Chapter Two: Fosphero

Astrid directed Toothless to land on a cool patch of land by the shore. Unfortunately, she forgot to shift down the gears; they ended up crashing towards the ground instead of landing. Astrid shook her head as she got back onto her feet. "Oh man, that was a rough landing. Are you okay, Toothless?"

Toothless got back onto his paws alright. His ears flapped as he shook his head about, shaking away the dizziness. 'I think so.' He looked at the gear system, and his eyes went thin. The gears have been knocked out of place and were scattered all over the ground. Toothless scurried around, tried to get all of the pieces back together.

Astrid tried to help, but Toothless growled at her. 'This is your fault,' he thought.

"I can help. You have to trust me." But Toothless wouldn't relent. She pounded her forehead in frustration. "At least I can get what I came here for." With the bag on her shoulder, she scavenged the island for the metal.

Astrid had been here on missions before so she knew what she was looking for. She bent down to pick up a rick, bounced it in her hand a little to weigh, and tossed it aside, decided that it was no good. A few more rocks got rejected before she found one she liked. "That's the ticket."

Without hesitation, she slammed the rock hard against the ground. The outer shell fell away to reveal the shiny ball of metal underneath. This is what she came here for. There were three types of rocks to be found here. The heavy dense ones held the metal, less dense ones were just chucks of rock, while lighter hollow ones housed a little ball of poisonous volcanic gas. From experience, she knew to avoid the lighter rocks.

From glancing at the sun, she could estimate that she has done this for a good 2 hours. Once the bag was completely full, she called of her excavation and returned back to the landing sight.

Toothless was working hard trying to fit the gears back into place. He'd place one in his mouth, try to push it in, only to have it fall back out again. With each failed attempt, he would stomp his feet and let out an exasperated blast of plasma into the sky. Seeing Toothless so frustrated frightened Astrid a little, but she also felt sorry for the dragon. His only hope of returning to his master; the one who made him that tail, the one who gave him flight; it was gone now.

One last failed attempt and he threw the gear away. He let out a loud growl before collapsing on the ground defeated. Poor thing. Astrid really wanted to help; not because this is her only way of getting back home, but because she hated seeing Toothless so sad. She cautiously approached the dragon, stopping to pick up the thrown gear on the way. Toothless eyed her to whole time; as her hand approached the mechanism, he growled.

"Oh, would you stop it! I'm helping you." Toothless couldn't fight anymore; he was too frustrated to do so. Astrid really didn't know what she was doing, but anything would be good at this time. She tinkered around with the gears, trying different positioned, fitting them together in different spots, but nothing seemed to work. She could see how Toothless could get frustrated with this.

She could tell that something was missing. In one scenario, everything fits perfectly except for one thing. Two gears line up perfectly on top of each other; the only thing missing is a dowel to hold them together. She searched the ground for a bit before finding the dowel, snapped right in two. "That can't be good."

Toothless hadn't looked back the entire time, but he was curious to what Astrid was mumbling about. Then he saw the snapped dowel in her hands. 'Without that we'll be trapped her forever,' he thought. This only saddened him more. Astrid thought hard for a solution. If only there was a way to mend it, to fix it like Hiccup would in his shop.

She thought back to the times where she'd visit Hiccup working in the ship. It was hot with the furnace going, loud with the banging of hammers and grinding wheels, and smelly some of the materials. She remembered him fixing her ax one time. What did he do? He heated it up, put some sort of metal in between the two broken parts, pounded them together, cooled it off, and it was all fixed. She made a mental list; heat, metal, and a hammer.

She had the metal; she's been collecting it all day, she could use another ball as a hammer. Now all she needed was heat. There was always the volcanic magma, but that's too dangerous. The only other thing that could heat up the metal the way she needs it would be Toothless's fire blast. A short concentrated jet of plasma should be able to work.

Just as she was about to return to Toothless with a possible solution, she felt the ground shake. She waited to see what would happen, but after a few rumbles, it stopped. 'It must be nothing,' she figured.

She went back to Toothless with a simple favor to ask of him. "Can you use your plasma shot to heat up this metal? That's all I need." Toothless didn't look too thrilled. "Then we can get out of you. And you can see Hiccup again." At this, his ears perked up. He would want nothing more than to see Hiccup right now, so he complied with the request.

On a table-like slab of dried magma, she set down the two halves of the dowel with a little bit of the metal in between them. She pointed to the spot where she wants him to weld. "Right there." Toothless nodded and breathed in. But when he breathed out, nothing came. He tried again, and again nothing. He looked worriedly at Astrid.

'I don't know what's wrong,' he thought. Astrid wondered the same thing. Then she remembered all of the wasted shots Toothless took in frustration.

"Oh, you've already wasted all of your fire power."

Toothless looked down in embarrassment. He knew better than to waist his fire power on useless things.

"That's okay. We can still fix this. All we need to do is get some rocks in you." Dragons had this organ inside them right next to their stomach that could turn the rocks they ate into lava. The kind of fire that came out depended on their gas spray. Nightmares have a weak next to no gas spray, so all that comes out is a stream of lava. Gronkles have a very short strong blast of spray, hence the fireballs they produced. Zipples spray is separate from the magma, so the explosion process happens outside the body. Terrors and Night Furies have a similar spray type, but because Night Furies are so much stronger, their fire comes out in blasts of plasma.

The ground shook again. This time much more violently. Astrid stared into Toothless' panicked eyes. Hers must have looked the same. They both knew what was going on. Fosphero was erupting!

"Hurry! We need to find rocks!" Astrid went back to the pile of the rejected rocks from before, scooped a good few in her hands, and held them out for Toothless. "Eat these."

Toothless wasn't sure if he could accept these or not. They could be filled with the poisonous volcanic gas. He shook his head. Just then, the blast of lava shot out from the mouth of the volcano.

"You just have to trust me!" He closed his eyes, and gulped down the rocks in her hands with a great gulp. He waited, and a burp of fire escaped. He was filled with lava again! They hurried back to the welding site. Toothless shot out a concentrated jet of plasma, forming the two metal pieces together. Astrid slammed the metal ball onto it, shaping it to the right form, and cooled it off with the shore water.

"It's done!" She glanced behind her; a wave of lava was spilling down the side of the mountain. Her hands shook as she tried to fit the dowel into position, but she must not fail. Finally, it slid into place. It was fixed. The lava was looming ever close; she could feel its heart coming off. Quickly, she hopped onto the saddle, slid her foot into the gear shifter, put it into 1, and off they were.

Beyond the rush of wind, they could hear the sizzling of lava hitting water. Shift into 2, wait a little, then into 3; cruising time. With nothing else to worry about, she collapsed, her chest rested on the saddle as her arms hung over the sides. Her heart pounded and she breathed heavily, but they were safe now.

'That was a close one,' Toothless thought.

"Yeah, it was," Astrid breathed out. She almost missed what had just happened, but an excited look from Toothless confirmed her suspicions. "I-I heard you?"

'You can hear me?'

"I can hear you!" Astrid laughed out loud. She can now share the thought connection much like Toothless and Hiccup can. This sort of connection can only come from working together to escape a desperate situation. With Hiccup and Toothless, it began after they battled the Green Death.

"Wait until Hiccup finds out about this."