A/N: Yes, I'm still alive and updating. What just happened: the body of the Fyremyte exploded and caused a cave in. Now, Hiccup, Toothless, Fishlegs, and Snotlout are trapped in the volcano. Oh, and did anyone see the How to Train your Dragon Christmas special? The thing with Toothless's tail. I TOTALLY CALLED IT! Enjoy. ;D
Volcano Quest
Hiccup slowly stood up, wincing at the slight burn the explosion had left on his back. He slowly walked down towards the blocked tunnel; he placed his gloved hand on one of the large boulders that had sealed off the entrance. It was still hot.
Suddenly, Hiccup whipped around to face Snotlout. "You idiot!" he shouted.
"What?" exclaimed Snotlout, standing up to face his cousin.
"This is all your fault!" Hiccup shouted back at him, his fists clenched in rage.
"How is this my fault?" Snotlout shouted back, raising his voice to be heard over Hiccup's rage.
"You cheated!" Hiccup fumed. "You got a head start! You left and came here in the middle of the night just because you were afraid of losing, when it wasn't a competition to begin with! And now, we're trapped here, and the volcano is probably going to explode and kill us!"
"Guys, calm down!" exclaimed Fishlegs, extremely worried. Hiccup was normally the one that kept a level head, and it scared him to see him this angry.
"I'm sorry," said Hiccup sarcastically, "but I already lost a limb here before, and I don't wanna lose another one!"
Fishlegs gulped.
Finally, Toothless stepped between Hiccup and the others. "Hiccup," he whispered in Dragonese, "you need to calm down. You and I both know that Fishlegs is too panicky to make it out of here without your help, and Snotlout is too stupid to get out of here." Slowly, reason slowly trickled back into Hiccup's eyes and he slowly unclenched his fists.
"That's right," said Toothless as Hiccup calmed down. "Now just calm down and think..."
Hiccup took a deep breath and nodded. "Thanks Toothless," he whispered in Dragonese. Slowly, he looked around Toothless and at Fishlegs and Snotlout. They were both looking at him expectantly. At that moment, Hiccup really wished that Camicazi was there to restore order, but he was also glad that she wasn't. He was glad that she was safe back in Berk... even though he wasn't sure Berk was even safe anymore.
Hiccup walked to the end of the tunnel, and he saw that it bent to the right. He looked down the tunnel, into the darkness. "We should keep going," he said, turning to face the others. "I think this is an old lava tunnel. It'll probably take us deeper into the volcano. We can find the Fire Diamond, stop the volcano from erupting, and get the hell out of here."
Toothless and Fishlegs nodded in agreement. Snotlout, however, took a slight step back.
"What if we try and clear away some of these rocks," suggested Snotlout, gesturing to the giant boulders blocking the exit.
"Sure, Snotlout," said Hiccup, crossing his arms and smiling. "Go ahead and move some of those rocks."
Snotlout glared at Hiccup before wiping his hands against his shirt and walking over to a large boulder, four feet across. He wrapped his arms around it and tried to lift it up. The rock didn't budge. Snotlout's face turned deep red with the effort of trying to lift the boulder.
"Remember, lift with your knees," said Hiccup sarcastically, resulting in a giggle from Toothless and Fishlegs.
Snotlout shot a glare over his shoulder before giving up and letting go of the the rock. He slowly walked back over to the others.
"Too heavy for your tiny human arms?" laughed Toothless.
"What did he just say?" snarled Snotlout.
"He said you did a very good job hugging that rock," said Hiccup sarcastically. Toothless burst into laughter.
"Whatever," muttered Snotlout, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you just tell your dragon to blast the rocks away?"
"I don't tell him to do anything," said Hiccup. "He does whatever he wants."
Toothless smiled menacingly, showing his teeth. He winked at Snotlout.
Snotlout gulped and got kinda pale. "...Can we just go now?"
Hiccup nodded, and the mood became a bit more tense. No one knew what they would find down that tunnel. They slowly started walking down the dark tunnel; the only light came from Toothless's glowing eyes.
After walking for a few minutes, the tunnel came to another turn, this one curving left.
"Wait for a minute," Hiccup said quietly. The others stopped, and Hiccup turned to Fishlegs. "Do you still have that book? The one about volcano dragons?"
Fishlegs nodded and set his basket down. The basket was slightly burnt because of the explosion, but nothing inside suffered any damage. Fishlegs pulled the book out and handed it to Hiccup, who flipped through it for a moment with Toothless looking over his shoulder.
"There it is," Hiccup whispered to Toothless in Dragonese. Toothless looked at the note in the book for a moment before nodding. Hiccup closed the book and handed it back to Fishlegs.
"What were you looking at?" asked Snotlout, looking around nervously.
"Just taking a few precautions," said Hiccup. "Just in case."
Any questions were cut off when the ground shook with a tremor. A few trickles of dirt rained down from the tunnel ceiling, and the air around them got a bit hotter.
"We better keep moving," said Hiccup when the tremor died down.
The others nodded and they slowly made their way around the turn, continuing on. The air was slowly getting a bit hotter as they moved closer to the core of the volcano.
"So..." said Fishlegs after a few minutes, "do we even know where the Fire Diamond is, or how we're gonna get to it?"
"It should be up near the top," said Snotlout.
Hiccup smiled a bit. "So it was you spying on us last night..."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Snotlout.
"Last night, a little dragon that can speak Norse told us that the Fire Diamond would be near the top of the volcano, right around the rim," Hiccup explained, his sarcastic smile never leaving his face. "He told us it was at the top because he heard someone hiding behind the rock he was sitting on. If you hadn't cheated and left early, then you would have heard him tell us that it was actually really deep down below the main chamber."
Snotlout's face had gone from pale at Hiccup's accusation to deep red with embarrassment. Before he could say anything in his defense, Toothless interrupted him.
"Hiccup..." he whispered, his ears standing straight up as he listened to something moving deeper in the tunnel. Everyone went completely silent, and they could barely hear something scurrying around.
Hiccup put his finger over his mouth, telling the others to stay quiet. He then slightly waved his hand, gesturing for them to move forward. He and Toothless slowly walked forward, with Fishlegs and Snotlout close behind. Toothless kept his eyes trained low near the tunnel floor.
Suddenly, Hiccup stopped. He waited for a moment before slowly pointing forwards into the depths of the tunnel. About ten feet away from them, about 50 small pairs of eyes glowed in the dark. The eyes were so small that they seemed to just be pinpricks of light in the darkness, but they were there.
"What are they...?" Snotlout whispered.
Hiccup didn't answer. Instead, he just let out a long, quiet, high-pitch whistle. The little pinprick eyes disappeared, and Hiccup stopped whistling.
"Hiccup..." whispered Fishlegs, "were those..."
"Piffleworms, yeah," said Hiccup, nodding.
"Piffle-whats?" stammered Snotlout.
Toothless leaned forward, and his eyes illuminated a small pack of tiny frozen black-scaled dragons. Each dragon was only an inch or two long, but their open mouths revealed their long fangs, which were dripping purple venom.
"Small, yet poisonous," said Fishlegs. "Venom, 50. To quote from the Dragon Manual: they're so poisonous that if you get bit, you have about a quarter of a second to curse your bad luck before you drop dead. I don't know what their poison does to you if they're paralyzed."
"I do," said Hiccup, sliding his right glove off so that the others could see the two small, circular puncture wounds on his palm. "Don't step on them. Their fangs are sticking straight up in the air, so just step around them."
"But..." Snotlout stammered, "how did you-"
"Piffleworms are paralyzed by whistling," Hiccup explained as he stepped over the small mass of nanodragons with poisonous fangs. Toothless had already stepped ahead, and he was lighting the pile of dragons so that the others didn't step on them.
"I don't remember that book saying anything about Piffleworms," said Fishlegs as he carefully stepped over the dragons.
"That's because it didn't say anything about Piffleworms," said Hiccup. "It just said that there could be some poisonous dragons lurking in lava tubes like this. Toothless and I know how much Piffleworms love tunnels, so..." He shrugged, letting the sentence hang. They all looked at Snotlout, who was still on the other side of the paralyzed dragons. "C'mon Snotlout, hurry before they wake up."
Snotlout bounced in place for a moment before trying to gracefully jump over the cluster of Piffleworms. He made it over, but when he landed, he tripped and face-planted.
"Oh Snot-face..." said Toothless. "Fail."
They walked fast to put distance between themselves and the horde of Piffleworms. The tunnel slowly got a bit wider, and the air grew even hotter. The tunnel was angling down, so Hiccup hoped they were getting closer to a path to the core.
Up ahead in the tunnel, something started glowing red.
"Hiccup..." whimpered Fishlegs. "W-what is that?"
Hiccup looked over to Toothless. "Do you hear any dragons?"
Toothless shook his head, no. "It sounds kinda like water..."
"Water?" Hiccup wondered out loud.
"Good, I'm thirsty!" exclaimed Snotlout.
"I don't think you're gonna want to drink this," said Hiccup as he walked around the slight bend, looking at what was glowing red. The others stepped up beside him, and their jaws dropped.
The walls of the cavern they stood in were obsidian black for the most part, but there were veins of clear, glass-like rock spider-webbing the walls. Behind these clear rocks flowed bubbling magma. The magma flowing through the ceiling of the cavern was what created the red glow, seeing as most of the ceiling was made of the clear rock. It was almost as if there was a clear bubble of air protecting them as they were surrounded by the molten rock.
"This is amazing..." whispered Hiccup, his eyes wide and his mouth open. He took a few steps closer to the wall and saw that the clear rock was some kind of crystal. Hiccup took off his glove and cautiously reached forward, gently running his finger over the crystals. "They're cold..."
"How did this get here...?" Toothless wondered out loud.
"I thought you grew up in this volcano..." Hiccup said, turning to Toothless.
He shook his head. "Actually, I grew up on an island way out to sea."
"Hey, what's this...?" Snotlout asked no one. Hiccup turned and saw that he was bending over what looked like giant, hollowed out pieces of coal. Hiccup walked over and knelt down, taking a better look. He picked one of the objects up, examining it.
"It looks like..." Looking a bit closer, Hiccup saw claw and burn marks on the inside of the object. "I think... I think these used to be dragon eggs!"
"Dragon eggs?" exclaimed Fishlegs. "But what kind of dragon could possibly hatch here?"
"Let's think for a minute," said Hiccup in a way that told everyone else that he already knew the answer. "Snotlout, how far into this tunnel did you make it before you ran out screaming?"
"Just past that first turn," said Snotlout, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"Before you were chased out by Fyremytes," Hiccup added. "It makes you wonder: where did those Fyremytes come from in the first place?"
Snotlout just stared at him, still confused, but Fishlegs got it. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "Are you saying these are Fyremyte eggs?"
"Used to be Fyremyte eggs," said Hiccup, tossing the empty shell in his hands to Fishlegs. "They've already hatched."
"But there are like 50 shells in here!" exclaimed Snotlout.
"And we were attacked by 10 of them..." said Hiccup, waiting for the information to kick in.
"So it kinda makes you wonder..." Fishlegs muttered.
"Where are all the others?" Hiccup finished for him. They all looked at each other for a moment before Hiccup stood up. "I think we better keep going..." The others nodded in agreement.
"There's the other tunnel," said Toothless, gesturing across the cavern.
"Then let's get going," said Hiccup.
"What about water?" asked Snotlout.
Hiccup pulled a canteen of water out of the basket attached to Toothless's saddle. He tossed it to Snotlout. "Make it last. I've only got a few." Snotlout nodded gratefully.
They all cautiously made their way across the cavern and into the next tunnel. This one was sloping down at a much steeper angle, so they had to watch their step. They walked on for a few minutes until the angle of the tunnel got so steep that they were practically crawling.
That was when Hiccup's foot slipped. Before he could catch himself, he fell on his back. Because of the steep angle, he started sliding.
"Hiccup!" shouted Toothless. He tried to grab Hiccup – with his teeth retracted, of course – but he slipped too! "Whoa!" As Toothless fell, his tail swept Fishlegs and Snotlout's feet out from under them, and they all ended up sliding.
A bit further down the tunnel, Hiccup was trying to stop himself. He dug his clawed hands into the slick ground, but the tunnel was too slippery for his claws to get a grip. He dug his heels into the ground ahead of him, but his prosthetic leg hit a dip, which ended up twisting his leg around. He let out a sharp cry as fiery pain shot through his entire left leg.
Suddenly, the tunnel curved up ahead. He managed to get a good hold on something on the turn, but the force of suddenly stopping almost ripped his arms from their sockets. However, he slowed himself down enough for Toothless to catch up.
Toothless quickly wrapped his tail around Hiccup's waist and pulled him closer. Making sure that Hiccup was secure, Toothless turned so that he was facing back into the tunnel. The then dug his claws into the ground. Since his claws were much larger and stronger than Hiccup's improvised claws, he managed to get a grip.
"Toothless!" Hiccup shouted. Toothless looked over his shoulder and saw Hiccup clinging to his tail like he did the first time they flew together. That was when he saw the end of the tunnel, and the angry red glow at the end. He felt the heat blast him in the back, and he realized what was happening: the tunnel ended right into a chamber of magma.
With renewed determination, Toothless dug his claws into the ground even harder. They were slowing down. The end of the tunnel was getting closer.
"Toothless!" screamed Hiccup, tightening his grip on Toothless's tail. Toothless was slowing down, but they were still too close to the end!
With all of his strength, Toothless lifted his claws before bringing them back down as hard as he could, lodging them into the floor. Sparks shot up, and his muscles ached, but they quickly slowed to a stop at the very end of the tunnel. The tip of Toothless's tail fin was hanging off the edge. Hiccup slowly crawled up towards Toothless's back. Toothless walked forward a bit to get his tail away from the edge.
"W-w-we should p-probably go back up to the others," stammered Hiccup once he was half-way up Toothless's tail. He didn't want to let go yet.
Before Toothless could even get the words "Good idea" out of his mouth, a scream echoed from above them. Toothless didn't even have time to brace himself for the impact before Fishlegs and Snotlout rammed into him as they slid down the tunnel.
WHAM!
The impact sent Toothless sliding backwards so that most of his tail fell over the edge. Hiccup slid down his tail, unable to get a grip, and he would have fallen if Toothless hadn't extended his tail fins. Hiccup wrapped his arms and working leg around Toothless's tail, looking down at the bubbling pool of magma. They had made it to the Queen's Chamber, or what was left of it. Columns of smoke bellowed upwards, and the heat was almost unbearable.
Suddenly, Hiccup was pulled back up as Toothless pulled his tail back into the tunnel. Once the ground was safely below him, Hiccup let go of Toothless's tail and sat gasping for breath, feeling ready to have an asthma attack on the spot.
"Hiccup, are you okay?" whimpered Toothless, gently nuzzling Hiccup's face.
Hiccup took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. "Yeah... I'm okay..." he gasped.
Snotlout, who, along with Fishlegs, had been stopped by Toothless, cautiously walked to the end of the tunnel and looked down at the magma. "I think I see another tunnel," he said.
Fishlegs looked out across the sea of magma. "Oh yeah, I see it too!" he exclaimed, spotting the small tunnel entrance about 20 feet above the lava. Looking down, he saw that the tunnel they were in now was about 100 feet above the lava, but there was no path connecting the two tunnels. "But how are we supposed to get over there?"
"You seem to be forgetting that the dragon I'm leaning against has wings," said Hiccup sarcastically. Fishlegs and Snotlout turned around to see Hiccup standing up and leaning against Toothless for support. He wasn't putting any weight on his left leg. They walk/limped forward and joined the others at the ledge.
"Toothless, do you think you can make that?" Hiccup asked him.
"With all three of you on my back?" Hiccup nodded, and Toothless smirked. "Not a problem. Just let me fly down there and make sure."
"Okay," said Hiccup. He turned to Fishlegs and Snotlout. "Toothless is gonna fly down there and see if it's big enough for him to fly us all in." They nodded, and Hiccup moved away from Toothless, leaning on Fishlegs for support.
Toothless, using his independent fire-proof tail fin, flew across the sea of magma and into the other tunnel. He was gone for a minute before reappearing and flying back up into the first tunnel. "This one's big enough. It looks like it goes deeper into the volcano."
Suddenly, another violent tremor shook the volcano. The magma below started to rise.
"We've gotta go!" exclaimed Hiccup, hopping onto Toothless's back.
"The tunnel curves up," said Toothless hurriedly. "If we hurry, we can outrun it!"
"He said there's a chance," Hiccup told the other two. "Now get on!"
Without hesitating, Fishlegs and Snotlout jumped on Toothless's back. Toothless didn't even flinch at the added weight.
"Go, Toothless, go!" shouted Hiccup. He didn't even bother hooking his harness to the saddle, seeing as his hands were shaking too much; he simply wrapped his arms tightly around Toothless's neck. Fishlegs held on to Hiccup so tight that he nearly broke a rib. Snotlout wrapped his arms around Fishlegs, silently crying for his mommy.
Toothless took off as fast as he could, waiting until the last minute to swoop down and into the tunnel. A large stream of magma followed them in. Toothless didn't even land; he just kept flying. Luckily, the tunnel was wide enough for his massive wingspan, but it wasn't very high, so Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Snotlout had to stay bent low to avoid having their heads taken off. The lava was right on their tail.
Suddenly, Toothless swerved up, following the path of the tunnel. He then swerved right and headed for a sudden cliff at the end of the path.
"Toothless!" Hiccup screamed over the rush of wind and the deafening boiling of the lava behind them. It had risen beyond the level of the rise, and it was right behind them again.
"What?" Toothless shouted back.
"Look out!" Toothless looked ahead and saw that the path to the cliff was too narrow for his wingspan.
"Everybody, hold on to your butts!" shouted Toothless. As soon as they reached the narrow part of the tunnel, Toothless folded his wings in and they plunged through the gap. As soon as they were on the other side, he spread his wings again. The floor disappeared beneath them, dropping into a sheer cliff.
As soon as they were over the cliff, Toothless stopped and turned around, hovering in midair. All four of them watched as the lava spilled through the gap and plunged off the cliff into a smaller, sizzling pool of lava below.
"So where do we go now?" Snotlout asked over the sizzling of the lava.
Toothless looked around and saw two different tunnels a bit lower than where he was hovering. He soared over to them, but stopped, looking between the two tunnels. "Which one do we take?"
Before Hiccup could make any suggestions, a bright red glow started coming from the left tunnel.
"Hide in the right tunnel," Hiccup quickly whispered. Toothless flew over to the tunnel on the right and turned around, crouching down. A moment later, about 20 Fyremytes flew out of the tunnel and disappeared, heading back towards the Queen's Chamber.
"So we should go down this tunnel," suggested Snotlout, watching as the dragons disappeared.
"No, wait a minute," said Hiccup. "Why would they be coming from that tunnel?"
"Please don't tell me you think we should go down that tunnel," Fishlegs whispered to Hiccup nervously.
"Just hear me out," said Hiccup, starting to get excited. "What if they were down in that tunnel because they were guarding something?"
"If they're guarding something, then there are probably gonna be more!" exclaimed Snotlout. "And what would they be guarding anyways?"
Hiccup turned around and stared at Snotlout with a deadpan expression. "Seriously?"
Snotlout stared back for a moment before realization dawned on his face. "Oh, the Fire Diamond! Right..."
Hiccup face-palmed himself.
Fishlegs leaned around Hiccup and spoke to Toothless. "Uh, can we go before Hiccup pushes Snotlout into the lava?"
Toothless laughed a bit and glided out of the tunnel they were hiding in. He turned in a graceful arc in midair and flew into the tunnel on the left; the one the Fyremytes had flown out of. Once he landed, Snotlout and Fishlegs quickly dismounted. Hiccup slowly slid off and landed on his right leg, trying not to put any pressure on his injured left leg.
"What did you do to your leg?" Snotlout asked him, just now noticing his cousin's limp.
"Twisted it..." muttered Hiccup, his face pale.
"How did you manage to twist your ankle when you don't even have-" A snarl from Toothless cut him off.
"C'mon, let's just go," said Hiccup. He leaned against Toothless, and they walked forward, with Fishlegs and Snotlout right behind them.
A/N: Hm, I wonder what they'll find next! Oh, and if anybody finds the Jurassic Park quote, I'll give you a cookie! Poor Hiccup. Trapped in a volcano with an injured leg, a walking panic attack, an oblivious idiot, and about 50 (or more) pissed off flaming dragons. This is going to be interesting...