Ghost's Reign Chapter 1: The Ghost from the Village, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Hey how y'all doing? Welcome to Book II of the Ghost's Fury series! :D

Yup, we're back and on the release date of How to Train Your Dragon 2—wanted to have Part 1 mostly done before doing so, have 22 consecutive chapters done, was debating on postponing another year until I got a bangin' review on Book I today that made me do the sort of happy wiggle in my seat and therefore…yes I said Part 1 Book II is going to be big.

So starting next week this will update every Thursday, I've got enough to last us until September with that schedule and by then I'll have more…so let's get started.

Part I: Under New Management

She often thought about the boy she left behind with regret.

Having a reminder of him sitting constantly on her desk didn't help, kept the memory fresh, but she wouldn't move it—she needed that memory fresh, needed to still be thinking about it, she felt.

Needed a reminder of just why she needed to keep everyone together.

She could still see him—gangly in his youth, narrow face already sporting sallow cheekbones from spending more time studying and making things than eating, eyes wide and sparkling with wonder but rimmed with tiredness; he'd work until he collapsed if someone didn't keep after him, made sure he ate and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

It had gotten to the point that she had given him a bedroll and told him to use it wherever he stopped—if for nothing else, so she was assured that he was actually using it.

But he was brilliant, coming up with things and ideas that no one else did at an alarming rate, absorbing new information like a sponge—she had had to fight to keep ahead of him, keep finding new things for him to do—he was easily the brightest in the whole village, was destined for great things, had happily presented the strange crystalline shape on her desk to her when he had found it, buzzing with excitement.

"I've done some reading and it looks like the crystal in Shimamoto's accounts it has to be the one in her accounts right maybe not the Dragon's Heart but maybe it's like a clue or something that leads to it or—or some other thing," he had blurted, turning the odd crystalline shape over in his hands—long and thin, not quite grown into yet. "Maybe it leads to the city she made."

She had patted him on the back and pointed out her collection of information on the long-dead woman, had worked on the accounts for the village as he burned through all the documentation she had, scrubbing at his head whenever something came up that stumped him—rare was the piece of information that did so for long; he pursued knowledge with a singlemindedness reminiscent of the dragons that would plague their skies, always hungry for the next tidbit.

Ah, the dragons.

That was the big, overarching problem, and one not even his bright young mind could fully work around—attempts to ward them off had all failed, attempts to make dragon-proof houses only went so far—they reminded her of him, in that when they encountered a problem they'd find a way around it. Even the one suggestion of putting out fish just for them, away from the village, hadn't worked—they'd eat the fish and then move on to steal from them. They were a nuisance at the best of times.

At the worst of times, they were deadly.

When Robert Callaghan's daughter Abigail had been snatched—that had been a terrible blow. The man had been inconsolable—had vanished from meetings, was nowhere to be seen during the day…she knew he was grieving, knew he wanted to see no one.

She, meanwhile, had other focuses—rebuilding the village, again, making sure everyone was safe and healing….

Including the poor, brilliant boy, who had just barely survived a dragon's attack.

She hardly recognized him under the bandages, paler than usual, looking thinner and frailer and in a haze of pain—she talked to him, told him he'd be fine once he got some rest…Wendy would visit him on a regular basis, bring flowers or an interesting rock she found, trying to fish him out of the dark silence he was slipping into.

Callaghan visited him too, and for the briefest of moments she thought that him reaching out of his own haze of pain was a good thing.

And then Callaghan had revealed what he had truly been doing: marshaling everyone together with the plan to overthrow her, so that they could do the one thing that she had thought would only aggravate the situation, not cure it.

They were going to kill dragons.

She had tried to point out the insanity, that it was suicide to go up against the beasts—but she could see, could see that she had lost her position, had lost her pull; she and those that sided with her had been given enough time to grab what they could and run, and run they did, her with her information on Shimamoto and that crystal, the one currently sitting on her desk.

She wished she had left that and taken him instead.

It had been heartbreaking, hastening over there to find Wendy already begging him to go, to run—he was sitting up, still might not be well enough to travel, but she didn't want to risk leaving him here—

And then he had looked at her, with his one unbandaged eye—

She saw something cold and hard in there, suddenly knew what it was Callaghan had been talking to him about. Callaghan had seen his designs, knew that with a little nudge the boy would be motivated to turn those designs lethal.

She could see that he had received that nudge.

She had tried, briefly, to convince him—but they had run out of time. She had finally had to resort to putting a hand on his shoulder, to looking him in that one good eye.

"Come find us," she had told him. "When you can, come find us."

And then they were gone.

It took several moves, hopping from island to island, until they were far enough away that dragons rarely harried them and the horror stories coming from their old island were faint echoes…further still when—during one of the longer boat trips—she went through Shimamoto's work, supplementing a new piece of documentation she had discovered, found that he had been correct in his suppositions.

And this—Shimamoto's greatest achievement, a gleaming city jutting out of the ocean, would be far enough away to be safe from dragon attacks, from the poison Callaghan was leeching into his surroundings.

But many, many times, Granville wondered what ever happened to that boy she had left.

She wondered what ever happened to Obake.

Many, many times, Obake wondered about what his life had come to.

Okay, good news: they were no longer fighting dragons. Also good news: Callaghan, as well as most of the dregs that had followed him, was now long-gone. Chased off by Obake, who had been backed up (less impressively) by those tired of Callaghan's ways and (more impressively) the dragons that had invaded in one large flight.

Bad news: he had woken up the next day to find that the dragons had decided to stay (in and of itself not a bad thing, all things considered), and that he had gotten promoted. Yay for him, no more ceiling to his abilities, no more limits.

It also didn't say much for the remaining people populating a village whose original name he didn't even remember, that they decided he was the best bet for chief.

It wasn't like he had done much except finally fight Callaghan and win—maybe it was the fact that the dragons had stayed at about that same time, had apparently decided that fighting was overrated and were currently being led by that most dreaded of dragons itself, the Night Fury.

Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't really go anywhere anymore without a smaller example of that most dreaded of dragons sitting on his shoulder.

Or in this case, nosing around his head and face, bouncing around on the bed and yipping excitedly.

"I deeply regret ever letting you into my house," he muttered into the pillow, not wanting to get up but having to from a combination of excited dragon and overactive mind. The former was a recent issue, the latter a persisting one—he couldn't remember a time when his mind wasn't clipping along at a blistering rate, or when he could actually go to bed without working himself to exhaustion first; he was pretty sure it was a combination of that and his habit of neglecting to break for meals that accounted for his thin frame.

But since neither was giving him any peace, he might as well get up—shove himself upright, scrub at his face—flinch back and shove the blunt little head down when the dragon jumped up and started licking his face.

"Good morning to you too," he said, trying to keep the little ball of excitement off of him. "Yes, I'm sure—down, Hiro."

Hiro—the little Night Fury he had shot down…had it been only a few months ago?—yipped, bounced out of bed, down the steps—sounded like he lost his footing and fell the rest of the way about halfway through. Obake waited, counting the seconds…Hiro squawked something that sounded like it was the dragon version of I'm okay!

He heaved a sigh as he got up, not enthused about greeting the day but with too much to do and too many ideas to try to justify sleeping in, even with a hyperactive dragon that didn't seem to comprehend that the door was open, he didn't need Obake out of bed.

And come to think of it, he did have a much larger relative to pester.

The big Night Fury—which Obake had started calling Tadashi—was currently in the main room of the bottom floor, sniffing Hiro over before shooting a suspicious glance at Obake; yet another reason he hadn't hastened to the steps. Helpful the alpha of the dragon flight may have been, but that didn't mean either of them trusted the other.

Nor did Tadashi apparently trust Obake with Hiro, considering he scooped the little protesting dragon up in his mouth and trotted out. Honestly, he was surprised Hiro had managed to stage enough of an escape to even bother Obake. He himself headed out the front door—

Oh yeah, also tack on the fact that now he had chieftain duties to attend to as well, considering the door was full of the bulk that was Felony Carl, currently holding a big stack of papers. "So—"

Obake held up a hand. "Terribly sorry, but I'll be needing something heavily caffeinated before I—"

Sigh when Carl held out a mug of something steaming. Drat it all, the man never missed a trick. One reason he had been put in second in command—the only problem being when he used his talent for detail on Obake.

"Fine," he spat, taking the mug and maneuvering around Carl. "You can explain on the way."

Carl followed him. "You know they're starting to call this the Fury house."

"I'd limit any comments on my temper until after I've ingested this," he replied, looking up at the roof of his house—where the real reason that nickname was starting to stick was currently resting: Hiro liked sneaking into Obake's house and curling up in his bed. That was vaguely annoying, but he welcomed the extra heat.

The three older Furies—one black and two white—did not want to be near Obake but did not want to be away from Hiro. Hence their compromise: sleeping on top of the main beam of the roof.

Hiro was currently in the grasp of Tadashi, protesting loudly as the Night Fury groomed him. The other two, the Light Furies, were up near the front of the house, the larger of the two—larger than even Tadashi—glaring down at them with disdain. Cass, he called that one—because he was pretty sure the dragon might take offense to him just outright calling it sass.

Carl had named the other one. "Hi Honey Lemon," he said, waving.

The smaller Light Fury seemed to be the friendliest of the bunch after Hiro, pupils wide as she crooned down at them, watching Carl's movements before looking at her own paw, raising it, and trying a wave. Cute, theoretically. Not that he was ever going to give voice to that.

"Honey Lemon? Really?" he opted to ask instead, eyebrow arched.

Carl shrugged. "At least you haven't revoked my naming privileges yet like you did Dibs," he said, indicating Dibs' house, where a blue Monstrous Nightmare was perched on the roof and watching the door intently.

"Fair enough," Obake sighed, taking a long drain of his mug. The blue Monstrous Nightmare was named Fred, and was the reason Dibs was no longer allowed to name things, despite his protests. Worse, the bloody dragon refused to answer to anything else, and ended up being technically Dibs' by default—Obake certainly knew he wasn't yelling that name out on a battlefield.

Also, strangely enough, the Monstrous Nightmare seemed to genuinely like Dibs, if the way he swarmed down and tackled the skinny man was any indication. Indeed, most of the dragons settling here seemed to be very willing to forgive years of slaughter in exchange for some fish and neck scratches.

The same could not be said for the Furies—Obake had been right in guessing they were intelligent, and thus far only Hiro seemed comfortable around people. He was really going to have to figure out how to calm down the rest of the Furies and train them.

Later, unfortunately, glancing back at Carl. "Proceed," he sighed.

Carl nodded. "Let's start with the big problem everyone's having."

"Funny, they seem to be getting along," Obake said, indicating Dave a few houses over busy cooing over a Gronkle, happily wiggling under the affection.

"Yeah, that's not the problem," Carl said, shuffling the papers. "Thing is, everyone's a little concerned with the direction you're deciding to take the village—I'm all for it, personally, but our two main sources of income were basically dragon-slaying and hiring ourselves out as mercenaries. Now we're going to do neither, and even with the dragons flying off and feeding themselves instead of stealing from us, we still have a huge logistics problem suddenly dumped on us."

"Take some of the houses that might as well be gut jobs, gut them, set them up for the dragons," Obake said curtly, heading for his forge. "As for the rest, I'm sure they'll find caves or something eventually." There was, after all, that huge Whispering Death nest in the mountain.

"They certainly don't seem inclined to move on anytime soon," Carl noted, watching a couple of Nadders preen under the attention they were getting. "Which kind of makes me wonder why they decided to move here in the first place."

That—was an excellent question. And, unfortunately, one Obake suspected he had an answer for: Hiro. When he had shot down the little Night Fury and kept him, the alpha of the flight must have decided to take all the dragons and fly here en masse, probably spoiling for a battle and getting something of one when the fight with Callaghan and his followers broke out. Finding Hiro alive had probably sated a lot of that anger.

He didn't like to think what would have happened if he had succeeded in killing Hiro.

"So if that's all I do have other things to do," Obake said, draining his mug as he reached the forge, putting it on the counter in one smooth motion as he swept inside.

Carl paused in the doorway. "Yeah, no—that's just one of the logistical problems. You still haven't said what it is we're going to be doing."

"Well I was trying to work—"

"I mean about the tribe as a whole being employed, whether gainfully or not."

"Hmm," Obake noised, twirling a ball-peen hammer idly on a table. "Well, I suppose we do need bread-making Yokai. Or small home repair Yokai."

"I can't help but feel like you're not taking this seriously."

"And I can't help but feel like you've failed to notice that I've had this job for all of two days. A job, I might add, I didn't exactly want."

"Then what was the reasoning behind unseating Callaghan?" Carl asked.

Good question—the plan had been, pure and simple, train a dragon and fly away on its back, as far away as he could manage. Certainly it was suicidal, but he had been desperate for an out from the snare he had willingly been led into. When that idea panned, when he was captured and imprisoned by Callaghan, when the dragons had all attacked en masse, his plan had been simply to take Callaghan with him when he went out.

You would have thought, honestly, that telling people that you didn't expect to survive that encounter would have given them second thoughts. Instead, it had redoubled their fervor—throwing himself at a situation with no hope of making it back out, doing so anyway—definitely a Yokai. Definitely a true ghost.

It actually made him miss his youth, when most people shunned him out of superstition. At least then he had some time to himself.

Carl was still waiting for an answer, he realized. "I had nothing better to do—are you happy?" he demanded.

"No," Carl said. "Pretty sure there was more to it than that. So about the rest of this list—"

"Carl, the reason I picked you as second in command is because I trust you to handle the day-to-day details." Flick the hammer into a bin and turn to the forge. "Now, if it's something earth-shattering, or something you can't figure your way around, then yes, fine, by all means get me. But until then I have a preexisting job that I had enough sense to garner before my main one fell through."

"All right," Carl sighed, before separating a stack of papers and pinning them under a rock on the counter. "Your orders to fill out."

Obake sighed through his nose at that—being in charge of the smithy meant swords and other assorted pointy objects, yes. It also meant all the little nitty-gritty parts of the village, like nails to hold everything together, hinges and forks and anything else even remotely made of metal. It was taxing at the best of times.

"Tell the people doing the gut jobs to save any metal that looks salvageable," he said. "Scratch that—anything that looks salvageable." Especially considering no more mercenary work meant no more raids meant no more raw supplies—Carl was right, he hadn't thought any of this through.

"All right," Carl said, sidling out of the doorway. "I'll be back later today, maybe."

"I'll be here, probably." At least working and trying to keep up with the ideas and thoughts in his head might give him a chance to figure things out.

In the meantime—go through the list, then go through the molds he rigged up to cut down on the time spent on the simple things, sorting out the ones he needed before starting the forge.

He'd be here a while, he decided.