Chapter 9: Retrieval

With Snotlout's red Drago Scale, the scale that gives Snotlout his Power Ranger powers, in the hands of the Scale Shedders, the Rangers had to come up with a plan to get the scale back and also get back with their bodies intact.

In the Scale Shedder lair, Vidger, the leader of the alien-like creatures, approaches his master, Grisly, who was looking over the red scale as Grisly says, "Isn't it magnificent? So much power packed into such a small device. Such a shame that it's been in the filthy hands of that idiot they call Snotlout."

Vidger states, "My lord, I've ordered the Shedders to assemble at the loading bay, as you requested. They're awaiting your announcement."

Grisly nods. "Actually, I'm going to leave you to the announcement."

Vidger's eyes widen. "For what reason, my lord?"

Grisly explains, "I've been contacted by an old…correspondence. I will be leaving the lair for a few days to meet with them. I'm sure you can handle things here."

Vidger replies with, "But, sir, you know the Power Rangers will likely come to take that scale back."

Grisly shrugs. "So they will. Look, if things go wrong then we have your Scale Shedder army and our Berserk Rangers. You wanted a chance to prove yourself as a worthy leader, so this is your opportunity."

Seeing as how there wasn't any other way out of this, Vidger bows and replies with, "Understood, my lord." Before turning around and beginning to walk out of the room when Grisly stops him.

"Remember." The white haired human said. "As far as the Rangers are concerned, I do not exist." Vidger simply nods to that and heads out while Grisly heads to a transportation port that warps him away from the lair.

Meanwhile, two Shedders, one with a masculine look and one with a feminine look, walk down a hallway near the entrance to the lair, when out of nowhere the two Shedders were pulled to the side into a doored room and the sounds of beating could be heard.

From that room, Hiccup and Astrid emerge, both wearing the suits of the Scale Shedders mentioned earlier and shut the door, which led to a room with a smashed window, behind them. Hiccup took an extra measure by smashing the door's keypad so it wouldn't be so easy to open.

Once that was done, Hiccup whispers into his Morpher/communicator and says, "Hicc to Fish, Hicc to Fish, come in, Fish."

From the communicator, Fishlegs's voice was heard saying, "Fish here. Ready to receive info once you send it."

Hiccup then says, "Hicc to Snot, Snot are you there?"

Snotlout's voice was then heard saying, "Snot here. Remind me again what we're doing."

Hiccup groans to the question. "Me and Astrid are sneaking into the lair of the Scale Shedders to retrieve YOUR Drago Scale. You're shorter than the average Scale Shedder, so you're on standby to take us away with the Nightmare Zord. Fishlegs can't be with us because…he's Fishlegs, so we're going to send him maps of the lair and whatever other information we can find. Got it?"

Snotlout replies with, "Right…remind me again."

Everyone listening rolled their eyes to that as Astrid says, "Just wait for our signal!"

Hiccup nods and says, "Alright, guys, Astrid and I are about to go quiet for a while. If you don't hear from us in hour, send a silent signal, got it?"

Fishlegs replies with, "Read you loud and clear, Hicc!"

Alicia adds, "Night Fury's speed to both of you."

Hiccup nods and turns off his Morpher before putting it in his pocket because, in his words, name one Scale Shedder that has a Drago Morpher. Once that was done, Astrid grabs Hiccup's arm and asks, "Hiccup…are you sure you can do this?"

Hiccup nods to that. "I'm still too weak to morph, but if all goes to plan then that shouldn't be an issue."

Astrid replies with, "That's not what I meant." Keeping a look of deep concern on her face.

Hiccup met the daze in Astrid's ocean blue eyes and put the pieces together as to why she was so worried. Hiccup sighs and grabs Astrid's arm saying, "One way or another, I will make sure BOTH of us makes it out."

They then hear someone walking in a nearby hallway, so they put on the masks that the Scale Shedders wear as an Admin Scale Shedder, who has the same black scaled suits as normal Shedders but also has a red stripe running along its chest, spots the two of them and says in an eerie voice, "The hell are you two doing here? Our master has an important announcement!"

Hiccup replies and says, "I'm sorry, we just-"

The Admin then points a blaster to Hiccup's head while saying, "Were you dropped on your head as an infant, or have you really forgotten the rules? Speak only when spoken to by your superior, GOT IT?" Hiccup chose to keep his mouth shut to this as the Admin Shedder puts its blaster down and says, "What I thought. Now, GET BACK IN LINE!" Hiccup and Astrid simply pick up their blaster and head off down the hallway the Admin came from.

They soon get to a loading bay where at least a few dozen Shedders were gathered. On one of the walls was a balcony that the two Berserk Rangers, Dagur and Heather, both not in their Ranger suits but instead black scaled clothing with respective stripes of violet and silver, stood on either side of along with two Shedder Admins. The doors to the balcony open up and Vidger steps out, instantly filling Hiccup with rage, making his arms shake, but a quick grab on the shoulder from Astrid soon calmed him down.

Vidger stands before the crowd and silences them before saying, "My noble Scale Shedders, it is in times like these when we must look to any glimmer of hope that we can find." He holds up the red Drago Scale saying, "We have captured a Drago Scale!" The crowd, minus two disguised Shedders, cheers to the announcement.

Astrid whispers to Hiccup, "There it is."

Vidger adds, "Now, this was not a complete solo act. We have two amazing warriors to thank for this, our Berserk Power Rangers!" The two of them step forward and take a bow. "They were able to take on the red Power Ranger and swipe his scale from him. We should show them our…gratitude."

While the crowd was cheering, Astrid whispers to Hiccup, "We need to figure out where they're going to be holding that scale."

Hiccup nods. "I might have a solution to that."

He then looks over to the Admin Scale Shedder standing to Vidger's right before taking in a deep breath and letting out a high pitched sound of different frequencies. The sound got into the ears of the Admin and caused it to turn to Vidger and ask, "If I may ask, where will you be holding that scale?"

Vidger replies with, "Well, not like it's your concern, but if you must really know, the scale will be kept in under close watch in room 21-M, one of our most guarded room next to that of my own."

Surprised by this, Astrid whispers to Hiccup, "What exactly was that?"

Hiccup replies with, "It's a sub-move to my Call ability called the Speak Call, once it gets into unsuspecting ears it can make them say whatever you want them to say."

Astrid blinks to that. "You and your fancy moves."

Hiccup shrugs. "If you have something you want to show off, then be my guest." Astrid decided to hold onto that thought as Vidger finished and the Shedders dispersed. Hiccup says to Astrid, "Let's split up. You find a way to the room that the scale's being held in, I'll find us a way out of here once we get it." Astrid nods as the two of them separate and walk off down separate hallways.

Hiccup casually walks down the hallway he chose, noticing a few Scale Shedders talking amongst themselves. That's when he looked and spotted a map of the lair, one that he knew he could send to Fishlegs. He didn't want to seem too obvious, so he pretends to cough as he quickly pulls up his Morpher and takes a photo of the map to send to Fishlegs, feeling relieved that no one caught him.

Meanwhile, Astrid made her way down the hall and looked at the marked room numbers. 21-J, 21-K, 21-L, and finally room 21-M, which had two Admin Shedders in front of the door. One of the Admins noticed Astrid and states, "Hey, yakhead, no unauthorized entry."

Astrid then states, "Sorry, but I do have authorization to enter. Vidger wanted me to go in and make sure the…ducts are clean."

The other Admin states, "I heard no such order, I mean why would a garbage pusher be given the authority to come to the room where the Drago Scale is held? What's the order code?"

Clearly not expecting that, Astrid comes up with a simple story saying, "Oh, my apologies, this is room 21-M, sorry I wanted room…20-N." She wasn't sure if there was a Room 20-N, but she had to hope that it made sense.

The two Admin Scale Shedders look to each other before one of them says, "Yes, it seems this was a mistake. Move along." Astrid nods and heads off.

She heads down a hallway and finds a supply closet that was open that she went into along with another Shedder, who closed the door behind her. From within the Shedder's mask, the Shedder says in a very nasally voice, "It sure is hot today."

Astrid then states, "About as hot as a dragon's fire."

Nodding, Hiccup takes off his mask and asks, "What did you find?"

Astrid shrugs. "Besides that we're at the bottom of the food chain around here, not much."

Hiccup nods. "I figured as much." He then pulls up his Morhper and speaks into it, "Hicc to Fish, come in. Did you get the map I sent you?"

Fishlegs replies with, "Yeah, and I was just looking it over. I gotta say, the layout of this lair is quite impressive."

Hiccup adds, "Can you spot another way to get into the room with the scale? Because the front door isn't an option."

Fishlegs adds, "Yeah, it looks like there's a cooling duct that can lead you right to the room, and given the location on your signal, it should be right above you."

Hiccup nods. "Alright, thanks Fishlegs, we'll keep you posted if anything else happens." He puts the Morpher away and says, "Ok, here's the plan, you slip through the ducts and get the scale, I'll keep the guards distracted."

Astrid asks, "I could barely even get near the door, how do you expect to distract the guards?"

Hiccup shrugs. "I have my ways." With that, they exit the room and Hiccup helps to hoist Astrid up to the vent so she could open it up and slip inside before closing the vent's door and making her way through the narrow tubes.

Meanwhile, after being called from one of his Scale Shedders, Vidger makes his way to the room that Hiccup and Astrid came into the lair through. He sees the two Scale Shedders unconscious on the floor along with some clothes that definitely weren't that of the Shedders. Vidger instantly comes to the conclusion, "This has the Rangers written all over it, and I'll bet my helmet that they're after the scale."

One of the Scale Shedder Admins asks, "Should I sound the alarm, sir?"

Vidger thinks about it for two seconds. "…No. Let's give those Rangers a false sense of hope before we take them down. Do have guards posted at all exits and tell the Berserk Rangers to meet me at my master's room." The Shedders nod before they all go do their own thing.

Hiccup finally made his way to the room where the red Drago Scale is kept and spots the two guards standing in front of the doorless room, where he could see inside and spot the scale being held in a clear, locked, cylindrical container.

Taking a deep breath, Hiccup walks up to the guards as one of them asks, "The hell do you want?"

Hiccup replies with, "Oh, I just wanted to stop and admire just how great of a job you guys are doing. I mean, being on guard for such a valuable possession? Whew, I'd give a lot to be in your shoes."

The other guard states, "Go back to whatever it is you need to be doing."

While Hiccup was working on distracting the guards, Astrid had crawled through the ducts and found the scale. She gently opens the vent door before realizing that there is likely a booby trap set for this exact purpose.

She looks around the room and notices several glowing red dots lining the walls of the room. Curious, she picks up a water bottle she brought and takes a sip before spitting it out, spraying the water and revealing infra-red security beams.

Nodding and taking note to where the lines were facing, Astrid gives Hiccup, who she could see from her duct, a signal to start fake coughing as this could get loud. Nodding, Hiccup begins to fake cough as he was talking, giving Astrid a good point to fire spines to take out the red dots that emitted the beams.

With that out of the way, Astrid slowly climbs down the shoulder-high vent door onto the floor of the room and slowly approaches the scale. Once she got on the floor, the Admin Scale Shedder held up a finger as if it was getting some sort of call.

After nodding, the Admin says to Hiccup, "Sir, we're gonna have to ask you to get to your quarters, we were just informed of a security breech."

Knowing just who was responsible for this 'security breech', Hiccup looks back to Astrid who quickly swipes the scale off of its podium before saying, "Well, if that's what must be done…"

He then uses the blunt end of the weapon he was carrying to smash the heads of the unsuspecting Admins as Astrid walks up to him saying, "Hey!"

Hiccup shrugs. "What? They know something's up."

Astrid replies with, "Yeah, but I wanted to do that!" The two of them then make their way down the hallway as Hiccup calls to Fishlegs.

"Hicc to Fish, we have the Scale but it looks like our position is a bit compromised! We need a fast way out of here!"

Fishlegs replies with, "It looks like the South Exit might be your best bet."

"I think not." Said a deep voice as the two of them enter an intersection in the hallway and are suddenly surrounded by Scale Shedders, one of which came over and removed their mask, revealing their faces.

From behind them, Vidger walks up with Dagur and Heather right next to him as Heather says while looking surprised, "Astrid? Uh…we were…kidnapped and-"

Astrid rolls her eyes. "Save it, Heather, we know who you two are."

Heather drops the act as Dagur states, "I guess that friend of yours, Snothat, couldn't keep his big mouth shut. Not that I'm surprised."

Vidger then comments, "It was a nice move getting the scale back, Rangers, but not nice enough. We suggest you hand the scale back over before things get ugly."

Astrid glances over to Hiccup and asks, "You feeling well enough to morph?"

Hiccup grunts and replies with, "Not yet. In any case, I thought we said we weren't going to do that."

Astrid shrugs. "Eh, they already know it's us, might as well go out with a bang."

Hiccup blinks to that. "Yeah, can't find fault with that."

Astrid then hands the red Drago Scale to Hiccup as she stands tall before raising her arms up to the side and swinging her left arm to her chest then swinging the other arm over to slam her blue Drago Moprher while saying the call, "DRAGO FURY, FIRE UP!" The Morhper sends a flurry of blue scales that surround Astrid's body from head to toe before the head of the Nadder pops up and consumes her head to from her helmet. Once done, she calls, "NADDER POWER!"

Once she was morphed, Vidger then says to the Scale Shedders, "Shedders! Stand down!" The Shedders do so as Vidger places a hand on Dagur and Heather's shoulder. "You two take care of this!"

Dagur states, "With pleasure."

They step up and swing their left arm up before throwing it behind themselves with their arm in an L formation before holding out their right hand and bringing it over to slap their Morpher while calling, "BERSERK FURY, FIRE UP!" The Morhpers send out a flurry of violet/silver scales that surround the two as they leap into the air and do a backflip, landing either on all fours or in a bear attack position as their helmet surrounds their head.

Once that was done, the Berserk Rangers hold up a defensive position as Hiccup yells, "RUN!" They begin to run down a hallway as Astrid fires spikes along the entrances to the other halls and the two knock out Scale Shedders before heading on their way.

Heather states, "Those two cannot get away!" Before running off down a hallway parallel to the one Hiccup and Astrid were running down.

While running, Hiccup calls to Fishlegs, "Fish! Fish! The Berserk Rangers are onto us, and I'm willing to bet that the main exits are blocked. We need another way out of here!"

Fishlegs then comments, "Well…I found another exit, but…you might not like it."

Hiccup sighs. "Let me guess, garbage chute?"

"Garbage chute."

Astrid adds, "It's better than nothing."

Hiccup adds, "I wish it WAS nothing. Alright, Snotlout, meet us at the exit and be ready to pick us up."

"Not so fast!" Dagur says as the two Rangers intersect them at a crossing hallway.

Astrid states, "Great, just what we need."

Heather states, "Alright, Astrid, enough playing around, we are going to take back that scale once and for all!"

"It never belonged to you to begin with!" Astrid states. "Spine Flurry!" She fires several spines at the other Rangers.

Dagur holds up his violet blaster saying, "Tri-Stryke Blaster, shield!" It pulls up a force field that protects both him and Heather from the spines. Dagur then adds, "Stryke Claws!" and his hands turn into two large crab claws while saying, "You two might feel a pinch, before you get crushed!"

Hiccup then states, "Well, I'm useless standing here."

He pulls up his Morpher and was about to slip it on when Astrid stops him, "What are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed? You know you can't survive a morph!"

Heather comments, "Ha! Still too weak to become a Ranger! You lot just keep getting more and more pathetic. Razor Battle Axe!" She pulls up her double edged axe and extends the bottom part before twirling it in her arms while saying, "Try to get past us now!"

Hiccup then comments, "Now's not really the time to argue, Astrid, so if you really do have a better idea then I'm all for it."

Astrid looks to Hiccup, then to the Berserk Rangers and suddenly comes up with something. "I think I do have something, but I'll need this!"

She plucks Hiccup's black Drago Scale from his Morpher as Hiccup protests, "Hey! What do you think you're doing with that?"

Astrid replies with, "Most likely, something stupid."

Hiccup comments, "Aren't we already doing that?"

Astrid adds, "Fine, then something crazy." She holds out the black scale saying, "Black Drago Scale, lock!" She clips it to a slit on the side of her blue Drago Morpher, making both black and blue scales glow. Hiccup's eyes widen as he realizes just what Astrid is about to do, but before he could say anything, Astrid calls, "Drago Fury, POWER FUSION!" while pumping her fist.

Both scales then shine as her Morpher lets loose a flurry of black scales that surround her and replace the blue scales on her upper arms, upper and lower legs, and making a V shape on her torso. Her blue, yellow-spiked helmet retracts a few spikes and instead forms some nubs while the side of her helmet gets coated in black as well, forming a new suit.

Once done, Astrid calls, "Man, this feels better than I thought it would! The Speed of the Nadder, combined with the stealth of the Night Fury, Drago Fury, Fusion Ranger!"

The others in the room stand there in shock to the power fusion as Fishlegs calls from Hiccup's Morpher, "Did I just hear something about a Power Fusion?!"

Hiccup says to Astrid, "When did you learn about Power Fusion?"

Astrid states, "You should really read up on one of your own books sometime. Plus, you did say that if I had something to show off, then I should be your guest." Astrid then puts a leg behind her before, going at the Berserk Rangers with enough speed that she became a blue and black blur as she zooms through the other Rangers and knocks them down, using spikes to disable Dagur's blaster and mess up Heather's axe.

Hiccup states, "Ok, we'll have to talk about how you did that once we get back!" before running after her.

Hiccup and Astrid soon make their way to a large vent in the ground. She calls, "Plasma Blast!" Before firing a purple burst of plasma from her helmet and blasting the door open. She then dives feet first into the chute, followed by Hiccup, who closes the door behind him.

After a minute of sliding, the two of them make their way into the smelly trash room, where Hiccup immediately clenches his nose. "Ugh! I am definitely going to need a shower after this!"

Astrid comments, "We can think about that once we get out of here. Look, there's the exit." She points to a large garage door on the other end of the room that had a sliver of sunlight shining through it.

Embracing the nasty room, the two of them walk through the garbage heaps, finding both solid and liquid trash along the way. Hiccup comments, to Astrid, "Keep my scale dry! I hate to see what this filth does to it! Gods, this smells worse than Snotlout's bedroom."

Astrid comments, "Is this trash really disgusting you that much?"

Hiccup sighs. "Fine, you caught me, I hate trash!" Astrid lets out a light chuckle as they soon reach the end of the room before a door opens up next to them and the Berserk Rangers walk in.

"Hold it right there!" Dagur states.

Seeing that door there, Hiccup asks, "Wait, there was another way to get to this door?"

Fishlegs then says, "Oh yeah, I was going to tell you that, but you got cut off by the Berserk Rangers.

Heather then sets a line of silver spikes around the door before saying, "Now, there is no escape!"

Astrid grunts and was about to go at them when suddenly the door bursts open from the other side. The Rangers look and see the Nightmare Zord right outside with Snotlout asking, "Did someone as for the Snot?"

Hiccup smiles wide as Astrid leaps up and kicks the Berserk Rangers on the head before leaping onto the red Drago Zord with Hiccup right behind her as the Zord begins to fly away back to the Dragerium. Once inside the Zord, Hiccup passes the red Drago Scale to Snotlout who holds it tight saying, "Oh, how I missed you! I'll never let you out of my sight ever again!" He then smells Hiccup and Astrid and asks, "Uh, what is that stench?"

Hiccup replies with, "The stench of success, now let's get out of here!" With that, the Nightmare Zord zooms away while Vidger stands at the hole in the door, feeling angry as ever that the scale, and the Rangers got away.

Back at the Dragerium, after Hiccup and Astrid both took a very long separate shower, the Rangers and Alicia sit around as Fishlegs states, "So, Hiccup, when were you going to tell us about Power Fusion?"

Hiccup looks and sees that, sure enough, all eyes were on him. He takes a sigh before saying, "Right, so, the Drago Scales possess a lot of power on their own, but it is possible for two or more scales to combine powers to create a whole new Ranger. However, it's very risky as the process can take a ton of energy out of you, and if you're not careful, then it can kill you."

Snotlout then asks, "So, how was Astrid able to do it on her first shot?"

Hiccup shrugs. "Now, that is something I'm still trying to figure out. I guess the Black Drago Scale trusts Astrid enough to want to lend its power to her when she needed it. That's another thing about fusion is that the two scales have to have the same amount of trust for lending their power to someone. It's as tricky to master as it is to perform, but Astrid did seem to do it well."

Astrid nods. "Thank you. So, can you fuse powers, Hiccup?"

Hiccup sighs. "That's actually something that even I haven't figured out yet, for some reason the other Drago Scales just don't take as much of a liking to me."

Astrid comments, "Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Hiccup nods. "Yeah, sure."

Fishlegs then asks, "So, is it possible for more Drago Scales to be fused together?"

Alicia states, "I can answer this, and yes. In fact, there tells a legend of a Ranger who is capable of combining the powers of all Drago Scales and be able to use those powers as they wish, however such a Ranger is only a legend."

Hiccup sighs. "Yeah…just a legend."

Astrid could see a look of disappointment come across Hiccup's face. She wasn't quite sure what it was about, but then it suddenly clicked in her mind. "You…wanted it to be you, didn't you?"

This caught the attention of Hiccup as he looks to Astrid. "Wh…what?"

Astrid states, "You thought that you could be this legendary Ranger and be able to fuse multiple Drago Scales. That's why you kept them to yourself for as long as you did, that's why you chose to be a lone Ranger after you lost Luna, isn't it?"

Hiccup looked around the room and saw that, once again, concerning eyes were on him, even the eyes of Alicia told him that she was suspicious of just this fact, so Hiccup sighs and says, "I…thought that if I get enough experience then I could learn to fuse powers myself, but so far that's gotten nowhere."

Astrid glances down as she comes up with the right words to say before she moves over to Hiccup's side and says, "Hiccup, you're still the strongest, bravest, most incredible Ranger we know."

Fishlegs adds, "Yeah, I mean, just because you can't fuse powers doesn't mean you're any less of the Ranger we know that you are."

Snotlout adds, "I'm not normally the modest one here, but you did take us in and train us with everything that we know now."

Astrid adds, "See? You're a fantastic Power Ranger, we don't even need eyes to see that."

Hearing all this would've brought a tear to Hiccup's eye if he was the type to cry. He hugs Astrid and replies, "Thank you, guys. I'll never regret letting you all become my team." With that, the five people sit in silence for a bit as the sun sets over the horizon, ending this very eventful day.