AN: Hello again everyone, I'm back! I hope you enjoy this new chapter, it's got a lot of stuff crammed in! To the guest review, yes, that was one hell of a wreck. Now imagine being on an ATV and getting thrown off for an extra 15 feet. I had an idea last night, that, since I listen to music while writing these, I would put in the name of an appropriate song to listen to while reading. You guys should tell me whether or not that's a good idea. Anyways, on with the story!
Song: The theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" (y'know, Clint giving the death stare?)
Disclaimer: Someone owns httyd. That someone is not me.
When I regained consciousness, it was about midday, judging from the position of the sun in the spring sky. I realized I was starving, as well as parched. However, I could not remedy this due to the fact that the net was still draped over the cockpit, making it impossible to get out. Then I remembered my survival kit.
'Thank god this stuff is protocol,' I thanked Jack silently. Once I opened it, I took out everything I would need: bandages, antiseptic cream, and a 2 day supply of food and water. Unfortunately, I didn't pack a blade. 'Why do I have a pistol, but not a simple pocket knife?!' I yelled at myself in my head.
Seeing as I couldn't cut the net off, I decided to focus on my most alarming needs first. I ate some of the beef jerky and drank water until I was no longer dying of hunger or thirst. As I was eating, I wondered about what I had seen last night. My body ached and pained all over, and I felt miserable, but I wasn't dead. 'That's good.' I reassured myself. Then, I began to ask myself questions about the legitimacy of what I saw last night.
'Was I dreaming? No, this is proof that I wasn't.' I mentally gestured to the situation around me, as my brain played rounds of Q&A. 'Was I hallucinating about the dragons? No, that wouldn't explain how I saw those quote on quote "jets of fire".' I continued to rule out possibilities.
Then, I saw it again. That Night Fury. It was sleeping on its side, tail curled around it, well, at least as well as it could with a net around it. It was quite a dark shade of black, with little scales covering its entire body, making it look like a giant lizard with wings.
As I stared at it from across the small lake that divided us, I thought about the one possibility that I had hoped to God wasn't true. 'Was it... real?' I asked the question in my head. Immediately, a battle erupted inside of me. My logical side screamed at me that it couldn't be possible, that nothing had ever proved their existance on Earth. However, my instinctive and emotional side repeatedly cried out the same thing to every argument my logic could put up: 'The proof's right here. You're looking at it.'
As my mind continued to debate, my body suddenly became the forefront of my attention, as a pain shot through my arm again, drawing my attention to the piece of wood. I knew that wooden spike couldn't be allowed to stay there. If it did, I'd get an infection quickly. All my thoughts now turned to getting that wood out of my arm.
I realized I would have to pull it out after a while, so I got a piece of metal to bite on while I was removing the stick.
Before I started, I poured water all over the wound, to prepare it for removal. As I did this, I thought about where I could possibly be in the world. 'There's a cold ocean around this island, so it's definitely far north. Maybe... Russia? Alaska? Scandinavia? Iceland?' I guessed wildly in my mind.
The next thing I had to do was make sure that when I pulled it out, it wouldn't rupture any of the main arteries in my cardiovascular system. Having done this, I then braced myself for the actual surgery. I chomped down on the bit and took deep breaths as I slightly bumped the stick around. I didn't feel much, thankfully, so I thought it wouldn't be so painful. Oh God, why do you love tricking me so?
As soon as I began to pull, horrible pain jolted my nerves awake, as they began their work to make me feel awful. I knew I couldn't stop now, though, so I just kept on going, kept on pulling. The wood began to slide out, as my jaws became crushers on the bit I was chomping on. It was about halfway out when it hit a fairly big vessel, causing it to rupture. Blood began to pool around the giant splinter, bathing it and my arm in red. I began to panic at that sight, thinking I had ruptured my arm artery, but I couldn't worry about that then. 'I still have to finish the job,' I thought resolutely.
Right at the last tug, the bit fell out of my jaws, and since I didn't have anything to muffle my sounds, I let out a very loud howl as the splinter finally fell out. 'Oh, thank God that's over!' I thought. I quickly bandaged the hole and looked it over, proud of my work. I decided that the best thing I could do right now was conserve my energy and let my wound heal, so I decided to try and drift off to sleep.
As I was about to doze off a few minutes later, however, I heard a twig snap, followed by "I did it! Oh, this changes everything! I caught a Night Fury!"
'Hey, a person!? Maybe they can help me!' I thought. But I decided to stay silent, to see what he was doing. He sounded very happy that he captured that... dragon.
The teen, judging by his very frequent voice cracks, continued on, saying, "I have brought down this mighty beast!" In response, I heard the Night Fury's body shift around, eliciting a yelp of fear from the teen. I had to stifle a laugh. 'This guy doesn't sound like he could conquer anyone or anything, even if his life depended on it.' As I continued to guffaw in my head, the teen stammered, "I-I'm gonna cut y-your heart out and t-take it to my father. I'm a V-Viking."
This last statement created a lot more questions than answers, sadly. Most of them involved my brain using capitals, like 'WAIT! He's a VIKING!?', or 'WHY would you kill a DRAGON!?' I wanted to just shout out, "What the HELL are you doing!?", but I realized he hadn't noticed me yet, and I intended to keep it that way. For all I knew, he was a bloodthirsty Viking that ravaged and destroyed everything. After all, he did threaten to cut out the heart of a fire-spitting dragon.
"I am a VIKING!" I heard the boy yell. But, then, nothing happened. I was expecting a cry from the dragon as its chest cavity was gutted, or a yelp from the boy as the dragon began to struggle, or… something! But my ears were greeted with silence instead.
All I could do was simply wait and listen as the silence dragged out into seeming oblivion. Then, I heard something that bewildered me even more than all of the questions ricocheting around my brain: The sawing of a blade against ropes. As I heard ropes snapping, one question came up: 'What's he doing? I thought he just said he would kill it!' I wondered.
Then I heard a sudden commotion of movement coming from where the downed dragon lay. I realized that the teen had cut the dragon free, and it was probably a big mistake for him. That dragon had seemed hostile earlier, and shooting it down had probably only made it angrier.
As I waited, a silence began to take root once again. But just as I was getting used to it, an unholy scream-like sound pierced through the air, followed quickly by the sound of large wings beating ferociously through the air. As I looked ahead towards one of the cliffs surrounding the clearing, the Night Fury suddenly crashed down in my line of sight, ramming headlong into the cliff and sliding down to the base of it.
I then managed to hear the teen standing up, quickly followed by a thud of a body hitting the ground hard. 'Wow - I think that he just fainted! Why? That dragon just crashed into the cliff face. It didn't sound like it hit him. Oh, whatever. At least I can sleep now.' I slowly began to fade into sleep again.
When I woke up, the sun was just setting, making the sky into a sea of beautiful reds and oranges. It was so nice, so peaceful. But, as always, it wouldn't last. I heard the scuffing of shoes on rocks as someone descended into the clearing.
Whoever it was obviously knew who the teenager passed out on the grass was, as I heard him say "Hiccup! You ok?" with worry lacing every word. In response, I heard the teen on the ground shift around, regaining consciousness after passing out. "Ripper?" I heard the first teenager, Hiccup, ask. "Yeah, it's me." I heard the other voice, belonging to Ripper, reply.
"What are you doing here?" Hiccup asked.
"I was just walking through the forest, when I heard a howl coming from over here. I searched for a few hours around this part of the forest, and found a giant skid mark. I followed it over to here." Ripper replied casually.
"Yeah, I heard it too. I couldn't find the source of it though. Maybe it was that drag…" Hiccup pondered, then stopped, presumably as he realized what he was saying.
"What did you just say?" Ripper asked, his voice now sounding like an interrogation was happening.
"No-Nothing, Ripper! Don't mind it!" Hiccup said in a quivering tone. It was obvious he was lying, and I was willing to bet my life that Ripper could tell too.
"Hiccup… What did you say?" came the reply.
"Well," Hiccup started, but was suddenly interrupted by the unmistakable sound of dragon wings beating through air, followed by a giant crash. I assumed that the Night Fury had made its grand debut to Ripper.
"Hiccup, WHAT did you do!" a panicked Ripper yelled to Hiccup.
"Don't worry, dragon, it's ok, he's not gonna hurt you. Right, Ripper?"
Ripper's shaky breathing echoed throughout the clearing for a minute or so, before the quivering reply came.
"Yeah… dragon… Hiccup, what did you do though?"
'Man, this Ripper kid's got balls.' I marveled in my mind.
"Well, when I told you guys that I downed a Night Fury, I wasn't joking. I found him here in this clearing after following that same howl that you heard."
I shrank in my chair, as I realized that my howl from that last pull during the surgery had attracted both of them - a possibly fatal mistake. Hiccup kept telling the story, and I tuned back in to what he was saying.
"-ed into his eyes and… and saw that he felt just like me. Scared beyond belief, yet resigned to his fate. I couldn't kill him after I saw… that… so I cut him free. He pounced on me and pinned me to the rock. But he didn't kill me. We traded another stare before he let loose a scream, and he tried to fly away. But he couldn't."
"Why not?" Ripper questioned.
"If you take a look at his tail, you'll see why." Hiccup replied.
I heard Ripper move around on the grass, and then say, "Huh. So, does that mean he'll never fly again?"
"Maybe." Hiccup said, with a trace of sadness in his voice.
I tuned out once again and thought to myself, 'What's wrong with his tail?' I had never gotten a good look at it when he was curled up sleeping, or when he slammed into the cliff face. My best guess is that his tailfins were messed up somehow.
"Wait… what's that thing over there?" Ripper asked.
"What thing?"
"That." Ripper replied matter-of-factly.
My heart slammed into the bottom of my gut as I suddenly realized they were talking about Lightning, and therefore me. My heart started to beat a mile a minute as I panicked, realizing that I would soon be discovered. As I heard the two boys walking towards me, I suddenly thought of a possible way out of this that didn't involve me in a coffin. I quickly and silently slipped my handgun out of the holster, turning off the safety and holding it with a death grip in my right hand. I closed my eyes and held my breath as the steps got right next to me.
"What IS this thing?" Ripper asked.
"I dunno, I've never seen anything like it," replied Hiccup, a tinge of wonder and excitement in his voice.
"Oh wait! Hiccup, over here! There's a guy in here! Help me get him out!"
'The plan's working perfectly,' I cackled evilly in my head as I once again heard ropes snapping. After a few seconds, a rope snapped, and my body fell to the ground (I was upside down, after all), looking limp and lifeless. With the first stage of my plan going off without a hitch, I sprang my second part into action.
My eyes flung open as I did a roll to the right and stood up, immediately pointing my 9 mm at both Hiccup and Ripper. Hiccup's eyes grew wide and his face grew pale, and Ripper took a step back, but maintained a stoic look on his face.
I commanded, "Stay back and nobody gets hurt." Ripper tried to step forward, but I immediately swiveled my gun from Hiccup's head to Ripper's, and he stepped back.
"Ok, the two of you are gonna sit down and tell me where I am and who you are. Understand?" I commanded, but my voice shook a little. Both boys immediately nodded. "Good," I said, "now sit." Both of them sat on the rolling grass, and I followed suit, still aiming the gun at them.
"Ok, now that we're all settled, let's start with names. I'm Brandon. What's your names?"
"I'm Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III," said the skinnier one, who I now knew for sure was Hiccup. "And this is my friend, Ripper Bonemold."
"Jeez, who the hell comes up with names like these!" I said, mindboggled at who came up with these godawful names. Nonetheless, I carried on. "Where is this?"
Hiccup snickered as Ripper said, "You're on the island of Berk, in the Barbaric Archipelago."
"It's twelve days north of Hopeless, and a few degrees south of freezing to death. We're located solidly on the Meridian of Misery." Hiccup explained.
"That doesn't help, Hiccup! I meant, what country is this?" I said, starting to get agitated with the two teenagers.
"Well... this is the land of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, if that's what you mean." Ripper said, trying to deduce what my question meant.
"No, that's not what I meant! I meant as in Russia, Norway, Iceland, places like that. What COUNTRY are we in?" I said, exasperated with these two.
"Never heard of 'em," Hiccup said matter-of-factly. Ripper nodded along with Hiccup and said, "I'm afraid I've never heard of those places before either."
I sighed in frustration. "Fine! Next question." I had to think for a second before I came to the question I'd been dreading. But, now was as good a time as any to get an answer. "Are there… dragons here?"
Both Hiccup and Ripper stared at me like I was an alien. "Yes, there's dragons here. They're pretty normal on Berk." Ripper said nonchalantly.
My mind and my gun arm crumpled as what was happening around me finally hit me full force, like a train ramming a man at full steam ahead. I lowered the gun as my jaw dropped and my eyes quickly gained the thousand-yard-stare. Ripper saw the opening in my catatonic state, and took it. Before I could react, Ripper lunged onto me, tackling me and pinning me down. Hiccup quickly got up too and grabbed my gun, putting it in his vest as he grabbed the cut net rope to bind my hands behind my back.
I didn't struggle or fight. I didn't care what was happening. My mind was overloaded and threatening to overheat as I struggled to comprehend what had happened to me in two days. I went from a boring old town in the United States to an island twelve days north of Hopeless, a few degrees south of freezing to death, located solidly on the Meridian of Misery, in the middle of god-knows-where, with people that owned names that made Dick van Dyke feel lucky, and...
And dragons.
AN: Yes, I am taking ONE OC from another story (two if you count his dragon.) Please don't kill me! Let me explain! Ripper is from the author NFS LOVER (props to him), but he never really had a backstory. He was just… there. I'm hoping to flesh out Ripper's character, give him a real personality. Anyways, if you played the song I suggested, you saw why it was so fitting. Please review, and thanks for stickin' with me this far!