wings raised out, then beating at the air. Quickly the Stormcutter took flight, exiting the Cove and circling around it to wait for the others.
"This is amazing," Lok whispered in awe, whilst Shadow also took to the air while also being careful to not let Ash fall out of their tail's grip. Slowly, Lok started to stand up whilst holding onto the spine.
Hiccup yelled up to them from the ground, "Alright, we'll lead the way!" And with that, the Dragon Riders mounted up and took flight, the massive group of over ten leading the smaller group of newcomers towards the village and the Great Hall within.
As they flew over the massive forests of Berk, Shadow turned to look back at where Ash was held by his tail, checking to make sure he was holding tight enough to not drop the little sleeping dragon but not too tight as to suffocate them. He turned back to look at Rory, Rune, and Lok, the Ender Dragon seeing that Lok was attempting to stand up on Rory's back.
*Um, Lok, you sure you can do that safely?* Shadow questioned and Lok handwaved him off, "Don't worry, I'm fine." Rory, however, craned their neck back to look and barked at Lok, *Lok, don't you dare! Do you really want one of the riders having to save your hide and make a fool of us?* Lok seemed alright at least and Rory decided on doing no fancy maneuvers.
"Woah ho this is awesome!" Rune shouted as he enjoyed being in the air again, whilst Lok told Rory, "Yeah, don't worry; I'm only gonna stand for a bit while we're going flat, besides, I've done a lot more dangerous things.* Rune looked at him and remarked, "I would only do that if I had a parachute."
Shadow rolled his eyes and told the standing human, *Ok, if you're sure, but don't have confidence in me being able to pull off a successful mid-air rescue should you fall.* The Ender Dragon then thought to himself, * I'm nowhere near experienced to pull off a successful rescue. *
With that Shadow looked forward and realized they were maybe only a few minutes from the Great Hall, before looking over at Rory. The Ender Dragon began to try and think of solutions for the problem that would arise when Stoick saw Rory, a Stormcutter.
"You just lack confidence," Lok told Rune with a very patronizing tap on the nose, and Rune replied with, "I don't, I just ain't stupid to do something that could kill me." Lok then looked forward and saw the same thing as Shadow, and began to come up with his own really risky plan to solve the same problem.
Ash suddenly began to stir, grumbling, *Oh what the fuck, my heaaad...* Shadow, hearing this, sighed and looked over his shoulder to tell the little hybrid, *Welcome back to the waking world, Ash, please do not struggle if you value your life.* Ash then glanced around with very wide eyes, asking the Ender Dragon, *Oi, what the absolute fuck.*
*Stoick wants to see us and someone had to carry you, and flight is faster than walking,* Shadow explained and Ash hissed, *You're carrying me like a fucking fledgling.* After a pause, Shadow told him, *Well, if I put you on my back, asleep you might've fallen off.*
Ash huffed and Shadow told him, *If you want to be in a more dignified position, climb up my tail and onto my back but be VERY careful.* Ash, upon hearing this, twisted around and grabbed Shadow's tail shakily as he climbed up to the Ender Dragon's back, telling Shadow, *You have some girth bitch.*
*Girth? What do you mean by that?* Shadow asked slightly self-conscious and Ash just said, *Girth.* Shadow rolled his eyes and just whispered, *Ok, ok...* Shadow looked forward again, mind refocusing on the 'find a solution to the Stoick seeing Rory' problem.
They are growing closer to the village and thus, the Great Hall, both easily visible and only maybe four minutes of flight away. As Lok finalized his risky plan in his head, Shadow thought to himself over the problem, * Think, dumbass, what solution would work for this? * After a long moment, Shadow remembered their backstory and got an idea, so he moved closer to Rory and the others and away from the Dragon Riders and their Dragons.
*I may have just come upon a solution to our 'Rory seeing Stoick' problem,* Shadow said quickly and Lok spoke up, "Hey, just so happens I do too; What's yours?" Rory, hearing all this, shared their plan, *My thought was to act like a scared kitten and hide behind someone if he gets, well... Stoick-y.*
"I thought of standing in front of you and defending you while giving him a reasonable explanation to give you plausible deniability," Rune spoke up and Shadow nodded, listing his points, *I got three points we could use to make Stoick realize Rory isn't Cloudjumper; First is the color, Cloudjumper is colored differently; Second is our backstory, if we're going with the Dragons being raised by Humans we could say Rory never left the mainland until recently; And third is riskier but if all else fails, maybe Cloudjumper and Rory are slightly different in size.*
After a moment of silence, Ash spoke from atop Shadow's back, *Or I could shank him in the ass!*
Shadow's head practically snapped around to look at Ash with a glare as the Ender Dragon told the hybrid, *Ash, fucking NO! We will not shank the Chief of Berk in the ass!* Ash looked at him and asked, *Why nooooot?* Shadow's eyes narrowed as he told the hybrid, *That will end up with us dead or imprisoned.*
"Ash, if you do that, you're a dead dragon," Rune told Ash seriously and Lok spoke up, responding to Shadow's plan, "Hm, probably easier than my plan; My secondary plan was to claim that Valka isn't actually dead."
Shadow glanced at Lok with a raised eyebrow, *And how would we know Valka isn't actually dead? We've never met her and if we reunite them early, Valka wouldn't recognize us and she doesn't exactly broadcast her identity,* Rune turned to Lok and shouted, "What the fuck?! How are you going to explain how we know that and how can we prove that."
"It's called lying and making up bullshit," Lok answered and Rune told him, "Yeah, but that bullshit can get us killed if they find out; Or if Stoick isn't in the mood for us to make a claim about his 'dead' wife." Meanwhile, Rory growled at Ash, *Absolutely no stinging, how many times are we gonna have to say that?* Rory then turned to the others and told them, *But best we give as few details as possible, and do not mention anyone by name!*
Shadow spoke up loudly, *I think if we go with Rory being raised on the mainland and not leaving it until recently, that'll work; Rory can't be the one who took Valka if he hasn't even been to the Archipelago until recently.* Rune looked at Shadow and told him, "Yeah I agree with yours, as it is reasonable and it goes with our story."
"Also, worst come to worse we say we've met another Dragon Rider who rides a Stormcutter," Lok spoke up with a shrug, "That's the lying part!"
*We'll go with Lok's plan if all else fails, but only if we have no other options cause that's the riskiest one,* Shadow told them and Lok added, "And also the most timeline rupturing; Which is both good and bad."
*The less we rely on the movies, the better,* Rory agreed, *You've known me basically my whole life, and we've never been this far north; Hard to counter that, especially if we mention that he can't hold every Nadder responsible for an injury one caused.*
Shadow nodded and said with a sigh, *That'll work, hopefully.* The Ender Dragon looked forward and realized they were basically outside the Great Hall, he told his fellow multiverse travelers, *We're close, get ready for this shit show.*
Ash spoke up, *Oooo shit, tasty.* Shadow ignored him and took a few deep breaths, muttering to himself, *Ok, this will go fine, this will go fine...*
Shadow came in for a landing outside the Great Hall, slowly lowering towards the steps that lead up to the massive closed wooden doors. The Ender Dragon dropped and landed, nearly slipping on the snowy steps but managing to sink his claws in and not fall over, *Well, we're here.*
Ash had bounced slightly from the landing and growled at Shadow, *Fucking girth.* Shadow was still confused and asked everyone, *What does he mean by girth?* Ash growled again, *Girth.* Lok, from above, heard this and said, "We probably don't want to know."
Lok looked around the village from atop the still-flying Stormcutter's back, "Nice village... quaint." Rory banked very carefully and dropped their tail lower to slow down, back winging behind Shadow and landing gently on the steps behind the Ender Dragon. Rory moved into a position so his Rider's could go off and they did so.
Hiccup on Toothless and the others came in for a landing, and Hiccup looked to Lok and spoke up after having heard the earlier compliment, "Thanks, it's been our home of seven generations." Ash grumbled, *Ew, old.*
"Hm, lots of the building seem new, guess you just keep it well maintained I guess," Lok pointed out, he already knew why but best to point it out for benefit of their cover. Hiccup quickly answered, "Well, for a good long time we were at war with Dragons; Fire and wooden buildings don't mix very well so we had to replace almost all the buildings every year."
Hiccup climbed off of Toothless as Lok spoke, "Ah, that explains a lot, when did you guys make peace?" Hiccup, after carefully walking to a spot he could stand easily, answered Lok, "Only before this winter set in, we've barely been at peace for a year now; Well, it'll be a year in a few months... Anyways, we should get inside."
"Woah, you guys seem to be getting along very well for just only being at peace for just little under a year now," Rune pointed out and Lok nodded, looking at all the dragons out in the village, adding, "Yeah, impressive."
Hiccup shrugged, "Eh, well, the peace is still fresh, knowing Berk it'll grow quite chaotic once spring arrives." Rune and Lok walked up to the one-legged teen, Rune asking, "Why's that?" Shadow, meanwhile, remembered that during the beginning of the first Dragons TV show it was quite chaotic on Berk.
*Chaos is great,* Ash said simply and Hiccup answered Rune, "Cause during winter everyone is extremely focused on not freezing to death, Snoggletog, and other things; And right now people are either inside or only outside as long as they need to be to get what they need, come springtime and everyone will be out."
"Sounds lively," Lok remarked and Rune spoke up, "Ah, sounds almost like home." Rune was seemingly remembering the winter seasons back home, and Hiccup spoke up, "Well, we should get inside, don't want to keep my Dad waiting any longer, heh."
Hiccup pushed the doors of the Great Hall open with Toothless's assistance, the Riders and their Dragons going into the Great Hall and leaving the group of five multiverse travelers to come in behind them. *Here we go,* Ash said and Rune spoke up, "Time to meet the man himself."
The group began to walk in, and Shadow took a deep breath before whispering to the humans of their little group, *And now the fun begins; Rune, Lok, remember the excuse we came up with for Rory.* Lok walked in behind Rune, trying to look confident and make up for their lack of height, especially compared to Stoick. Rory slunk in last behind Shadow, keeping low to the ground and looking as non-threatening as they could manage despite being one of the biggest living creatures on Berk.
The firepit in the center of the Great Hall was burning massively and lighting up the space, firewood having been recently added to it. Nearby was Stoick and a random Viking, the Chief of Berk telling the random Viking something, "...And make sure the Terrible Terrors don't get into the storehouse."
The random Viking nodded and passed by the massive group, leaving the Great Hall. Stoick turned to look at them and instantly froze up as he laid eyes upon the creature behind Shadow... Rory.
"Oh, here we go," Rune whispered as Ash also spoke, *Annnnd he's already reacting, great.* Ash crawled further up Shadow and draped himself across the Ender Dragon's head.
Stoick yelled loudly, "Hiccup, get over here, NOW!" The Viking Chief bolted over and grabbed Hiccup, dragging him as far away from Rory as possible within the Great Hall. Toothless followed along whilst Hiccup asked his father in confusion, "Dad, what?"
Rory made a show of looking Stoick in the eyes, tilting his head at the Viking Chief whilst bowing low, the Stormcutter even managing to produce a weird dragon-y purr. Stoick turned to Hiccup and told the one-legged boy, "Stay behind me." With that, Stoick grabbed a nearby ax and held it ready, not swinging at Rory but ready to, "You..."
Rory let out a little squeak of fear, scrunching back as they hurried to hide behind Shadow, playing up a nervous tremor as they peeked around the other dragon's bulk. Lok spoke up quickly, "Umm, I guess this is a bit of an awkward introduction. I'm Lok, that's Rune, ankle-biter over there is Ash, big boi is Shadow, and the 4-winged guy is Rory." Stoick wasn't listening.
*…You,* Ash attempted to imitate the Chief of Berk, whilst Rune turned to Stoick and pretended he had no idea what the issue was as he asked, "Um, mind telling us what is wrong?"
Stoick snapped his gaze to the two humans, moving over to them and easily towering over both of them as he demanded, "How dare you bring that... four-winged murderer onto my island and next to my son, after what it did?!"
Ash snorted, *Murderer? Really?* Rune quickly said, "Murder? What do you mean, Rory did nothing of the such." Lok nodded and quickly added as well in a questioning tone, "Yeah, we actually have no idea what you're talking about?"
Stoick glared and simply said, "That four-winged dragon killed my wife."
Hiccup turned to stare at Stoick in surprise, "I'm sorry, what?" Lok, meanwhile, gave the Chief a blank stare and told him simply, "Hm, yeah I think you have the wrong Stormcutter." Ash hopped from Shadow over to Rory and climbed up their neck, growling, *He comes near you, I start shanking asses.*
"Rory? No Rory would never kill anyone, he's too big of a softy," Rune told the Chief and Stoick raised an eyebrow, asking seriously in a tone that left no room for lying, "Oh? And how do I have the wrong one? I searched the entire Archipelago after Val was taken, and never saw another."
"Well, we're not from the archipelago; Neither is Rory," Lok explained and Stoick fixated his glare on him, asking, "And has your... Stormcutter ever been to the Archipelago before?"
*We're from fucking Florida, long way from here buddy,* Ash said and Rune quickly spoke up, "Cause Rory's never been to this region, he lived on the mainland with us." Lok spoke up suddenly and added, "We met in Minnesota; That's pretty far away from here, so I assume not."
Shadow quickly hissed to the two humans in a whisper, *Say you've known Rory since he was a hatchling!* Rune quickly spoke up, saying what Shadow had said to say, "We known him since he was a hatchling, we raised him since then."
"You would not believe the chaos he wrought when he was a fledgling... Worse than Ash," Lok added to sell their cover and Rune turned to him, asking, "You sure? Nothing topped Ash when he was younger." Lok replied back, "I lost forty-seven pairs of perfectly good pants to Rory learning fire breath,"
"I still have scars from when Ash had his temper tantrums," Rune added as well and Lok mumbled, "At least Ash has never managed to successfully sting me."
Stoick glared at the two, eyes going between them and Rory. Different coloring, not by much but enough for Stoick, and if these two people we're telling the truth... the Chief sighed, putting his weapon down and telling them, "Ok... fine; But if I find out your lying, there will be hell to pay."
Ash rolled his eyes and said, *Most dragons breath fire, I don't think hell would do much to us.* Meanwhile, Shadow, hearing the fake backstory Rune and Lok were making up, decided to mention one of his real own childhood stories in a whisper, *I would be more of a terror, when I was little back home I called the police to come to my school once for no reason; I was a bit of a demon child.*
Ash hissed over at Shadow, *What the fuck? Why didn't I think of doing that?* Ash hopped back over onto Shadow's back, bonking him with his horn and asking, *Can you teach me the ways of trolling the police?*
Hiccup raised his hands and asked, "Hold on, Dad, you mean the dragon that took my Mom was a Stormcutter?" Rune, seeing the possibly difficult conversation between father and son, asked the Chief, "Oh… Um, should we let you two be orrr do we still need to talk?"
"No, we'll talk, just give me one second," Stoick told the group of five before turning to Hiccup, lowering himself to better look at the one-legged teenager, "Aye, I never was able to figure out the species until just now, only just a basic description of the dragon." Hiccup slowly nodded and stepped back.
"Alright well... I guess now I know," Hiccup said and then with a sigh gestured for the group to continue talking to Stoick, the one-legged teen going over to Toothless for comfort. Shadow, deciding now was a good time to answer Ash's question, glanced back at the little hybrid, *There aren't even police in this world I think.*
Hearing this, Ash slipped off of Shadow's back and fell to the floor with a shriek, *FUCK!*
Stoick turned to the group of five again and asked, "So, may I get your names? I didn't exactly pay full attention to your introduction, I was mainly focused on getting my son away from... what did you call the Stormcutter here?"
"I'm Rune, the human next to me is Lok, the little bugger over there is Ash, the big dragon over there is Shadow, and I guess you already meet Rory," Rune reintroduced and Stoick nodded, looking over the group and then saying, "Hiccup said there was eight of you."
Lok quickly answered, "Yeah the others flew away; They must have gotten homesick or decided they couldn't stand the cold and flew back south... Anyways," Lok stuck his hand out, "Pleasure to make your acquaintance." Stoick took Lok's hand and shook it once, replying with, "Alright, pleasure to make yours as well."
Rune also shook Stoick's hand, although he felt a little uncomfortable doing it, "It's a pleasure meeting you."
"Anyways, we need to talk about you five staying on Berk, assuming you plan to stay; Hiccup has probably already told you that I am Chief of the island and village, and I can't just let anyone not apart of the village stay on the island," Stoick explained, "We don't have enough room in the village for you five, but you can stay on the island, just outside of the village, if you can pay for the land you wish to lay claim too."
Shadow almost laughed and whispered to himself, *So even here, if we stay on Berk, we still gotta pay rent.*
Lok nodded and spoke, "Sounds fair, what do you take as payment?" Whilst Rune muttered to Shadow, "Well more like just me and Lok." Rory huffed but kept up their shy act as they whispered, *Ye olde capitalism, great.* Ash grumbled at the discussion of capitalism and climbed back up onto Shadow's back, curling up and falling asleep.
"We don't have much material wealth, but we do have other things of value," Lok told him and Rune also added, "Plus we do carry a wealth of knowledge from the mainland." Stoick, however, couldn't accept and explained, "It depends on how much space you'll need, and I can only accept gold and silver coins, sorry; Although you can, in the village, probably trade your knowledge and other things for those coins."
"Hm, fair enough; We don't need all that much space, just enough to build a place on," Lok replied and Stoick continued, "You would pay on a yearly basis, but the amount depends on how large the space is," The Chief glanced at them, particularly Shadow and Rory, "Probably a large amount of space."
*At least we're not paying monthly,* Shadow whispered to himself and Lok thought to himself, " Damn, even across time and space my tax evasion streak won't end. "
Stoick suddenly hummed and stroked his beard as an idea came to mind, "Although...You could avoid paying if you do jobs for the village." Hearing this, Rune told the Chief, "I might like trying out working in the forge." Lok nodded and gestured to himself and Rune as he added, "Same, I can work in the forge; Me and him are both engineers, it's our specialty."
"You can help Gobber, our blacksmith, in the Forge then, alongside Hiccup; Your dragons could probably catch a lot of fish too, which would be useful," Stoick explained and Shadow couldn't help it, the Ender Dragon snorted with a smile as he whispered to himself, *First real job I get in my life and it's across universes, fishing for Berk.*
" Now I'm very grateful my neighbor was a blacksmith and taught me how, " Lok thought to himself, and Rune spoke up, "What about him?" Rune nodded and pointed at Ash, who was still asleep on Shadow's back, and Lok spoke up, "We could sell the venom? Or weapons made with his venom?"
"Hmm... that or he could help carry and move things," Stoick suggested and Shadow had to bite his tongue to avoid breaking out laughing hysterically at the mental image of an angry Ash pulling a cart. Lok looked at Ash and said, "What's he gonna carry? Hell, half the time he needs to be carried himself."
Stoick shrugged, "Eh, if he can't work then he can't; The other four of you working should be more than enough anyway." Rune shook his head and told the Chief, "Oh he's working, I'm not letting him sit around being lazy, while the rest of us work." Stoick nodded and just told them, "Well then I will leave it up to you and those in the village to find a job for him."
"Maybe he could work in entertainment! Put him in a little costume and have him dance around," Lok suggested and Rune snorted at the idea of Ash in a chicken costume.
"Gobber will outline your hours in the forge, and the fishermen how many barrels of fish they need from your dragons," Stoick told them and they all nodded, Lok speaking, "Sounds good." As he said this, Lok thought to himself, " Definitely will be running a gunsmithing operation in my spare time. "
"We can have you claim the spot you want in two ways; The first is that you go out and choose it, then I come and grant permission..." Stoick began to speak, pausing to grab a charcoal pencil and a nearby detailed map of Berk, holding it out to them as he continued, "The second is that you draw on this map of Berk how much land you want to be yours, and I will grant permission to use it right here and now."
"Um, what do you think Lok?" Rune asked Lok as he wanted other opinions and couldn't ask the Dragons directly, and Shadow hummed to himself and whispered to them, *I wonder if Stoick will let us change the spot we choose if we outline it on the map and it turns out it won't work for construction of... whatever we build.*
"Hm, well sounds like we gotta go find a spot," Lok said and took the map and pencil from Stoick, "Thank you, sir."
"Aye, you can just outline it on the map right here and now; I'll let you change it later if it won't work for construction, so long as you haven't built anything on it," Stoick explained further and Lok nodded, "Ah, sounds good." Shadow also whispered to himself, *Guess that answers my question.*
Lok looked down at the map and examined it, whispering, "Hm, here looks pretty good; Convenient location, decently flat area, and looks like it may have decent groundwater well, and if that fails an aqueduct from the mountain..." Shadow leaned over and looked down at Lok and the map, asking, *Where are you thinking? Can it have ocean access? I think that'd look nice.*
Ash yawned and woke up, stretching out on Shadow's back and asking, *Hmph, you guys done with talking about taxes yet?* Shadow looked back at him and told the hybrid, *Yes, we're now discussing where we are going to live.*
"Yeah, I think it'll work," Lok said and turned to Rune, "Rune? Your thoughts?" Rune came over and looked at the spot Lok pointed to.
Meanwhile, Ash rolled over and stretched his wings, telling them, *I can just live in an attic or something.* Shadow rolled his eyes at Ash's words, remarked, *Your choice, I guess.*
"It has to be somewhere high up close to the water and close to the village so it's not a long walk; Hmmm, how about here?" Rune suggested and pointed to another spot, and Shadow spoke up with a shrug, *I'm not qualified to make any choices about this sort of thing, so I'll leave it up to you two.*
So yeah, the group is now down to five. A new sixth member may be coming around Chapter 5-6 so the number won't be odd anymore (I hate odd numbers, they feel wrong.) Anyways, another difference this chapter is in who was playing what HTTYD character. Before, Carpy played Hiccup and Toothless whilst Arourallis/Rory played Fishlegs and Meatlug.
Here is the list of who is playing what HTTYD or non-us character (so far):
Fan: Hiccup, Stoick, The One Who Hopes/Hope
Blackout: Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut
Ash: Astrid, Stormfly, Gobber
Loki: Fishlegs, Toothless, Mildew
Arourallis: Hookfang, B&B, Meatlug
Chapter 4 will be coming, we've done that roleplay session, although it may be a little late due to IRL stuff I gotta do. Anyways, to inspire more comments, what was your favorite joke from the story so far?
Alright, this is JustANormalHTTYDFan, over and out.
