Are you ready for this? I highly doubt it. ;)
Chapter 6
Marty stared at the ugly woman, while the Dragon Riders stared at him.
"You know this person?" Astrid asked.
"I don't think so" Marty replied "I don't believe I'd ever forget a face like that."
"Oh you know me alright" the woman smirked "Does the name Stripcicles ring a bell? Although these days, I do prefer to use the name SuperJedi when I'm online."
"What's a Jedi?" Fishlegs wondered.
"And what does she mean by online?" Ruffnut added.
"Maybe she's a tightrope walker" Tuffnut considered.
"And if anyone is going to know about circus performers, it's this clown" Snotlout smirked as he gestured to Tuffnut.
"Ah yes, Sarah" Marty nodded "You certainly have not taken care of yourself."
"Hey now, we both know who is responsible for the way I appear. And just look at you, all toned and handsome, I bet the girls are fawning over you."
"Well Ruff is" Tuffnut shrugged while Astrid turned bright red.
"I might have known" Sarah smirked.
"Why did she call you Marty the Martian? Hiccup asked.
"That's his pseudonym" Sarah revealed.
"Sue-do-numb?" Ruffnut scratched her head.
"Pseudonym; his pen name; it's what other people know him as online."
"There's that word again" Fishlegs took out his notebook and wrote it down.
"Here I'm just Marty, and I'm here to stop your evil plan."
"My evil plan? That's a laugh. And just how are you going to do that?" Sara pouted.
"With this!" Marty declared, pointing to Snotlout's medallion.
"Oh of course, so you found it" Sarah gave a knowing grin.
"It wasn't hard to find. Not too many Vikings from the middle ages have their very own Nobel Prize for Literature, and neither do any fan fiction writers."
"AND WHY SHOULDN'T WE?" Sarah banged on the arm of her chair. "There are thousands of us, all spending a large part of our lives slaving over a hot keyboard, and for what? The occasional good review from a reader? I don't know about you, but I think we deserve more."
"We do it because we enjoy the source material. We do it to make other people happy. We do it for fun."
"And some of do it for completely narcissistic reasons" Sarah complained "I mean just look at you; three times older than me, but you look like a young Harrison Ford. No wonder Ruffnut has the hots for you."
"Live a clean life and you stay healthy and strong, but spend your time doing evil, and we can see the results right in front of us."
"Thank you Dudley Do-right, for that wonderful lesson in morality" Sarah sneered.
Marty's face turned bright red and his body tensed in anticipation of what was to come.
"Enough of this worthless page filling banter, Snotlout; NOW!" he ordered.
Taking the medallion in his right hand, Snotlout leapt forward and thrust it onto the woman's forehead. Everyone stared in stunned silence as nothing happened.
"And this was your grand plan was it?" Sarah smirked.
"I-I don't understand" Marty gasped "It sparked when I tried to touch it. It should have sent you back to our realm... or even disintegrated you."
Sarah took the medallion from the stunned Snotlout and shuffled slowly across the room towards Berk's new hero.
"Somebody stop her" Marty cried out in panic.
As she passed by the Dragon Riders, they all tried intervene but before they could come close to her, she waved her hands in front of each one, mysteriously pushing them back without ever touching them.
"Real Jedi powers? Cool; I could get used to this" Sarah smiled a toothless grin.
With his back literally up against a wall, Marty had nowhere left to run. The medallion began to spark as Sarah held it closer, and a bright yellow light filled the room as soon as the gold touched the man's skin. Everyone turned away half blinded by the light and also unable to watch, as the person they thought they knew suddenly changed in a matter of seconds. Everything about the man was gradually altered and he soon looked a little shorter, much older, a tad overweight, and extremely unattractive.
"Now we see you as you truly are!" Sarah declared above the din created by the barely controlled lightning.
The brightness of the light continued to grow until with a mighty flash, the battle was over and the man from another dimension was gone. Hiccup blinked a few times as his eyes readjusted. Then in the natural room light, he and the others all saw the cackling creature herself had also been transformed.
Gone was the wrinkled old crone, and in her place was an attractive young woman with dark blonde hair that glowed red in the firelight. Her sparkling grey-blue eyes sat behind a pair of wire rimmed glasses, and her enchanting smile brightened the room.
"Good heavens; I'm me again" she beamed.
"I don't get it" Tuffnut shrugged "What just happened."
"Yeah if you're from the same place as Marty, then how come my medallion didn't have any effect on you?" Snotlout wondered.
"I must admit I'm not really sure" Sarah answered "but I believe it could be because it was actually Marty who had changed this reality and not me. This medallion has merely put things right, in a convenient plot point that many writers use to explain the unexplainable.
"So um... magic?" Ruffnut concluded.
"If you like, yes" Sarah nodded.
"So is Berk still in danger?" Hiccup asked desperately.
"I doubt it because the peril Berk was in was just a reason to get Marty here to help you; plot point number two" Sarah shrugged.
"But we summoned him with the mystical phrase from Gothi's book" Astrid said to add to the confusion.
"Another convenient plot point" Sarah revealed.
"Is that going to be your answer to every question?" Fishlegs asked suspiciously.
"Very probably yes" Sarah nodded again.
"So all this time, it was Marty who was the powerful mischief maker with the flattering words, and not you" Fishlegs realised.
"Ugh; and I wanted to marry the guy" Ruffnut sneered as Astrid turned bright red.
Feeling sorry for the embarrassed young woman, Sarah placed her hand on Ruffnut's shoulder.
"Don't worry too much Ruff, your infatuation with Marty was..."
"Just another plot point; we know!" the Dragon Riders all said in unison.
"So um... do we go home now?" Snotlout wondered.
"Sounds like a good idea" Sarah agreed "I want be back on Berk when the dragon hatchlings arrive. I think I'll grab myself a pet Nadder and a Zippleback."
"Wait a minute" hiccup protested "After what just happened, what makes you think we'll welcome another stranger to the village with open arms?"
Sarah slowly turned and faced the Dragon Riders, and then with a look of menace in her eyes and a subtle wave of her hand, she spoke.
"You are all very pleased to know me" she stated in a deep voice.
"We are all very pleased to know you" they all repeated.
"And when we get back to Berk, you will build me a cosy little cottage, with an attached dragon stable."
"And when we get back, we will build you a cosy little cottage with an attached dragon stable" they once again said in chorus.
Sarah smiled, pleased at the way things had turned out for her.
Unsure of what had just occurred, the Dragon Riders followed the young lady out of the room and back into the dank alley. Hiccup pointed the way to the dock as they walked, but the group did not get far when they suddenly stumbled across two dishevelled men, sitting on small upturned crates near the edge of the market. Sarah recognised them straight away, although she was somewhat surprised by their presence.
"You said... this wouldn't happen" the first remarked, clearly upset.
"My apologies Captain; the odds against this occurrence were so great, as to just fall short of being infinite. So logically speaking, we should not find ourselves in this position."
"But we do Mister Spock.., we clearly do!"
"What on earth happened to you two?" Sarah asked the forlorn pair.
"It appears that against all likelihood, the person responsible for our presence here in this world of fan fiction did indeed turn out to be a middle aged woman, who has a thing for southern gentlemen and for doctors. Unfortunately for us, Doctor McCoy fit the bill perfectly" Spock informed them.
"So where are they now?" Sarah wondered.
"Their gone" Kirk shrugged "She took the Enterprise... and they went off on an adventure... to fight some alien race called... the Borg; whoever they are."
"Delta quadrant" Sarah noted.
"I knew a Borg once" Snotlout said casually "Swedish I think... or was he Norwegian?"
"Who knows if they'll ever come back.., and here we are... stranded in a strange place in the middle of winter... with no... local currency" Kirk sighed forlornly.
"Oh good grief" Sarah shook her head "Okay then, you'd better come with us. One of you can be my house servant and the other can act as stable boy."
"Take the one with the cool eyebrows as butler; he'd look great in formal ware" Ruffnut suggested.
The two men cheered up immensely. At least the one in the yellow tunic did, Spock though remained as stoic as Stoic.
It would take a while for everyone to get used to the new inhabitants of Berk, but they had known change before and at least they could now look forward to a normal winter, a happy Snoggletog celebration, and a whole new brood of baby dragons. All in all, it had turned out to be a very productive trip.
"Hey where'd ya get those ears?" Snotlout asked the man in blue as they cast off.
"From the same place as all Vulcans do" Spock replied.
"Paramount makeup department?"
"Precisely" Spock nodded.
Happy Snoggletog To All :)
As I write this finishing note, it is 10:45 Christmas Eve in South Australia and I am ready to fall asleep on the keyboard. As usual I will be working Christmas day (people need buses) so I look forward to getting home and seeing any last reviews of this piece of what I laughingly call the writer's art. Naturally I doubt there is a Nobel Prize for Literature coming my way, but I can live with that.
Big thanks to Vin and Draco for coming back so regularly, to Stripesicles for being my sinister villainess, and to Jokermask for joining the fun and for the reviews.
I hope to be back with you next Snoggletog, and earlier with the last book in the Return of the Dragons trilogy.
Merry Christmas, from Marty and BooCat =^..^=
