Ghost's Reign Chapter 42: Abigail, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 42, everybody! Obake-exe has stopped working, press any key to continue.

So Momakase ends up quoting Portal 2 and references Don't Starve, while Obake more obliquely references The Shawshank Redemption and pulls out one of his canon quotes. Also don't tell Momakase but there's more that two dragons that get to the eff this I'm out of here size.

Tanto slipped from nerveless fingers as his brain refused to process this—no. No it wasn't possible she was dead—

Snatched by a Monstrous Nightmare right after she pushed him out of its way, trying to save him—the reason a distraught Callaghan had formed the Yokai, had hunted down dragons and then people as he turned his vengeance upon the wider world—

She wasn't dead—how was she not dead it had been twenty years this wasn't—

"Move!" Momakase barked, slamming into him, saving him from Abigail snatching up the tanto and trying to hobble him—

Momakase bounced back upright, swords flashing as she faced Callaghan's daughter, scurrying to her feet and snarling ferally, tanto out as she tried circling for her staff—

"And what are you going to do with that toothpick?" Momakase taunted—of course she wouldn't recognize her Abigail had been gone well before Momakase had joined the Yokai—

"Wait no!" Obake barked as Momakase lunged—Abigail dodged, flailed out a messy slash that Momakase dodged, dove for the staff—

A Rumblehorn barreled forward, menacing them back and allowing Abigail time to recover—Momakase tucked a sword under her arm, reaching for a throwing knife—

Obake finally recovered enough to stop her. "Don't."

Momakase looked sharply at him. "Do what?"

"We're not fighting her."

"Oh for the love of—find your soulmate status later she tried to kill us and we're still in the middle of a crisis."

Thank you for reminding him that there was still a standoff going on, a brief lull in the fighting, heavy breathing from the dragons, Tadashi and Gogo with fresh scores along their scales but their opponents looking worse—glance back to see Abigail's feral grin, out of place on her face, her raising the staff as some evident signal to the dragons—

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he told her flatly.

"You're not in a position to bargain," she rasped, voice rusty from disuse.

"It just seems a waste to me," he countered, ripping his mask off. "Sparing a boy from a dragon attack only to have them kill him years after the fact."

Eyes widened, staff wavered—"Obake?" Recover a little—"What are you doing with the Yokai?"

Snarl at her a little. "It was your father's idea."

"You know her?" Momakase hissed at him, jerking her head at Abigail.

"Abigail Callaghan," he told her.

"The dead daughter!?"

"Excuse me?" Abigail demanded.

"You were carted off by a dragon," Obake pointed out. "What, pray tell, were people supposed to think?"

The way her jaw was working suggested he had scored a point there. "And what, you decided you'd repay that by becoming a murderer!?"

"As I said, it was your father's idea."

"Look, I know Dad didn't really like you, but—"

"Perhaps I'm being obtuse," he snapped, cutting across her objections. "The Yokai was your father's idea. Started it up right after you were snatched, staged a whole coup on the village—Granville and anyone who followed her was run out." Glower, half his face flaring and him not really caring at the moment. "And then he also decided to make a deal with a ghost." She looked pale now—press it. "He found me in the hospital, broken from that whole incident, offered me a deal I couldn't refuse and didn't until recently. All that murdering and pillaging and carrying on? Robert Callaghan was the head of it from beginning to end."

Fury seemed to be taking over disbelief in her face. "You liar."

"Oh am I?" he crowed, arms spread as he took a step back—looked at Momakase, still dizzy with disbelief and sizzling anger. "Pity we can't produce the man to corroborate, isn't it?"

"So I'm going to have to ask if there's another glowing green rock nearby," Momakase muttered, glancing at some of the snarling dragons agitated by Abigail's emotions.

"Yes I would have to be insane to be purposefully agitating the woman controlling a horde of dragons, wouldn't I?" he asked, tone edging towards hysteria even as he wrestled with it. "What kind of idiot would be telling you hateful little fibs now, of all times? Or should I be trying to sell you on him making daisy chains?" Finally felt something break inside, shuttered down to cold fury—if it wasn't for her—if it wasn't for her—"Although I should thank you—after all, you were the one who made me the man I am today."

And then charge her, face flaring—she was caught flat-footed, he might have a shot at killing her before the dragons killed him—

The dragons could be the hero and kill the ghost.

You can't kill a ghost.

Black and electric blue suddenly intercepted, teeth flashing, forcing Abigail back before bowling Obake over, dropping him fast enough that a lance of pain went through his ribs, blinding him temporarily—

When the stars cleared it was to show Tadashi standing over him, paw hovering before finally deciding that putting it down on his shoulder was the least likely to cause injury, claws far too close to where his lifeblood bubbled close to the surface—

Looked around, snarling and roaring, like he was haranguing the other dragons, or maybe holding an oratory in a coliseum—vaguely aware of Gogo hovering close to Momakase, tail still bristling—

Head low now, neck exposed, could see his hackles bristling, green eyes eyeing Abigail, or maybe behind her—a Gronkle came forward, gently nudged her back, putting itself bodily between her and them—

Any further observations were cut off by Tadashi licking his face before stepping off.

"Ugh," Obake noised, spluttering, face flaring—curled up on himself when trying to cough some of that away ended up hurting his ribs again. Vaguely aware of Hiro nosing him, of Momakase coming over—

Mostly, he was focused on Abigail staring at him, dumbfounded.

"What happened to you," she managed finally.

Sigh, wince when that hurt his ribs. "Some people change a lot in twenty years." Not him though—he didn't get that luxury, had never been afforded that luxury—

He was now as he had always been. Nothing.

Momakase looked between them, finally decided to focus on Abigail. "Well now that the murdering impulses are out of the way, I'd like some explanations. If you're really Callaghan's daughter…how are you not dead?"

"It's…a long story," Abigail hedged.

"I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we're not exactly going anywhere at the moment." This with an ironic gesture at the dragons still milling about, even if the crowd had slowly reduced in size after Tadashi's raving.

Abigail hesitated…nodded finally. "Come with me."

Okay so Obake had apparently gone off the deep end and Callaghan's daughter wasn't dead. Next the sky was turning neon green and would rain frogs and honestly Momakase wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Moving on: apparently Abigail was in charge of a dragon nest, she had gone off and decided to live feral with them.

"Oh wait you're mad because she stole your idea, right?" Momakase asked Obake, startling him out of his furious musings.

"Do what?"

"Your big plan was to run off and live in a dragon commune, you're mad because she went and stole your idea."

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Makes more sense than anything you've been rambling about," she muttered, looking away as the cavern walls started to fall back. "Woah."

Woah being the appropriate response to entering a huge open space, well-lit by several holes and crevasses above them, allowing greenery to grow everywhere. Hot springs steamed and trickled and would have been very tempting had they not already had dragons in them. Matter of fact, every available space seemed to have a dragon, either lounging around on one of the levels or peeking out of a cave at them, younger ones at various ages trying to peek out and getting shooed back for their trouble.

"Boy would Callaghan love to get in one of these," she said to Obake—noted the dead daughter's expression. "Oh right we were easing into dear dad's transition to bloodthirsty murderer."

"Surprisingly, you're not helping," Obake told her.

"I do try," she said. "So really, how hard is the induction? Obake here wants to know. For reasons." Actually right now Obake looked like he wanted to sink into the earth, but details.

The dead daughter was watching them oddly, like she had forgotten how human interactions worked. "Do you know that dragon nests are like hives? They have one central dragon that orders the rest around."

"Ha," Obake hissed at Momakase.

"Yeah yeah no one likes a braggart," she said, waving him off. "Continue."

Dead daughter didn't seem impressed with them having already figured this out, shook her staff over one of the larger hot springs—

A head big enough for all three of them to fit in curled up surfaced, followed by a stout neck, craggly horns looking like coral adorning its head—

The absolute biggest dragon she had ever seen was looking down on them, pebbly skin purple-tinted with red bumps, jaw heavy enough to make her think Boulder-class, sharp horn on its nose—six eyes—

Couldn't help but take a step back and slightly behind Obake when it leaned forward to sniff at them—give her a break he was the dragon whisperer here—nostrils big enough that it could accidentally suck their heads in no problem—

And then it was leaning back, making some happy-sounding rumbles and splashing at the water with paws twice the size of Tadashi's head.

"She likes you," the dead daughter said.

"Hate to find out what happens if she didn't," Momakase said, vaguely aware that she had Obake's upper arms in a death grip and having to focus on loosening her hands. "What is it?"

"The queen of this island—or the princess, I suppose. She's still growing."

"What do you mean that thing gets bigger."

The dead daughter gave them a thin smile, indicated Tadashi. "She was about his size when I first got here. Comparing her proportions to the baby dragons, she's going to get much bigger."

Oh crud—look at Obake, who looked at Hiro. "Same sort of dragon?"

Hiro shook his head pointedly.

"Ah right, the tusks."

"What do you mean there's two types of dragons that get that big this news does not spark joy," Momakase hissed.

Dead daughter was arching an eyebrow at them now. "You act like you understand them."

"Nuh-uh, you first," Momakase said, jabbing a finger at her. "You've been missing and presumed dead for twenty years, and seeing as how your story kicks off ours I think it's only fair you start."

The dead daughter frowned at her, looked at Obake, who was still focused on the big dragon (understandable)…slowly started, describing a Callaghan Momakase didn't know, some kindly older man happy to act as a chief's second, describing a village whose carcass the Yokai were now living in—

Describing a young boy who she remembered always trailing after their chief.

It was at this point Obake left, apparently not wanting to hear the rest of it. Momakase stayed, heard the rest of it—how during a dragon raid, in shoving that young boy out of the way it had ended with herself being snatched, a terror-filled flight here, thinking she was being left as a morsel for later…slowly coming to the realization that they had been wrong about the dragons, that they weren't mindless monsters, but intelligent creatures.

"Well that would have been nice to know twenty years ago," Momakase said drily, when she finished.

The dead daughter glared at her. "You were telling your side of the story now."

"Sure. Let me start with: all the people you described? I know none of them. Your dad, by the time I met him, was a coldblooded killer—apparently, losing your daughter does that to a man." Point at Gogo, who had stayed by her during story time (at least there was no story snake this time). "That there? That was within this past year—this time last year if I was in this position I'd be knives out, no question. Obake was the one who stopped your dad and turned everything on its head."

Dead daughter was looking at the saddle on Gogo like she wanted to be disdainful but was thinking twice about showing that expression in front of Momakase; looked instead in the direction Obake had went. "What happened to him."

"Your dad or Obake?" Momakase asked. "Because if it's the latter he's always been like that." Not really—there was something bugging him, some shadow that had seized him and wouldn't let go—she had seen hints of it that night in the kill ring when he had made it clear he was giving up, but now….

You're running away!

The dead daughter was shaking her head. "He wasn't always like that."

Momakase arched an eyebrow…decided maybe going after Obake was the better deal.

"Like I said," she said, walking after him. "You described people I don't know."