So I woke up sick as a horse this morning, I was vomiting, I can't eat a thing cause I just vomit it up later, I am miserable right now.
But my misery doesn't mean you should wait for the next chapter. So here it is, maybe you can find some joy in this while I lay in bed feeling like I'm about to die.
Branch and Melody had been flying for the past two days, only briefly stopping to eat and for quick power naps. Despite flying through what felt to them to be the entire ocean they didn't see a single dragon hunting ship. Eventually Melody's wings were getting tired, she started tilting and her flight pattern was getting shaky, Branch knew she was in need of a break.
Branch patted Melody on the neck."I know girl, I've been really pushing you haven't I?" Branch spotted a island just about half a mile away. "Well I guess a break wouldn't hurt to much. It's been two days since I got a proper sleep myself, we can rest there for the rest of the day and head out tomorrow. Besides I've been wanting a chance to test this out." Branch pulled out a flying suit that gave him wings like a dragon. Slipping it on he stood up on Melody's back and looked below at the 100 foot drop below him. Melody not knowing what Branch was about to do, looked at him in concern and confusion.
"Hey Melody, last one to the island is Creek's grandmother." Branch then jumped off of Melody, Melody in a fit of panic looked around for her owner, only for him to glide up next to him a couple of seconds later.
"It works!" Branch cheered, turning to Melody to give her a reassuring smile. Melody however gave Branch a stern look.
"What did I scare you? I had the whole thing under contro... WHOA!" Suddenly a gust of wind caught Branch and he was sent spinning out of control through the air. Melody instantly raced after him, determined to reach him before he crashed.
"Um, Melody, a little help here?" Melody quickly grabbed him in her front legs and landed gently on the island. Branch patted himself to ensure he had all his body parts then turn and gave a nervous chuckle to Melody, who was giving him a even more stern glare then before.
"So I guess I have a few kinks to adjust, let's consider it a draw." Melody let out serious of grunts that Branch assumed was mocking him. "Hey no need for that type of attitude." Melody let out a new serious of grunts as if arguing with Branch.
"No we are not going back, It's just you and me now bud, on our own. No telling where we are going." Melody continued to look at Branch in a disappointed way. "Look do I have to give a explanation again? You was there when I explained myself the first time. This is the only way to keep them..."
Suddenly Branch was interrupted by the sound of a dragon roaring. Branch turned around to see a species of dragon he had never seen before. It was the size of a small house, black in color with red wings, his scales was so shiny that the sun reflected off it, nearly blinding Branch in the process.
"I've never seen that dragon before." Branch gasped, quickly digging into his backpack and pulling out the book of dragons. After flipping through a few pages, he finally found a accurate drawing of the dragon he just witnessed.
"The shiny blinder, this dragons scales are so bright that when out flying in the day time it can cause temporary or even permanent blindness to anybody who gazes upon it, a handy tool to catching prey." Branch suddenly did a double check at the next part he read. "Believed to be extinct, no known sighting for the past thirty five years."
Branch closed his book in disbelief. "Extinct, this dragon is believed to be extinct? I just rediscovered a dragon long thought to have died out. Boy what Biggie wouldn't give to see this."
That wasn't the only rare and believed to be extincted dragon Branch discovered on the island. The more he explored it, the more and more rare species he discovered. There was even some that had thought to have all perished more than a hundred years ago living on this island.
"I can't believe it, It's like a hidden dragon utopia. Hundreds of species of species of dragons, many of them thought long extinct, are all living together on this one island. Do you know what this means bud? We could be standing on a dragon sanctuary."
"Who goes there?" A strange voice calls out. Branch turns around and is quickly tackled to the ground by a strange masked troll. Melody starts to charge her flame but soon many of the other dragons comes and surrounds her. Branch tries to fight off his attacker but is soon pinned to the ground. Branch prepares himself for what he thought was going to be the end but once the masked troll gets a good look at Branch he stares into his eyes and quickly takes a step backwards in shock, "Branch?"
Branch gets up and stares at the masked troll in confusion, how did he know his name.
"I recognize those eyes anywhere, is it really you?"
"Should I know you?"
"No, The strange troll took off his mask, Branch took a step backwards of his own. He had the same colored blue skin as him, he almost looked exactly like a older version of himself only with a goatee, grey hair and wrinkles. "You were only a baby, but a grandfather never forgets." Branch gasped at this revelation.
"Wait? Grandfather Oaken?"
The older troll grabbed Branch and wrapped him into a deep tearful hug. "I thought I would die before I ever got to see you again."
"We all thought you were dead. Grandma told me you went out to sea and never came back. We all thought you got lost at sea."
"Leaving you and Grandma, was the hardest thing I ever did."
"Then why did you? Especially considering my parents disappeared just a month and a half later. You have a lot of explaining to do? Why did you leave Grandma?"
"I had to," Oaken replied "To protect them." Oaken pointed to the dragons. "And you."
"From what?"
"Blood."
"Who's Blood?"
"Here's hoping you never find out, he is a dragon hunter, the worst of them all."
"I've been fighting dragon hunters for three years now Grandpa, I'm sure I can handle this guy."
"Blood is just not a dragon hunter, he's the head of them all, he is the most ruthless, sadistic, most dangerous of them all. He will kill anybody who stands in his way, women, children, he doesn't care. That's why I had to leave you. When I heard of these dragon hunters I had to help. They had wiped over fifty percent of dragon subspecies to the brink of extinction. If I didn't do something they would all die. That's why I built this place, and led all the most endangered dragons here, so Blood wouldn't have found them."
"You should have at least told us what you were doing, we might could have helped."
"You know your grandmother, she is stubborn, I tried to tell her the truth of the dragons, I tried to tell all of them, nobody listened. That's why I had your parents go after the demon dragon, they were the only ones that listened."
"You where the ones that sent them after that monster?" Branch gasped, lunging at Oaken and grabbing him by the collar. "You were the one that led them to their deaths?"
"They're dead?" Oaken gasped.
"I found their remains, in the nest of the demon dragon, Cloud Guy showed me the vision of them dying. They failed Oaken, and their deaths are on you, you sent them on that mission."
Oaken fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. "So, the demon dragon is still out their, keeping those dragons hostage?"
"No, he's destroyed, I finished what they started, but is that all you care about? You sent your son and his wife to their deaths, my parents! And all you ask is if the Demon dragon is still out their? You turned your back on everyone, you put the dragons, before your own family."
"In that case why are you here?" Oaken snapped back. "You obviously aren't thinking about your family otherwise you wouldn't be here."
Branch took a step back in realization, Oaken was right, he was doing the exact thing he got on to Oaken for. With nothing to respond with he just lowered his head in shame.
"Guess you take after me more than you realize Branch. Just wish your grandmother realized that."
"She does now, they all do."
"I find that hard to believe, she hated dragons more than anyone there."
"She's changed Grandpa, they all have."
"Sorry, I just can't see that, some people just can't change. That's another reason why I left her behind. You can stay if you want Branch, but I must warn you, there's a threat coming Branch. One that will put all not only the dragons, but you, and Rosiepuff in danger if I stayed at that tree. Blood will destroy everything that stands in his way. If you are going to stay here, then you must prepare yourself for war."
With that Oaken went back and headed for his pod, leaving Branch to take everything in that he just learned. Just yesterday he thought his grandfather was dead, now he's not only alive but is rescuing dragons himself, Branch needed to know one more thing.
"Grandpa wait," Branch called out, causing Oaken to stop and turn back to him "Do you ride dragons as well?"
"Yes Branch, I do."
"So I wasn't the first?" Branch gasped "That means... CLOUD GUY!" Branch screamed. Cloud Guy appeared behind him within literally a second.
"Hey, how'd you get here so fast?"
"I'm a cloud, I can pop up anywhere within the snap of a finger."
"You lied to me Cloud Guy, you said I was the first one to train these dragons."
"First off, I never actually said that, yeah I sort of let you on to believe that but I didn't quite technically say that. Second I'm not known as the all truthful Cloud guy, I'm the all knowing all seeing Cloud Guy. If you want the all truthful Cloud Guy you need to see my cousin. But let me warn you, when I mean all truthful I mean brutally honest. There was this girl this one time who asked him if she would ever find true love and he responded "No, because your face looks like a bergen after getting mauled by a polar bear."" Cloud Guy burst into laughter after saying that, Branch just stared at him in confusion. "She never left the pod again without a bag over her head. Her tombstone now reads the ugly trolling."
"Anyway, I got business to attend to, good luck with your grandfather."
"Hey wait a second..." To late, Cloud Guy was already gone. Frustrated Branch marched off towards his Grandfather's pod "Why is it always the annoying ones that get to be immortal."
"He did what!?" Rosiepuff screamed after she was told the message from the other riders.
"Branch ran off two days ago to fight the dragon hunters alone." Reby replied
"And you waited this long to tell me this why?"
"Because we knew you would go after him." Cooper replied cowering in fear, when Rosiepuff was angry, she could make even the most bravest troll cradle in fear, just one look into her eyes was enough to burn a whole through the thickest stone.
"You darn right I would." Rosiepuff then turned to the twins. "And you two! You said he was doing some extra work at Dragon's edge. You deliberately lied to me."
"Hey in our defense you should know not to take anything we say seriously." Chenille replied making the other riders gasps, and cover their mouths with their hands. Very few people dared to smart off to Rosiepuff, the last person who did got tied to a lighting rod during a thunderstorm, ever since then that guys nickname had been Sparky.
Rosiepuff glared at Chenille and soon Chenille quickly started shaking in fear. "S...sorry." Chenille gulped.
Rosiepuff took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "Where is he now?"
"We don't know." Smidge said "He just flew off and didn't tell anyone, he doesn't want to be followed." "Please don't coat us in honey and tie us to a ant hill." Cooper pleaded, "We tried to stop him but he's just as stubborn and hard headed as you are, why did I call you stubborn and hard headed? Am I trying to get myself killed? I'm shutting up now."
Rosiepuff took a exhale, trying to calm down. She was extremely furious not only at her grandson for running off on a suicide mission like that, but also at his friends for deliberately keeping it from her for two whole days. There would certainly be some sort of consequences for these actions, but being the riders were still barely legal adults she couldn't do anything to extreme, plus they were Branch's friends.
Rosiepuff was still pondering how she was going to handle the situation when Cloud Guy popped up.
"Excuse me Chief Rosiepuff, mind if I still one of these soon to be dead kids of yours." Both Cooper and Guy Diamond gulped when he said that.
"Cloud Guy!" Rosiepuff gasped running up to the all knowing guru. "How's Branch, is he hurt? Where can I find him?"
"Relax, your Grandson is fine, he's your grandson after all, only the troll that took out the Demon Dragon after all." Cloud Guy then turned to Fuzzbert.
"You, you can't talk can you?"
Fuzzbert shook his head no.
"Good, your with me."
"Where you going?" Suki asked confused.
"Can't tell you, top secret."
"Then why is he going?"
"So I don't get lonely, duh! Plus he can't talk so he is really good at keeping secrets. Anyway Come along Fuzzball, it's off to a top secret assignment. Who knows if we will even come back alive? Well I will since, I'm immortal, you on the other hand, we'll see."
The other riders just stared in confusion as Cloud Guy walked off with their silent friend, Creek, was the first to speak up, whispering in Biggie's ear. "You know for a wise all knowing Guru he's a major pain in the..."
"So who died?" Dagger suddenly arrived, carrying a tombstone in his hand. "Was it Guy, Diamond cause I made a wager with Heather that it would be Guy Diamond that Rosiepuff murdered, even made out a tombstone for him already." Dagger showed everyone the tombstone that read "R.I.P Guy Diamond, he made the chief mad." Dagger then saw Guy Diamond alive in front of him and sadly tossed the headstone in the trash can.
"Why do I let you hang around us?" Guy Diamond responded.
"You don't everyone else does."
Everyone else started chuckling at Guy Diamond's expense while Guy Diamond just face palmed himself. "Why does this stuff always happen to me?"
At the cave of the Ice giant. Blood threw a stick dynamite into the beast's cave. He knew due to the dragon's size it wasn't going to kill it, in fact Blood had no intention of killing the dragon, he just wanted to draw it out so he could control it.
And draw it out he did, with a loud roar the ice giant ran out of his cave and fired shards of ice at the hunters, impaling a couple to the wall.
Blood wasn't scared though, not even close, with the flick of his wrist he wrapped a chain around the ice giant's neck while a couple of the surviving hunters wrapped some chains around it's legs. The Ice giant struggled to get away, dragging his two front feet a couple of inches, but as Blood pulled on the chain around the dragon's neck the ice giant soon fell defeated.
Blood walked up slowly to his prize and chuckled as he took out a small bottle from his pocket. The bottle contained crushed petals from a plant known as the "Mind warper". The mind warper was local to only the western islands, and was only eaten by one species of dragon known as the night stalker. The night stalker ate the plants and then when hunting for smaller dragons to eat would spray the fumes from the mind warper into the dragon's nose putting it under the Night Stalker's control so it could kill it's prey.
Now Blood had the fumes of the mind warper and he was going to use it to control the ice giant.
"The ice giant is the king of all dragons." Blood replied "He alone has the power to control all the other dragons to follow him, but if I can control the ice giant." Blood then blew the fumes into the dragon's nostrils, soon the Ice giants's pupils went smaller and fell under the control the fumes. "Then I can lead all the dragons to me."
"So what's your first target Blood?" A hunter asked.
"I think it's time to take out that little pest's pet feathered fury, and I know just where to find him." Blood turned to the ice giant, "Take me, to the troll tree."