Hello my readers, let me just say how sorry I am for not uploading the last two chapters. Since I usually upload chapters in the middle of the night, I must have assumed that when I uploaded a chapter to the site, it would automatically upload that chapter to the story. Boy was I wrong! I probably would not have noticed if it wasn't Serenity Dragonrider, a loyal reader and author, who let me know that I had not posted a chapter in a while. I was curious as to what she meant and when I checked my story, the most recent chapter was the 14th one! I am so so sorry to keep you waiting. But needless to say, the weekly updates will commence once again. I never thought I would update 3 chapters in one week! Have fun reading and as always, forgive my mistakes...
2 weeks have passed since the dragon militia took out the first Song supply camp. They traveled all around the East part of the continent of what would now be named Asia. They destroyed 3 other supply camps within those weeks. Nothing was left behind to indicate that dragons destroyed those camps-the aftermath of the explosion of the Huo Yao tanks could easily been mistaken for damages done by dragons. They were currently on their way to wipe out the last Huo Yao supply camp.
The militia flew in multiple V formations towards the last camp. They always flew at night as they could be easily discovered in the daylight. The Berkians and Draconians flew in the lead V. Re and Aurora were on either side of their son and his dragon, the latter being at the head of the formation.
Aurora was slightly anxious. "Are you sure the Song will not know that we have attacked them?"
Chris turned and faced his mother, "Well, I cannot say that they will not consider that we were responsible for the attacks. But what I can say is that since their empire is so vast, they could have been taken down by a rebellion of sorts from either surrounding Song-captured villages or Song slaves".
"So what are you saying?", Hiccup asked from behind Re.
"What I am saying is that they are so arrogant, that they could be taken by surprise from anything. All they can do is consider every possibility. And on top of that, they shouldn't think of us as a major threat. All they know is that we have been defending ourselves against them for the past 10 years, they don't know that we are currently on the offensive"
Chris looked ahead and continued, "But still, that should not stop us from reaching our goal".
Everyone agreed with that and silently flew on to the supply camp. After 30 minutes or so, they reached the last Huo Yao camp. The camp itself was different from all the others. It was on top of a big hill, giving the Song the advantage of high ground. Not only that, but there was a lot of air defense weapons. One could say that the Song took no chances with this base and made sure this would be the hardest to raid.
The group then flew high into the clouds, as to not risk being seen by the soldiers at low altitude, considering they still had the high ground advantage. They broke through the clouds a minute later, maintaining their V formations. They were now hovering above the camp, covered by the clouds. The dragons themselves were puzzled as to how they would attack the camp. In response to their uneasiness, Windwalker turned around a gave a small bark, silencing the militia.
"Do not fear my brothers and sisters. Even this base is structured differently, we are more than strong enough to wipe this camp off the face of this planet", Windwalker said.
"How do you plan on attacking this?", Snotlout asked, "I don't know if you saw, but they have a lot of weapons that can shoot us down easily."
"I hate to say it but, Snotlout has a point. We are going to have to think out the box with this one", Hiccup commented.
Chris thought about it for a moment. "You are right Hiccup. We will have to do something different with this attack. Thankfully, I already have a plan", Chris smirked.
"Ready to have some fun, Windwalker?", Chris asked his companion. Windwalker just gave her rider a puzzled look.
"Listen up. Since this base is a bit different from the others we have attacked, we are going to try something different. Something you should be familiar with. I want everybody in Titan Wave formation", Chris announced to the militia.
The mountain-nest dragons regarded Chris's comment with shock with bewilderment. They haven't used that formation in ages.
"Well what are you waiting for? You heard him. Move! Now!", Windwalker barked to her dragons. Those dragons scattered in the air, finding their place in the formation.
The Berkians and Draconians on the other hand were confused. They had never of this formation before.
"Move to the back of the formation and line up with a dragon in front of you and next to you, and just follow our lead", Chris ordered. The group hastily did as they were told, seeing as how this was their only option.
The formation was simply an organized, floating rectangle of dragons. Once the formation was set, Windwalker moved to the front of the formation. Then, her scales started to glow blue, activating her Titan Wing. After she was completely covered from head to toe in blue light, she looked out over the rectangle. "Activate your Titan Wing now!", she commanded.
The rest of the group did as they were told. They all started change. The dragons morphed into their final forms. That is, all except the dragons of Berk and Draconia.
Stormfly looked towards Toothless, puzzled. "Why aren't you activating your Titan Wing? Out of all of the dragons on Berk, you are the only one who can do it"
The dragons of Berk and Draconia all looked towards Toothless, wondering the same thing. Toothless felt those dragons' eyes on him and released a breath in defeat.
"The last time I did that was when Hiccup was threatened by the Bewilderbeast. Ever since then, I have not been able to summon it again. I have tried but, I have failed each time", Toothless admitted ashamedly.
"If it means anything, none of us have been able to activate our Titan Wing", Re consoled.
The dragons of Berk looked at them, shocked.
"No offensive my queen, but haven't you?", asked Meatlug
"None taken. Even though we wear crowns upon our heads, we are no different than you all. Unlocking the Titan Wing is a very hard process to do. It all happens at different times in our lives in different circumstances. And the fact that Windwalker has found a method of unlocking the Titan Wing for dragons interests me. Perhaps when this is all over, she can help us all unlock ours", Aurora suggested.
"Sounds like a good plan", Belch agreed, while Barf nodded simultaneously.
At that moment, Windwalker's pact finished changing into their Titan Wing forms. "Alright then, let us shift the tide in this war!", Windwalker growled as she dove through the clouds. The rest of the pact roared their battle cry as they followed suit.
The Song soldiers were in for quite a surprise. At first they heard the one roar of a dragon. All of them rushed out of their camps to see where it was coming from. Initially they were perplexed to see one glowing blue dragon with a rider on top. But then, their expressions turned into one of pure horror as they saw the numerous other dragons breaking through the clouds.
The ones who were nearest the giant crossbows, net throwers, etc. quickly loaded the weapons and fired at the onslaught of dragons. Alas, their attacks were in vain. The boosted dragons were able to swiftly dodge the oncoming attacks with ease and quickly rained down fire on them.
From a third person point of view, the militia flew in downwards and arched over the base. At that point, the first line of dragons unloaded their fire onto the Song, roasting anything in their way. Then as the first line pulled upwards to 'reload', the second line of dragons would pick up where they left off, and the pattern would continue. If not all of the camp was completely consumed by fire, the first line would pick up were the last line continued and the process would repeat until the whole base was dominated by conflagration. It looked like a tsunami of scales and fire.
The Song, however, realized that they were doomed once they saw the assault of dragons destroying their base. Some chose to stay and die until their last breath. Others, really a majority, decided to flee and save their own skin. Those certain individuals ran from the base, towards the surrounding wilderness in various locations.
"Mom, Dad, Tenor! You and your Berk allies search and destroy any escapees south and east of here", Chris barked to his family.
"I want everybody else to kill any Song that are fleeing north and west of here. Move!", Windwalker ordered to the rest of the militia.
Everyone then split up, in search for the runaways. Dragons would scan the immediate and nearby area for any Song soldiers, then they would swoop in and take the kill. Tenor, always itching to fight bad guys, was able to kill 3 troops. Re and Aurora worked as a team to kill 4 soldiers. The Berkians on the other hand were doing fine. They searched the trees for any Song soldiers. Hookfang, Cloudjumper, and Stormfly were able to kill a soldier each before they could not find any more soldiers in their area.
Chris looked to his right and saw one man heading in a different direction, apart from the others. He was constantly looking back at the base, before he disappeared, under the cover of the trees. "Hiccup, you can take care of that, right?", Chris asked Hiccup.
"Uh, yeah, no problem", Hiccup stuttered.
"Good. Just stay calm, and you can do this easy", Chris advised before he and Windwalker took off in another direction.
Hiccup and Toothless went after the soldier, eyeballing the ground for any suspicious movement. Suddenly, Toothless spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He swooped in, zigzagged between the trees, and threw a plasma blast at the Song soldiers feet, knocking him to the was then able to pin the soldier to the ground, where he snarled menacingly at him. scaring him. Hiccup was about to order Toothless to kill the soldier, but then he looked into his eyes. Much like when he held the dagger above Toothless those 5 years ago, he hesitated. When he looked into the eyes of his enemy, he saw the very same fear he saw in Toothless' eyes when he was about to kill him. He paused for a moment, reflecting. Toothless maintained his demeanor, but was slightly anxious as to why his rider did not command him to do anything with the enemy yet. Then Hiccup uttered a command that Toothless himself did not fully comprehend.
"Let him go Toothless". Hiccup whispered.
Toothless turned to face his rider with a look of shock and concern. Had he just heard him right?
"Toothless. Release him.", Hiccup reiterated.
The dragon alpha crooned his puzzlement, wondering why his rider refrained from killing the enemy. "But Hiccup, I-"
"Toothless. Let. Him. Go. Now!", Hiccup demanded.
Toothless, paused for a moment, then with much effort released the man. The soldier quivered in terror, scared and shocked that a dragon spared his life.
"What are you waiting for? Go!", Hiccup asked rhetorically.
The man seemed to snap out of his stupor and ran as fast as his feet could carry him. Hiccup watched him leave the area, unsure whether he made the right move or not. Then, as he exhaled, beckoned Toothless into the air, returning to the camp. As they flew, amidst the noises of war, he whispered in Toothless' ear, "Please bud. Do not tell anyone what has happened here, alright?"
Toothless looked up at his rider with sorrow, then warbled his compliance and focused back on the flight.
"Hiccup…. I hope you did the right thing, releasing that man", Toothless sighed.
"I hope I did too bud", Hiccup groaned.
As they returned to the camp, the rest of the militia was already gathered there, waiting for the last of their group to return. As Toothless landed, Chris came up to them and regarded the two. "Well Hiccup, did you eliminate him?"
Hiccup steeled himself. "Yes, I took care of it", Hiccup lied.
"Splendid! Once we finish eliminating the Huo Yao camps, we can enact phase 2 of the plan", Chris rejoiced.
"Phase 2?", questioned Valka.
"Yes. You see, since we are now on the offensive, I figured we can devise a plan to take out Gaozong. So, as we were destroying this base, I was able to locate one of Gaozong's men", Chris explained as Windwalker showed them a muffled-and-bound Song commander.
"He will tell me all the information I need to know", Chris said.
"And if he doesn't?", pressed Astrid.
"Trust me, he will", Chris chuckled darkly as he faced the commander, who in turn, gave Chris a death glare.
The prisoner of war shouted something at Chris, but was muffled by the cloth tied around his mouth.
"Oh will you shut up", Chris complained as he went up to the man and punched him square across the jaw, knocking him out.
"Well, it seems like we are done here. Let's move on", Chris said as he loaded the commander on a different dragon's back.
Seeing as how there was nothing left to do, the militia launched itself into the sky, and took off to find a suitable place to set up camp. Windwalker, Tenor, and Toothless-with their riders of course- stayed behind to ignite the tanks of Huo Yao.
As the consequent explosion engulfed the air, Hiccup's conscience slowly started to eat away at him. He was having second thoughts about releasing that soldier. But it was too late to do anything about that now. He faced the direction the soldier last took off in. Seeing as how the soldier would be long gone by now, Hiccup closed his eyes and sighed in defeat. He shook his head clear, and decided to focus on the bigger picture-taking out Gaozong and ending the dragon-Song war.