(AN) - So sorry about the wait, guys. Last week, my tablet decided to shoot itself with a full battery. Since I had everything on there, I had to rewrite this chapter and will need to write 17 as well. Ugh. This going to be a pain. Anyways, enjoy.
Chapter 16: Queen's Fall
He knew this was this was the end.
Stoick knew there was no way he would survive what would come. He and Gobber had only bought the village a few seconds, but hopefully those few seconds would not be completely in vain. The Chief of Berk could do nothing but watch as the monstrosity's throat filled with the dark green gas.
BOOM!
Her head snapped forward from the blast's impact, the collected cloud within her dissipating. Out of the smoke flew a group of dragons.
Stoick was shocked twice. First, the group was led by a Night Fury. But there was no way it could have escaped its chains and shackles. Second, this year's Dragon Training class was riding the beasts.
Okay, three times. On the Night Fury was not only Hiccup, but also that crimson demon from the arena. How did he...?
He stared at them in amazement as they flew by. Gobber came up next to him, recognizing the dragons as the ones from training. "Every bit the boar-headed, stubborn Viking you ever were," he said, gesturing an arm towards the aerial group.
Stoick could only nod his head in agreement.
Javelin sneered at the giant beast from behind his helmet. This ends today, he declared in his mind. His blood-brother was holding on tight behind him.
"Okay, Fishlegs, break it down," he shouted.
"Right. Armored skull and large tail used for bashing and crushing. Steer clear of both. Small eyes, large nostrils, relies on hearing and smell," Fishlegs deduced atop Meatlug.
"Okay, then, 'Lout, 'Legs, hang in its blind spot. Make some noise and keep it confused. Ruff, Tuff, find out if that thing has a shot limit. Make it mad."
Javelin ignored the twins' banter and focused on finding Toothless.
"There," Twilight said, and she dived towards Toothless, who was still chained up on a slowly burning ship. Hiccup got off as soon as they landed.
"Go help the others," he told Javelin. "I have this."
Javelin hesitated, but he and Twilight quickly took off.
Meanwhile, Fishlegs and Snotlout were banging their weapons on their shields, attempting to confuse the Queen. Instead, she revealed her second and third pairs of eyes. "Uh, this thing doesn't have a blind spot!" Fishlegs yelled.
They continued anyway and soon made actual progress. The giant dragon swayed its head unsteadily. Unfortunately, the noise was affecting Meatlug and Hookfang, who were losing their senses as well.
Hookfang knocked against the side of the Queen's head, tossing his rider off. Snotlout recovered quickly and situated himself on top.
Meatlug had just begun to spin in circles. Fishlegs was doing his best to stay on. "I've lost power on the Gronckle." He tossed the other teen his hammer. "Snotlout, do something!" They crashed into the beach, carving a trench. "I'm okay!" Fishlegs shouted after he opened his eyes. However, the dragon tipped over and pinned him on the ground. "Less okay."
The Red Death moved a leg to crush the duo when Snotlout started hitting her eyes with his new hammer. "I can't miss! What's wrong, got something in your eye?" he taunted as he swung at his targets repeatedly. She roared in pain and sidestepped, avoiding the downed Gronckle.
Astrid was circling atop Stormfly, watching the Jorgenson. "Yeah, you're the Viking!" she cheered.
This made Snotlout lose his focus on the beast. When he swung his weapon again, the Queen shook her head, throwing the nuisance away. He landed on one of the frill spikes, then started to pull himself back up.
The monster locked her eyes on the circling Deadly Nadder. She turned around, following her next target. Her clubbed tail swung through the sitting fleet, masts breaking apart.
Hiccup was still working on Toothless' restraints. He managed to remove most of them, but the collar wouldn't budge. He was pulling uselessly at one of the chains when the massive foot of the Red Death stomped onto the bow.
Javelin and Twilight saw the explosion of broken wood. The dragoness immediately shot towards the wreckage. The crimson soldier sealed his suit and jumped off his sister when she slowed over the fleet.
He looked for Hiccup and Toothless in the murky water. He found them just as Hiccup began to black out. The boy was caught by a large hand and was pulled out of the water. Javelin swam over to Toothless and searched for the collar's lock.
He found the hinge instead and ripped it apart with his right arm. When Toothless was free, the dragon shot out of the water, grabbing Javelin along the way.
Twilight had just landed next to Hiccup when her love appeared. Toothless dropped both his passengers off and landed on a boulder, shaking the water off his scales.
Javelin quickly recovered and got on Twilight. He paused after hearing Stoick say, "I-I'm sorry... for everything." Even if it wasn't directed at him, he nodded in confirmation.
"Yeah, me too," Hiccup said.
"You don't have to go up there."
"We're Vikings. It's an occupational hazard."
Stoick held Hiccup's hand within his own. "I'm proud to call you my son."
"Thanks, Dad."
Javelin didn't want to break the moment between father and son, but they still had a very large problem to deal with. "Come on, brother!" With that, the two Furies launched into the air, ready to fully join the battle.
"He's up!" Astrid yelled. She looked over at Ruffnut and Tuffnut. "Get Snotlout of there!"
Snotlout saw Barf and Belch coming for him. He ran along the Queen's head. The Jorgenson leaped off the broken horn and landed between the Zippleback's necks. "I can't believe that worked!"
While Astrid was distracted, the beast saw her chance. She sucked in the air in front of her, intent on swallowing Stormfly whole. The Deadly Nadder was flapping her wings as hard as she could, but it was only delaying the inevitable.
A Night Fury's signature screech sounded, soon followed by a purple blast of plasma. The shot hit the side of the giant's mouth, knocking her back. Unfortunately, the blast knocked Stormfly out of the air and sent Astrid flying.
She was grabbed by one of the passing dragon's. Hiccup's voice carried from above. "Did you get her?!" Toothless swung his head down to see a smiling Hofferson hanging from his claws.
"I did!" he said, smiling. He swung Astrid right side up and set her down in front of the Vikings. He sped back up to rejoin Twilight and Javelin high in the air.
"What's the plan?" Javelin asked.
"Let's if it can use those wings it has," Hiccup declared. Both Furies nodded and dived. The wind roared louder and louder as they shot towards the Queen. They fired simultaneously, the shots hitting at full power and knocking the monster onto her side.
They leveled out and Hiccup asked out loud, "You think that did it?" He and Javelin looked behind them to see an enraged dragon flying after them.
"Evasive maneuvers, sis," Javelin said. The pair shot ahead, Toothless and Hiccup doing the same as well. While the Furies weaved through the many seastacks, the Queen merely pushed through the rocks like the mists surrounding them. Seeing only one way on how to finish this, Javelin directed his sister up to the dark gray clouds overhead. "This way, brother!"
Hiccup saw them rise higher and higher into the sky. "Okay, Toothless, time to disappear!"
She followed the Night Furies and their riders into the darkened clouds high above the safety of the mists. She fired a blast skywards, but to no prevail. As they entered the clouds, the Queen lunged forward, only to bite empty air.
She stopped in a massive clearing hidden behind the lining, where she could at least see anything that entered it. "SHOW YOURSELVES, USURPERS!" she roared.
Nothing.
There was the pop of a plasma shot being fired, followed by pain in her left wing. In anger, she turned to where it came from, only to find another spike from her right wing. This continued on and on until she started having trouble keeping herself aloft.
"ENOUGH! THIS ENDS NOW!" the Queen of Dragon Island roared in fury. She blasted her shot as a continuous blast and coated the cloud with searing fire.
Once it ran out, she searched around her for any sign of a hit. A Night Fury roared before something passed by.
"Come on, is that the best you can do?!" "All those years have made you lazy, SLUG!" the human and her former servant taunted.
They shot ahead, but she followed them, keeping her eyes on the burning tail in front of her. Her head was pushed forward once again by another plasma shot from behind.
The foreign Night Furies rushed into her vision, the female shouting, "Surprise!" as she passed. The new duo dove alongside the old.
How stupid are they? They have made it so easy.
Feeling the chase has gone on long enough, she opened her maw, allowing the flammable gas to collect. She pulled her head back to prepare, then she lurched forward again, ready to incinerate the troublemakers.
BOOM!
A split-second before she fired, the Furies flipped over and shot her mouth, igniting the compounds inside. Her throat burned as the flames shot through her and out of her mouth. She didn't even notice her targets leave her sight.
The mists opened up to reveal Dragon Island coming towards her, and fast. Eyes wide in fear, she opened her wings to slow down. Unfortunately for her, the air resistance tore the holes wider and wider to point where the membrane was useless.
She screamed in fear as her head met the hard ground. It crushed itself against the rocks, and the last things she saw and felt were orange fires and indescribable pain.
Toothless and Twilight raced as fast as they could towards the sky. They weaved through the back spikes of the corpse, the raging inferno beneath them consuming every one they passed.
They were almost out when it happened.
Having been hit by the Queen's last shot of fire, Toothless' leather tailfin had been slowly burning away. Now, when it was needed the most, the leather was now ash, its supports melted. It fell off as Hiccup saw the dead tail swing down.
"No. NO!"
It hit the duo, knocking them from each other. Toothless dove after his rider- his friend- into the flames below. They weren't the only ones, though.
Twilight had slowed when she heard the hit. The clubbed tail also swung into her and Javelin, the impact throwing her brother off.
The four fell together into the orange and red furnace. For one moment, they all thought the same thing.
They would go through anything as brothers and sister, as a family.
The two unknown figures had seen everything that transpired. They saw the queen follow the Night Furies into the stormy cloud. Her form was illuminated by the purple fires breaking against her wings.
Then she dove straight to the ground, her mouth on fire. They saw her transform into a mushroom cloud, the vortexes of fire rising, falling, and growing. Soon, the clubbed tail fell into the waves of bright orange, never to be seen again.
The Queen of Dragon Island had finally fallen.
"She's finally gone," the cloudy dragoness whispered.
He nodded. "Come on. We need to tell this to Triton."
They launched into the sky, being careful to stay above the fog. Finally, they can reach the southern areas. Their ships could get through with the risk of a flurry of wild dragons. They could finally make themselves known.
He knew they should have stayed there for a bit longer to see the aftermath. But, hey, his shift had ended when she fell.
"HICCUP!"
Stoick searched through the remains of the dragon queen for him.
"SON!"
He stopped when he heard a moan. There, just ahead was the Night Fury lying on the rocks. The chief moved closer when it turned onto its side. The saddle it wore was burnt, the metal apparatus leading to the blackened rods attached to its tail broken.
There was no sign of Hiccup.
Stoick stopped in front of the black dragon, ignorant of the mixed crowd behind him. The animal slowly opened its emerald eyes, looking at the mourning chief.
"Oh, son. I'm so sorry."
It moaned something, then opened up the wings that had been wrapped around its belly. There he was, lying in the dragon's embrace, unconscious.
"Hiccup." Stoick raced towards his son. He took his body into his hands and looked for any signs of life. He threw off his helmet and brought his head to Hiccup's chest.
A single heartbeat threw the large man into joy. "He's alive! You brought back him alive!" A loud cheer from both dragons and Vikings erupted. He laid his hand on the Night Fury's head. "Thank you for saving my son."
Gobber came up next to him and saw the damage done. "Well, you know, most of him."
Another draconian moan moved their eyes to the other Fury lying nearby.
And the red figure next to it.
(AN) - I hope this rewrite lived up to the expectations of my original. Thanks for reading, and please do leave a review or comment, guys. I'd appreciate it.
Adipose, thank you as always. I'm glad to hear that you are liking this story.
BTW, if you haven't read it yet, read DolphinHeart's "The Little Girl and the Dragons." Like all her other stories, it is very heartwarming.
Well, I'll see you next chapter, whenever that may be. But it will be a good one.