Dragon Friend (sequel to the dragon boy) Chapter 3 - Trappers
frostcup fanfic
Authors note: here comes the drama! ^^ hope you enjoy don't have time to say much else so please leave a review I love love LOVE hearing what you think but until the tommorow that's all I can think to say^^ see you then with the next chapter^^
The first thing they noticed were the trees. Stripped bare of all branches and leaves, leaving only thin, burnt sticks protruding from the ground.
What on earth? Jack thought- why would a bunch of dragons just torch a wood, but leave the trunks still standing? If it was a couple of Nightmares gone berserk, there'd be bits of broken tree everywhere. So what had done this... and why?
They continued flying. The thing that they'd spotted in the distance should be right around the corner. He banked to the right, and turned... then stopped, speechless, at what he saw in front of him.
A burst of green-blue ice, sticking up from the ground. Huge, thick spikes came off it at odd angles, like a bunch of wonky staglamites. What was truly astonishing, though, was the size of it.
It was like a medium sized mountain! A dragon-made glacier. The effort involved must have been incredible.
They flew closer, Hiccup's voice echoed in his head.
'Jack, what...' He didn't finish, but he knew what he meant- this was unlike anything either of them had ever seen. How had it happened?
'Well don't look at me.' Jack said, eyeing one of the collosal spikes as he flew beneath it- he could have landed on that thing! He looked at his own reflection in it, resisting the urge to pull faces then- wait, what was that in it?... a boat?!
No sooner had he spotted that, than he noticed many other objects, frozen in the ice. Wooden beams from a house. Bits of a catapult. An axe. There was probably an entire village hidden under the ice!
He sent Hiccup a questioning thought. From the lack of shock, he'd obviously already noticed.
'What could have done this?' Hiccup muttered. It wasn't "what" or "how" Jack wanted to know- several different dragons could breathe ice- what he wanted to know, was why. Why freeze an entire village?
'You don't think this is...' Hiccup began to suggest.
'No. Sky Dragons control natural ice. This stuff... It must have some other kind of dragon.' Jack explained.
They rounded a side of it, and, apparently, they had company.
How were people still by this thing? Anyone with sense would have run away and found a new home. That was his first thought. The second was- what is that blurry thing coming towards-. The next thing, he knew he was entangled in the thing he hated above all else. A net.
He roared with terror as it closed around him, trapping his wings against his body. Then, he was falling. No! Not a net! Trapped! Falling! The black dragon! No, no- not drowning again!
'Hiccup!' He could almost feel the ocean below him, waiting to swallow him up. He hadn't been so terrified since the last time this happened, and that time, he'd all but drowned. Not again, not again!
'Jack.' Hiccup's voice came, loud and clear, calm and reassuring, in the chaos of his terror-struck mind.
'Hiccup! Net! Falling! Drowning! Help me!' In the middle of his panic attack, he hit the ground- hard. The solidity of it almost made him collapse with relief- he wasn't drowning- almost, but not quite. The fact remained he was still tied. Bound. Captured. Scared.
People came out of nowhere, running towards him with knives, spears and swords. He panicked even more at the sight of the sharp weapons. Perhaps if he could change, he could slip out-.
'No! Just stay calm. Don't change- you'll scare them, then who knows they'll do. Just try not to panic. I'm coming.' At least Toothless hadn't also been captured. He'd been flying behind Jack, so he'd had warning enough to avoid the nets.
'Don't panic?! Easy for you to say! You aren't trapped in a net, surrounded by a bunch of armed lunatics!' He yelled.
Even without Jack's fear of nets, any dragon would panic in his situation- they were free creatures of the sky, nothing was worse to them than being trapped, and grounded. He thrashed about in the net, tearing at it with his claws, and pulling at it with his teeth.
"Watch yourself, men. He's a clever one." A voice said (Jack didn't care who, he just wanted to blast them in the face for doing this to him). Clever- ha. They had no idea.
He was going to get himself out of there, if it was the last thing he did. "By Odin's name, I think that's a Sky Dragon! I thought they were all extinct. Drago will be very pleased with this one." The same person from earlier said. Jack's mind reeled- extinct?! No- they weren't extinct! He just had to find another one. Some of them had to have survived- and Drago? Who was that? What did he want with him? If they thought he was going down without a fight, they had another thing coming.
He swung his head at a speaker, who appeared to be their leader, but he had his eyes trained on the sky, unperturbed by Jack's lunge at him.
"Is that what I think it is?" He muttered. Hiccup.
No, he had to distract him. Get his attention away from his friend. What if he changed- that would grab his attention.
'No, Jack- wait!' He heard Hiccup's thought getting projected into his mind. A few seconds later, he heard the thump of four clawed feet landing on the ground nearby.
'No! Get away! Go! Leave me!' He yelled.
'Not a chance.' Came the stubborn reply.
"Well I never- that is a Night Fury, and a Sky Dragon as well. This might just be enough to make up our lost catch." Lost catch?! Jack thought- they catch dragons (and they thought they were monsters).
"You're trappers." Hiccup also realised, their leader grinned.
"Eret, son of Eret. Greatest dragon trapper in all the known world. Oh- and I'll be taking that Night Fury of yours." He said, holding out his sword.
Jack snarled at him making it quite clear what he thought of him and his traps. Toothless also growled, he wasn't about to let himself get captured, any more than Jack would.
"But wait, what do you mean "lost catch"?" Hiccup asked, Jack growled.
'Hey Hiccup, perhaps you should stop with all this chit chat, and get me out already!' He screamed inside his head, but the Viking didn't budge.
'We need to find out what happened here.' He insisted.
"Well you aught to know, don't you, dragon rider. You're buddy's the reason our necks are on the line. He destroyed our base, and freed all our dragons." Eret said, angrily.
"Wait, you mean there's another dragon rider out there?" Hiccup asked.
Even Jack stopped struggled at his net quite so hard to listen to this.
"Well, not that it matters. You won't be escaping back to them any time soon. Drago Bloodfist isn't the kind to take well to excuses. He doesn't like to hear about delays to the next installment in his dragon army." He continued, rather boastfully.
Dragon army?! They both thought- who were these people? "But, it looks like things are going my way after all. Two almost extinct dragons aught to make up for it. Get 'em men." He ordered, and they charged forwards.
Toothless fired a blast of fire at an overhead ice spike, causing it to fall and shatter, forcing everyone to duck for cover. Taking advantage of Toothless' distraction, Hiccup ran over to Jack.
'About time!' He growled, angrily. He watched as Hiccup pulled a strange metal canister out of one of his many pockets.
'Er- what?' He asked.
"Don't freak out." Hiccup warned- that only served to put him on edge. 'What? Don't freak out over-' A long blade slid out of one end, and coated itself in burning hot flames.
Fire! He freaked out. Jack couldn't help it. He completely lost it, changing into a boy, and scrambling as far away from the flames as possible.
"What in the name of Thor?" He thought he heard Eret say, but he wasn't bothered. All he could think about was the glowing hot flames in front of him.
With a quick slash, Hiccup opened up a sizable hole in the net.
"Come on, out!" He yelled. Jack tore out of it like terrified wild animal, shoving Hiccup aside in the process, causing something to fall out of one of his pocket. His two biggest fears- fire, and nets- all at once. He leapt into the sky, and didn't look back.
Had he been close enough to hear it, as Hiccup had, he would have heard the furious dragon trapper shouting.
"You and you're dragons won't be able to get away! Drago is coming for all of them!" But Jack didn't hear- he was too busy attempting to calm his racing heart rate.
It was okay... He was safe... Out in the air... In the cool, safe, open air.
He heard a Night Fury's wing beats approaching from behind, and slowed a little to let him come close.
"Are you alright?" He heard Hiccup asking- right, that was close enough. "Oww!" Hiccup complained, out loud and mentally.
Jack had given him a good slap upside the head with his tail. Suffice to say, he was not in the best of moods.
Hiccup rubbed his cheek, trying to think of a way to calm his angry, stressed friend.
"Hey, you wanna go back to Berk? I'm sure Freya and the others would love to see ya." He suggested.
At the mention of Freya, and more company, Jack's mind brightened a little. He still wasn't impressed about the whole fire thing, but he decided to let that go. Although, Hiccup couldn't help but notice the wind seemed to be slapping them about more than usual, even when the left the strong winds area.
Toothless moaned up at him, as another wind hit- he understood him perfectly. "Your fault" he knew his dragon was complaining.
But, luckily, by the time Berk came into view, Jack seemed to think them reasonably punished, and let the winds drop.
Hiccup sighed, being a friend to dragons could be such hard work sometimes.