Ch.14: Meet the Dragon Trappers

The trio flew over the fjord, winding deep through undulating crimson and gold forests until the autumn colors suddenly gave away to charred timbers with nothing but ash and wafting smoke. Rapunzel started to feel a little uneasy from all the burned trees, but she only got curious of what had happened here.

Hiccup and Toothless flew deeper through the hazy terrain until they saw something the likes of which none of them have ever seen before: a massive tower of blue ice. Hiccup has seen Elza's ice powers, but this was on a whole new level. The sight of this icy explosion caused everyone's eyes to widen in astonishment, but Toothless continued to fly closer and go through the suspended remains of the buildings which were frozen in mid–destruction. Toothless spotted a pair of footsteps that were practically the size of houses left in the muddy shoreline below, and Rapunzel seemed to notice them too, and thought that this could've been done by a dragon and she didn't want to see the dragon that had done this.

"Hiccup, I'm a little scared," Rapunzel whispered in Hiccup ear and hugged him tighter.

"Don't worry about a thing. We'll just see what happened here and leave," said Hiccup, trying to comfort his wife before looking at Toothless. "What do you think, bud?"

"I don't know. It's true there are dragons with ice powers as well as Rapunzel's cousin, but this is nothing like their ice. I can tell that it was done by a dragon, but not what species it was," said Toothless.

As they crested the ice formations, Hiccup became so deep in thought that he didn't notice a crew of men at the stern of a moored ship below, but Rapunzel spotted them.

"Hiccup, look out," shouted Rapunzel as she quickly pointed at the crew, and Hiccup saw that a few of those men were standing right behind a stern–mounted cannon.

"Fire," one of the shouted, and a projectile was instantly fired from the cannon, and it soon unfurled into a net, which was fast–approaching Hiccup and Toothless.

Although the boys managed to dart out of the way, Rapunzel wasn't so lucky as she got tangled in the net, causing her to fall off of Toothless.

"Rapunzel," exclaimed Hiccup as Toothless dove after the princess.

Hiccup took a device he called Inferno out and threw at Rapunzel. The princess managed to catch it before igniting it and sliced through the net. Toothless increased his speed and caught Rapunzel in his claws, before spreading his wings to slow down their fall.

Unfortunately, they were too close to the ground so Hiccup had Toothless land, which caused nearly every men to draw their weapons at them.

"Soil my britches… that is a Night Fury. Thought they were all gone for good," said a large, raven haired man, who Hiccup assumed was the leader. "Looks like our luck's had turn for a better, lads! Don't think Drago has one of those in his dragon army."

"Dragon army," asked Rapunzel quietly as she stood behind Hiccup.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," said Hiccup as he held Inferno tightly.

"Ha! You should've thought of that before you stole all of our dragons and blasted our fort to bits," shouted the leader as he pointed up to the icy destruction above them.

"Wait… you think we did this," asked Hiccup.

"Dragon trapping is hard enough work as it is, without do–gooder dragon riders sneaking in to rescue them," said the leader, still sounding as hostile as ever.

"What do–gooder…," Hiccup trailed off as he took a moment to process what the leader just told them. "There are other dragon riders?"

"You mean other than your thieving friend from last night? You tell me," said the leader as walked closer to Hiccup and Rapunzel, while Toothless snarled protectively. "You may have an ice–spitting dragon on your side, but we've got a quota to fill. How do you suppose we explain this mess to Drago Bludvist?"

"Drago what–fist? Does anything you say make sense," asked Hiccup as he thought that everything he heard from this man was all kinds of weird.

"He's expecting a new shipment of dragons for his army by tomorrow," said one dragon trapper.

"And Drago don't take well to excuses," said another trapper.

"This is what he gave me the last time I showed up empty–handed," said the leader as he split his tunic, revealing a large branding–iron scar on his torso, in the shape of a dragon skull, split by a sword.

Seeing the scar caused Hiccup to grimace, and the expression on Toothless' face didn't change at all, while Rapunzel couldn't help but feel some sympathy for the man.

"Look we don't know anything about a dragon thief, or an ice–spitting dragon, or your lunatic boss and his dragon army," said Hiccup. "Just lower your weapons so by best friend won't blast and we'll go, strange, hostile person whom we've never met."

"Oh, where are my manners? I'm Eret. Son of Eret," the leader introduced as he bowed playfully before pulling a dagger from his back, which only aggravated Toothless. "Finest dragon trapper alive. After all not just anyone can capture a Night Fury."

Eret pointed his dagger at Toothless, who roared a warning.

"Time to get away from these freaks," Toothless told his best friend and Hiccup nodded.

"And this is Toothless. He says we're going, now," said Hiccup as Rapunzel got on the saddle, while Hiccup sprayed Zippleback gas from Inferno around them before igniting it the gas, which caused the trappers to run for cover.

Hiccup used the moment to get on Toothless, and by the time Eret got back on his feet, he saw Toothless flying away, carrying Hiccup and Rapunzel out of reach of their arrows.

"You'll never hold on to that dragon, you hear me!? Drago is coming for them all," shouted Eret.

Although the whole experience left him a little shaken, Hiccup was sure that he'd recover for the most part, but there was someone else he was concerned for.

"Are you okay, Rapunzel," Hiccup asked his wife.

"Yeah, I'll be alright," said Rapunzel before kissing Hiccup's cheek. "So what are we going to do now?"

"We've got to find out more about that Drago guy and I know just the person to get information from," said Hiccup.

"Really? Who," asked Rapunzel even if she already had a feeling who they were gonna ask.

"My dad must've heard of him. Toothless, Rapunzel, we're going to Berk," said Hiccup a little nervously.

"Never liked that place, but since your dad is the only one we can answers from, then let's do it," said Toothless as he flew towards Berk.

"What do you thing the villagers will do when they see us," asked Rapunzel.

"Only one way to find out," said Hiccup.

To be continued…

Hey, everyone. I'm back with another chapter. Obviously, this'll be the last chapter for 2019. The next one will be out in late January or early February. Now that the story has reached the arc of the second movie, I want to point out that there will be NO CHARACTER DEATH besides the Bewilderbeast at the nest. Stay tuned to find out what's gonna happen. I'll see you all next time. Until then, have a nice day.

R&R