Chapter Twelve: In the Tall Grass

The sun had begun to set. The BioSyn team had been walking towards the Visitor's Center at, according to the impatient Dagur, a glacial pace. After hearing the moans from behind him, Dagur said through gritted teeth, "All right. Take a five minute break." The group stopped and sat down on the ground and on the trunks of fallen trees nearby. The men driving the Jeeps and the truck that carried the still-sedated juvenile Bewilderbeast turned their ignition off but left the keys in the cars. They joined their comrades on the tree stumps and moss-covered rocks.

One of the men, named Dieter, took his leave to go to the bathroom and walked off into the forest. As he passed by a man sitting on a moss-covered rock, he said, "I'm hitting the little dragon's room, wait for me okay, Carter?" Without waiting for a reply, Dieter headed off. Unfortunately, Carter had headphones in and couldn't hear the request.

Dieter trudged through the forest, humming to himself and completely unaware of his surroundings. He had stumbled into Speed Stinger territory. Against the green foliage, the flightless theropod dragons were next to invisible. They watched the human and waited for the Lead Stinger's signal. The Lead Stinger cocked its head to the side and narrowed its eyes as it watched to determine if the human was a threat or if the human would just pass through the territory quickly without consequence.

Dieter pressed him neck against his chest to hold his gun securely in place as he unbuttoned his trousers. One of the juvenile Speed Stingers crept out of the cover of the trees to investigate. The other Speed Stingers, the Leader included, watched with baited breath. Dieter stumbled backwards upon seeing the small dragon approach. Dieter grabbed his gun from under his chin and aimed it at the dragon, who sniffed it.

"Huh, you're not afraid of the gun? Stupid dragon, I'll make you afraid," Dieter commented. He shot the ground directly in front of the little Speed Stinger. The dragon yelped in surprise, leapt into the air and then hurried back into the bush. Dieter laughed, "That'll teach you. Man is the dominant species on earth, you st…" His sentence was cut short as the Lead Stinger ran by him in a blur of green and red and stung him in the back with his tail.

The Lead Stinger growled over its shoulder to call to the rest of the pack. With a hive-like mentality and this human being a clear threat to the baby Speed Stinger, the rest of the pack circled around him, each one stinging him with their scorpion-like tails. There was nothing Dieter could do, for that first sting had fully paralyzed him and he watched helplessly as the rest of the pack sprinted in a circled around him stinging him from all angles. The poison from one single sting would paralyze him temporarily, but this brutal attack would surely kill him.

Back at the camp, Dagur slapped his palms onto his thighs and stood up quickly. "All right, break time's over! Let's move out."

"You only gave them three and a half minutes," Ludlow said as he hastily relaced his shoes.

"Whatever. The sooner we get to the Visitor's Center, the better. And besides, when people start to rest their adrenaline leaves their body and then they start to get tired. And tired people whine. And apparently it's unethical to shoot people who whine. So I try to save myself the internal battle of 'Do I shoot you because you're irritating as fuck? Or do I listen to you whine and whine and WHINE?" Dagur replied. Ludlow nodded very slowly in understanding and glanced briefly at the various weapons on Dagur's person.

"Aren't you going to make sure everyone is present?"

"Do I LOOK like their mother?" Dagur asked, incredulously. "I'll answer that for you, no, I am in fact, not their mother. If they've fallen behind that's on them. Move out." The group grabbed their supplies and weapons and followed Dagur once again. Two men climbed back into the Jeep and drove the baby Bewilderbeast behind the walking caravan of people.

They approached the tall grass. Ludlow opened his mouth to caution against going into the tall grass, but realizing that Dagur would probably not listen to any reasoning, sound or not, Ludlow decided just to follow the poacher. The group entered the tall grass and unbeknownst to them, a pack of dragons camouflaged themselves quickly. Four dragons flew behind the group while the rest of the flock spread out around the sides.

As the group continued to travel further into the tall grass, further into the Changewings' territory, the dragons slinked behind them. The Changewings hissed. Dagur's eyes narrowed and he held up his hand in a fist, signaling to the group to stop. Without warning, several of the men in the back of the group screamed in agony. Dagur and Ludlow ran towards them and Ludlow scrunched his face up in disgust at the sight: their skin was being melted off. Dagur commented, nonchalantly, "Huh, that's new."

The men began to panic and ran off in all different directions. The still-camouflaged Changewings chased after them, spitting acid as the men ran. Dagur dragged Ludlow to the Jeep. He wretched the men out of the car and hopped in. Ludlow barely had a chance to fully climb into the Jeep before Dagur had slammed his foot on the pedal and sped off towards the Visitor's Center.

Not long after the Changewings had pushed the intruders out of the edge of their territory, the dragons heard a new flock of humans approaching. The leader of the pack signaled to the other dragons and all of them camouflaged their scales against the landscape.

"Something's not right." Astrid rolled her eyes at Snotlout's ever growing alarmist mantra. "We're being hunted."

"Astrid, Snotlout may be right," Valka pointed to the tall grass, which still had remnants of the acid from the earlier attacks. "What kind of dragon has acid attacks?"

Both Fishlegs' and Astrid's eyes widened and their faces paled as they glanced at one another. "Changewings," she whispered.

"T-they must have attacked the BioSyn group and disintegrated their bodies with their acid attacks," Fishlegs concluded in the least-shaky voice he could muster.

"Everyone, run. As fast as you can. Don't look back. Go, go now!" Astrid shouted and the group immediately took off through the tall grass. The Changewings sensed the rapid change of pace from the flock of humans and flew ahead of them to cut them off at the edge of the tall grass. They landed and de-camouflaged themselves, baring their teeth as the humans approached. Astrid inhaled sharply at the three Changewings in front of them. Fishlegs and Snotlout immediately turned on their heels to run the other direction, but Valka stopped them.

"These dragons are pack hunters like wolves," she concluded and looked to Astrid for confirmation. The young blonde nodded. "Running the other way will solve nothing."

"Oh great, so this is how we die?" Snotlout complained. "I am so coming back from the dead and haunting the shit outta Hammond for this."

From the sky above, Astrid heard a familiar shrill sound echoing across the night sky. A smirk crept across her lips: he was alive. "Night Fury," she whispered to no one in particular. She watched as Hiccup circled around the group and mentally noted that Toothless' flying was not a smooth as usual. Toothless fired at the Changewings. The Changewings hissed and took off back into the grass.

Toothless landed less than gracefully, knocking Hiccup onto the ground. Hiccup somersaulted and landed directly in front of Astrid. He chuckled, "New prosthetic. Learning curve," he jabbed his thumb in Toothless' direction. Astrid extended her hand and hoisted her boyfriend to his feet.

"What happened?"

"Long story. But I made Toothless a new fin! I think that when we get home I might make another, one that's red." Hiccup said, but upon seeing his girlfriends concerned face, he elaborated, "Some deranged BioSyn poacher sliced off one of his tail rudders. Toothless couldn't fly. I made him a new one from supplies at the Visitor's Center."

"So where are your dragons, by the way?" Hiccup asked as he glanced around to see the group completely dragon-less. "And the camper? Did that not make it?"

"Oh no, the camper made it. It's just not drivable anymore."

"And I don't know what happened to our dragons. We were flying towards the Visitor's Center and all of a sudden they started to lose altitude. There was this weird hum in the air and they stopped listening to us."

"And then they threw us on the ground!" Ruff shouted.

Hiccup raised an eyebrow at the blonde teen and cleared his throat. "So why were you guys venturing into Changewing territory anyway?"

"Well, we didn't know it was Changewing territory," Fishlegs crossed his arms, defensively. "We were going towards the Visitor's Center because that was the direction you fell and we were hoping we could call Hammond for a lift…"

"All right, well let's stick to the original plan," Hiccup interrupted, having a suspicion that Fishlegs would ask how to get the dragons back. And truth be told, having just found out that the dragons were missing, Hiccup didn't have a plan…yet. Hiccup pet Toothless on his snout, "Besides we shouldn't linger in Changewing territory. Toothless may have scared them off with his awesome plasma blasts, isn't that right, bud?" Hiccup cooed at his Night Fury and Toothless retracted his teeth and smiled at his rider. Quickly he looked at the group and cleared his throat, "But, uh, anyway, they'll be back with a vengeance if we don't get outta their territory quickly."

After walking for a few minutes, the group approached the Visitor's Center. "Well, it looks like BioSyn beat us here," Tuff commented. "Cyah, and they have a cool airlift. Why don't you guys have a cool airlift?" Ruff pointed into the sky.

"Oh gods, no," Hiccup complained as he saw the airlift hoisting a baby Bewilderbeast up into the sky.

"They won' e'er learn, will they?" Gobber crossed his arms. "Le's jest make mommy mo'e angry. Tha' sounds like a good plan. Oh an' while we're at it, le's bring a dragon t' the mainland so angry mommy has lotsa people t' take revenge on."

"Wait you don't actually think that the mother Bewilderbeast would go to the mainland and exact revenge on a bunch of humans, do you? I didn't think animals did the whole revenge thing?" Snotlout asked.

Valka explained, "Maternal instincts will most likely kick in. It won't exactly be revenge, but she will likely try to kill anyone who tries to stop her from getting her baby back. She will associate anyone in the way with the ones who took the baby, whether or not she's right. We need to go after them."

"Well this is just bloody fantastic," Snotlout muttered. "Now what?"

Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest. "Isn't it obvious? We follow them and stop BioSyn's crazy plan before they injure the dragon or hurt any innocent people in the process."

"Well this is just gonna be a blast, isn't it?" Snotlout complained. The twins nodded, feverishly and he rolled his eyes.

Gobber slapped his good hand onto Snotlout's shoulder, "C'mon Snotlout, where's your sense of adventure?"

Snotlout glared at him. "Y'know it's times like these when I miss working on Hammond's Kenyan preserve. And I'll tell you one thing: I never thought I'd say that."

[a/n] Sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope that you and yours have a wonderful holiday season! Thanks for reading!