Chapter Two: Going to Site B
"Do you think these traps will work?" Ludlow asked as he inspected the large metal claws.
Dagur Temblo adjusted his hat. "Well they're built to take down wild rhinos so I think it will hold a dragon at least long enough for me to shoot it."
Ludlow's eyes widened. "Wait, we want the beasts alive."
Dagur chuckled, "Oh, Ludlow, my dear boy. You are so entertaining. I'm not going to shoot them with a pistol. Don't be deranged. I'm going to shoot them with a tranquilizer gun of course. Makes it easier to get them onto ships and into cages."
Ludlow let out a sigh of relief. He had heard many stories about Dagur Temblo, some of which were less flattering than others. Most people referred to him as "Dagur the Deranged," which did slightly worry Ludlow. Nevertheless, he was good at his…well job, if you counted poaching and hunting as a job, so Ludlow couldn't pass him by.
"…already sent a team…hey you're not even listening to me!" Dagur slammed his fist on the table in front of them, jolting Ludlow from his thoughts. Ludlow cleared his throat, apologized, and push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"Anyway, I'll repeat my question even though I loathe repeating myself. Do you think Hammond and InGen already sent a team?"
Ludlow shrugged and replied, "I doubt it. Even if they did, InGen's facility is much farther away from either island than BioSyn's facility so we'll still arrive first. Don't you worry."
Again Dagur chuckled. "Pity. We'll probably have the dragons all rounded up by the time Hammond's pathetic excuse for a team shows up. And I was so hoping for more of a challenge."
"Uh, do you really think this is a good idea?" Fishlegs called up to Hiccup and Toothless who were perched at the very top of a tall pine. The weight of the Night Fury and his rider bent the tree branches down slightly.
"Fishlegs, relax. It will be fine!" Hiccup reassured as he pointed towards the water. "Besides, we're doing it over water just in case it doesn't go correctly."
"I really think Astrid would disapprove of this stunt. Skydiving without a parachute doesn't seem safe," Fishlegs muttered. His Gronckle, whom he had named Meatlug, nudged his rider. Sje was equally concerned. "I know, girl. I tried to tell him. He's a bore-headed Viking though…"
Hiccup laughed. "It will be fine, Fishlegs. Live a little. Besides Astrid is practicing barrel turns with Stormfly, so it's not like she's doing safer research."
"I highly doubt this counts as research!" Fishlegs crossed his arms defiantly.
Toothless growled lowly and shook his head in disapproval of Fishlegs' reaction. Silly human, thinking that he—a Night Fury—wouldn't be able to catch Hiccup in time while they were plummeting through the air…Toothless' eyes widened. Wait, maybe the other human was right. He twisted his head quickly to slap Hiccup with the back of his ears.
"Ow, not you too, bud! C'mon, Toothless!" Hiccup patted his Night Fury's snout and encouraged the dragon to take off from the pine tree. The sudden loss of weight on the branches caused the pine to sling-shot in the other direction. It waggled back and forth in the air. Fishlegs watched as Hiccup and Toothless climbed higher and higher into the sky before disappearing into the fluffy clouds.
A few seconds passed and Hiccup finally appeared back into view, as he and his dragon dove head-first towards the ground. They were facing one another and Hiccup was no longer on his dragon's back. From the ground, Fishlegs covered his eyes with his hands, but peaked through the fingers at the adrenaline junkies above. Toothless pulled his wings close to him to help him accelerate more. He loved the head rush almost as much as Hiccup did. Hiccup rotated his pointer finger in the air, signaling to Toothless that he needed to position himself so that Hiccup could get onto his back once more.
The water was closing in on the pair as Toothless struggled to rotate in the air without opening his wings. The last time they did this, he accidentally slapped Hiccup with his wing while he was rotating and almost pushed him straight into a cliff. At least this time the Viking had learned from the previous mistakes and was attempting to do this over open water.
"C'mon, buddy, just a lil' bit further," Hiccup encouraged as he stretched out his arm. Toothless grunted, but managed to finally get his back towards his companion. Hiccup hoisted himself onto the dragon, a feat that look fairly simple from Fishlegs' viewpoint on the ground, but in reality was slightly difficult.
Hiccup pulled back on Toothless' shoulder blades and the Night Fury spread his wings into a parachute-like state to slow down their momentum. They hovered just above the water's surface and Toothless dipped his tailfin into the cool water. Hiccup threw both his arms above his head and let out a shout of joy. Toothless smiled and fired a playful plasma blast into the air. The blast exploded into fire and the pair flew right through it. "Oh, come on!" Hiccup complained as the waning fire singed his hair.
Dr. Valka Haddock had been working with animals her entire life. She loved all creatures, but definitely had a certain affixation for the ones that could kill you. Before opening the Haddock National Conservation Zoo, she used to travel a lot and film nature documentaries with her good friend Gobber Van Owen. Gobber had been far less lucky on some of the early expeditions than she, having lost several limbs along the way.
Valka loved her work, and her husband Stoick supported it…most of the time. He had to admit that while their time spent together on the same continent was always wonderful, it was always, always too brief. But once their son Hiccup was born, Stoick had convinced her to stay in one place and convert her work from nature documentaries into helping at the local zoos. Eventually he funded her Zoo. The main mission of the Zoo, like any in the world, was conservation as well as education. Valka always hoped that by educating the general public about the animals in the Zoo, especially the more 'dangerous' ones, then they could lessen the number of species going extinct on this planet.
And now…now this Ludlow fellow was trying to remove dragons from their natural habitat on Hammond's island. She was sure that Ludlow and his BioSyn crew would not handle any of the animals with the care or compassion that they deserved. This had turned into the Zimbabwe poacher fiasco all over again. "Except this time we get to deal with dragons," Valka muttered under her breath.
"Eh?" Gobber raised an eyebrow.
Valka forced a small smile. "Nothing I was just thinking that this was going to be like our Zimbabwe adventure with the poachers. Just with dragons instead of rhinos."
"And 'opefully no snakes this time," Gobber replied as he reached into his pocket. "Brought a vial of anti-venom jest in case."
Valka nodded in half-approval. A moment of silence passed between the pair as they waited on the landing deck on the roof of the hospital for the InGen helicopter. "Gobber, please don't play with your fake teeth. It's unsettling," Valka said quietly. Gobber muttered an apology and stopped fiddling with his fake teeth for a brief moment before subconsciously repeating the action. Valka rolled her eyes but had no time to respond as she heard the whir of the helicopter approaching.
The ride to InGen's facility was not a long one and Joanna Hammond stood outside of the front doors to greet the pair. "Ah Dr. Haddock, Mr. Van Owen! I'm so glad you two could come on such short notice." She ushered the pair inside and led them towards the conference room.
Meanwhile, behind one of the filing cabinets the twins, Ruff and Tuff, peaked out. "Ruff, isn't that the crazy nature lady from the Discovery Channel?"
Ruff hit her brother upside the head, "Dummy, she was on Animal Planet."
"Whatever. Why is she here at Grandma's?"
Ruff shrugged. "I'unno. But her assistant always had unfortunate accidents happen. Remember when they were filming the penguins in Antarctica and his foot turned purple?"
Tuff's eyes lit up. "Yeah! Bet where ever they're going there's gonna be some more purple feet!"
Ruff nodded, "Probably, and maybe some dangerous animals too! C'mon." She motioned towards the duct system. After years and years of spending time with their grandmother while their mother was away for business, the twins had learned the InGen building like the back of their hands. They quickly crawled through the ventilation system and waited above the conference room to eavesdrop on the conversation below.
Hammond motioned for the pair to take a seat at the conference table across from herself and another young man. The man was Hiccup's age, give or take. Valka eyed him curiously, having the faint feeling of déjà vu. "This here is Snotlout. He was my man gamekeeper on my Kenya preserve, and he was part of my team on the Isle of Berk. Though we were working with a different type of 'game' to keep, eh?" Snotlout shot Hammond a glare. "Okay, so, not funny."
"So you created dragons for your amusement park?" Valka crossed her arms over her chest. She was less than impressed with the biological engineering.
"It was meant to be more of a biological preserve. It was meant to make the one I have in Kenya look like a petting zoo. Anyway, long story short, we made some calculation errors and our Red Death went rogue, controlling all of the dragons to wreak havoc on the park. Once Hiccup destroyed the Red Death…"
"You dragged my son into this?"
"He is the top mind in his field, of course I brought him on to survey the park," Hammond stated, matter-of-factly.
"Is he okay?"
"He's no worse for the wear than Mr. Van Owen here," Hammond replied. Upon hearing his name, Gobber stopped fiddling with the rather expensive glass figurines on Hammond's table and clasped his hands together, guiltily. Valka and Joanna looked at Gobber, incredulously. Hammond then continued, "Anyway, I didn't have the heart to kill all of the dragons after the incident, so I've been funneling money into research projects, conservations efforts, and an enforcement team to keep them on the island." All of what Hammond said was true, of course; however, she had elected to leave out that these seemingly three distinct teams were all made up of the same three people: Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs.
"Why wouldn't yer enforcement team jest kee' BioSyn away?" Gobber asked.
"Because they're on Site A and everyone in the media only knows about Site A. The cover story is that we destroyed all of the dragons on Site A, so naturally there would be no reason for Ludlow to want to go to that island. BioSyn plans to go to Site B."
The information finally clicked for Snotlout. He slammed his fists on the table, "Wait you mean there's TWO islands full of deadly dragons?"
"Yes, but this one doesn't have a Red Death on it, so it should be fine. Hiccup already proved that we could train the dragons…"
"Hiccup did what?"
"He flew a Night Fury to battle the Red Death. I was on a Monstrous Nightmare," Snotlout explained in a bored tone, while studying his nailbeds.
"A Night Fury?"
"Yeah, big deal. Anyway I'm glad you're hung up on that fact when we just learned that Hammond created TWO islands full of dragons that could incinerate all of San Francisco if BioSyn gets there!"
Hammond forced a small smile and exhaled through her nose. "You'll have to forgive Snotlout. He's a bit of an alarmist sometimes. We're going to take extra precautions. I don't want to make the same mistakes as last time."
"Oh no, you're making a whole new set of mistakes. You're going to send people onto Site B, no fences this time, and just hope it all goes swimmingly." Snotlout said as he stormed out.
"Where dya suppose he's goin'?"
Hammond rolled her eyes. "Like I said. He's a bit of an alarmist sometimes. He really is worth the expense though, top of his field. Now then, let's actually brief you two on what I'd like you to do." Hammond handed a hefty packet to each of them. "That's a detailed description of all of the dragons on the island as well as schematics of the Control Room Bunker," Hammond began to lead Valka and Gobber towards the cargo bay to show them all of the equipment they would have.
The twins exchanged glances and smiled. They hurried back through the duct system and snuck into the cargo bay. They lay in wait to see what vehicles the group was going to take. This was going to be their most epic adventure yet.
[a/n] Sorry it took me so long to update. Anyway hope you enjoyed it. And if you couldn't guess, Tuff and Ruff are playing the part of Kelly Malcolm. ;)