Ghost's Reign Chapter 12: If You Give a Dragon a Fish, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 12, everybody! Time to revisit the topic of logistics.

So technically Obake and Tadashi's bit is a reference to the movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron, although the descriptions of what Tadashi has been doing comes from my Dad's accounts of how the horses on the farm would do when they were trying to get him off. Nice to have a bona fide Texas cowboy as a Dad. XD The rolling over and threatening to turn Obake into an onomiaki, AKA Japanese pancake, however, comes from my Dad's uncle—apparently one horse did this whenever he didn't want to be ridden. Broke my great-uncle's ribs and when Dad was riding him and he tried the stunt Dad was savvy enough to step right off him.

Asked Dad about said horse, he says said horse was Cochise, was white with black spots, and came from an Indian reservation and had an Indian brand. Said horse threw both Dad and his uncle, and by the time he pitched my grandfather over his head Dad had gotten a workaround to Cochise's trick down to a science, where he'd step off when the horse flopped down and hopped back on when he stood back up. Him pitching Grandpa over his head was also a moment where Dad was able to make a callback on him, "You'll ruin the horse like that." Said horse was gone pretty quick after that.

Also for the longest time I thought the name was "Cold-cheese" until I learned of the actual Apache chief—to be fair, they did have a horse named "Drano" because Grandpa couldn't pronounce "Bueno." XD

Seriously I could fill a book on those exploits but coming back to this story…pretty sure Fred is quoting the movie Déjà Vu, and definitely know he's quoting Kung-Fu Panda.

Hiro and Obake both groused at Tadashi this time around—the former about being nicer to his pet Yokai, the latter about how this time, he wouldn't be thrown off as easily.

Tadashi gave him this much: anything longer than two seconds was honestly an improvement on Obake's end.

"Were you not paying attention?" Hiro demanded as Obake scraped himself off the ground. "You're supposed to be NICER, Older-Brother."

"Look, when you're big enough you can cart a Yokai around on your back all you want," Tadashi told him. "But in the meantime that isn't my Yokai—I do not have to be nice to him."

Hiro grumbled at him, obviously trying to think of a counter—ear flaps went up. "Yes you do—this is us showing that our two flights can go together. You're standing in the way of progress, Older-Brother."

"You're blowing smoke out your nose, Little-Brother."

Obake was obviously steaming when he finally staggered back over, growling about how it would be NICE if I had more than just three seconds to test out the flaws in the saddle.

Tadashi was nice enough to give him four.

Obake was very sore and doing his best to avoid Momakase on his way back to the forge.

So. Let's go over how well trying to train an adult Night Fury was going. Once upon a time, Obake had as a child read about horses on the mainland, how when they didn't wish to be ridden they'd buck and do their best to throw their rider.

Tadashi had apparently taken notes from these horses. Forget the part where he'd just catapult Obake clean off his back—sometimes he'd leap straight up, landing on four stiff limbs before scooting out from under Obake, sometimes he'd fling him sideways, and a few memorable times he just flopped down and rolled over on him. Honorable mention went to the time he basically did a summersault with the intent of rolling his full weight onto Obake after slamming him into the ground. Fortunately he had been able to escape every time he nearly became an obakenomiyaki, but it emphasized the importance of being able to both strap in and get out in a hurry.

Hence him locking himself in his forge and brainstorming how to do this while also hopefully recovering enough to try again once he had something to work with. Having Momakase drag him off to the kill ring to use it for its title wasn't high on his list of things to do instead.

So honestly, the knocking on the forge shutter wasn't welcome. Sigh, rub his forehead, debate…Momakase wouldn't knock, she'd just barge in and drag his sorry hide out. Let's see, which Yokai would actually be both polite enough to knock and gutsy enough to do so when they knew he was in?

He wasn't surprised to see Carl when he rolled the shutter back up.

"We're closed," he said flatly, getting ready to tug the shutter back down.

"We need to talk about the dragons," Carl said bluntly—put a hand up and stopped him from pulling the shutter the rest of the way down.

"Must we?"

"Yes, we need more of an explanation beyond we're not killing them anymore."

"You're a big lad, figure it out on your own."

"Also the dragons have figured out the storerooms and are eating our supplies."

Okay that was a more immediate problem. "Might I suggest locks."

"Still something I need to report to you, seeing as how you're the blacksmith."

Oi vey. "I don't suppose you've scraped up some extra metal to use for those locks."

"No, which circles back around to the issue we're running into about trading."

"Please tell me you all haven't been daft enough to go trading while wearing Yokai black."

"No, but it's a long haul with little to trade."

"Dragon scales—we're swimming in them now, they shed them every week." Ah. Dig into a pocket, pull out a handful of Night Fury scales he had been collecting whenever Hiro or Tadashi shed them and slap them onto the counter. "There you go—Night Fury scales. That should go for something in today's market."

"There's still the little problem of keeping the dragons out of the storeroom," Carl pointed out, carefully scraping the scales into his hand. "I'm not against not fighting dragons anymore, but if we can't keep them out of our food…."

The flicker of an idea reasserted itself. "I'll take care of it."

He could actually hear Carl's increased interest. "You will?"

Ugh. "Yes, now shoo."

Grit his teeth, wait until Carl left….

Grab a hammer and several long nails before striking off for the storerooms, avoiding other people as he went.

Not quite as able to evade dragons—Hiro was on his heels shortly, chirping in interest.

"You lot are nothing but trouble," he decided to inform the dragon. "Those fish are for the Yokai, not greedy little dragons that are perfectly capable of fishing on their own."

Hiro warbled at that, which could be in agreement but was most likely mocking somehow. Reach the storerooms—

Consider it. The cold-storerooms were dug out of the cliff, with doors protecting them and providing access—and yet all the doors looked fine.

Look down at Hiro, sitting there with ear flaps up. "How are you getting in there?"

Hiro very pointedly looked everywhere except at him.

"I see," he said, opening a door and plucking a fish from a nearby barrel. Close the door, hold the fish over Hiro's head. "Open the door, Hiro."

The way he was wiggling on his haunches suggested that Hiro was weighing his options: on the one hand, instant gratification. On the other, continued gorging. One was guaranteed, the other not so much. Option one, option two….

Instant gratification won out—Hiro bounded to the middle door, jumped up—hooked one paw on the handle, used the other to pound on the latch until it moved, kicked out with a back paw to swing the door open before dropping down and bounding back over.

"Clever boy," Obake said, giving him the fish before kneeling down to scrub at his jaw. "Very clever boy—I could use that later." Hiro's back leg started thumping. "Yes, the only problem I see with that is where you and your scaly friends are gorging yourselves on what's supposed to be our food—come winter you dragons will be fat as hogs and us Yokai will starve to death."

Hiro froze, eyes snapping open in startlement.

"Good. You understand." Use a finger to lift Hiro's head enough to look him in the eye. "This was one of the problems that led to the founding of the Yokai, Hiro—not everyone can go flying over the ocean for a snack."

With that said, he stood, opened the storerooms, looked them up and down before finding what he was looking for—eels soaking in pickling. Grab one, come back out, dangle it over Hiro to confirm—yes, dragons hated eels, especially if we were going by how Hiro was arching his back and hissing as he backed away from it.

"I wonder," he said, pensive. "Is it that they're poisonous to you, or is there something about them that just doesn't agree with you?" A puzzle for another time—in the meantime, kneel, take the first long nail, drive it through the eel just below the head, nail it to the first door, rinse and repeat for the rest of the storeroom doors. By the end of it he smelled strongly of pickling and there was an eel dripping on each door.

"You want some fish?" he asked Hiro, pointing at the doors. Hiro gave him a thoroughly disgusted look. "That's what I thought. No more stealing our fish, Hiro."

And with that, he left to engage in the very important job of avoiding Carl and Momakase.

Obake had left Hiro with some very important information about Yokai—information he was very eager to share.

"Hey, Little-Brother," Tadashi greeted when he collided with his side. "This isn't more on humoring 'your' Yokai, is it? I'm not in the mood today."

"Ha ha—I heard those quotation marks," Hiro growled. "And no—I just learned some very important information about the care and tending of Yokai, and I wanted to run it by you guys first."

"Ooh yes tell me tell me tell me," Fred said, crawling over Tadashi and flipping his tail in excitement.

"There is ROOM you could have gone AROUND ME," Tadashi protested.

"I could have but this is better—I'm feeling really close to you right now."

"Really close—YOU'RE ON TOP OF ME GET OFF."

"Ah-HEM," Hiro noised. "Does anyone want to listen to my important island-shaking news?"

"I do, Hiro," Honey Lemon said.

"Honeysuckle," Tadashi groaned.

"Well I DO."

"Ahem," Hiro noised again, jumping up on Tadashi's head because he knew it would annoy him. Also height. "So. I found out what those caves full of fish are for."

"Eating!" Fred suggested.

"Yes—but not for us. You know how squirrels store food away for winter? Turns out Yokai do too."

"Yes, but Little-Brother, squirrels don't try to murder us," Tadashi pointed out.

"We don't know that," Fred countered.

"So as it turns out the Yokai are actually really upset because fishing isn't as easy for them as it is for us so I propose fishing for them—you know, the 'feed it' part of the whole 'I'll feed it and walk it and take care of it' thing."

Fred went wide-eyed. "I LOVE this plan—we can get them ALL the fish—do Yokai like red meat? We could do that too."

"Of course they love red meat THEY EAT DRAGONS," Greenscales squawked.

"YOKAI DON'T EAT DRAGONS," Hiro said loudly. "Sheesh, I thought we were over this."

"YEAH I mean DOI come on Wasabi let's do it," Fred said, slipping off Tadashi and launching himself into the air.

"Oh no, they got you too?" Tadashi asked Greenscales.

"Yeah," Greenscales sighed, winging himself airborne. "If you need me, I'll be making sure Fred doesn't hurt himself."

"Good luck," Gogo called.

"Yeah," Tadashi muttered. "Especially if you're wanting red meat."

"That reminds me, I need to go check on my trap," Hiro said, jumping off of Tadashi and padding off.

"You're not going to catch anything in that, Little-Brother," Tadashi said, groaning as he got to his feet as well.

"You don't know that!" Hiro called back. "It's going to catch the biggest, fattest boar ever and THEN we'll see who's laughing!"

"Whatever," Tadashi muttered, following. Hmph. Well, as soon as it caught something he'd show him!

Now if only it would hurry up and work already.

Greenscales powered up to Blue—er, Fred, circling around the weird wooden roots that curled around the base of the island and seemed to grow from the village-nest, where the water-travelers rested.

"Uh, Fred?" he called, circling wide. "You're going to get yourself killed what are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how the Yokai fish!" Fred called back. "Because see, depending on how they catch fish, a good mouthful for them would be impressive—but DUDE check out that one water-traveler do water-travelers catch fish GASP—I bet they have like, a symbiotic relationship with them! Well GUESS WHAT, water-travelers? You're about to be REPLACED because dragons are THAT AWESOME!"

"You're giving the Yokai anxiety and I'm willing to bet they shoot at us for that," Greenscales said.

"No anxiety my dudes we're going to get you ALL the fish and it will be AWESOME."

"Uh, sure," Greenscales muttered, eyeing the Yokai trying to wave them away from the fish on the water-travelers. Wait….

Hesitate—dip a little closer for a better look, power back up to Fred.

"They've got fish in nets down there!" he told Fred. "They must catch fish like they do dragons!"

"Hmm, so that's a LOT of fish because usually dragons are bigger," Fred mused, pondering on the nature of Yokai before scanning the roots stretching out into the water again. "Aha!"

Fred dove, startling some of the Yokai—powered back up with a net dangling from his claws.

"Come on Wasabi!" he called. "We're gonna fill this with fish!"

"Uh—Fred wait HOW COME BACK—"

Fred the Totally Awesome Amazing Songkeeper of Legend and founding member of Big Wing Seven, formerly known as Big Wing Six, sped over the ocean, looking for the telltale flicker of fish swimming along, minding their own business until BAM! DRAGON FOOD!

Except THIS TIME it was going to be BAM YOKAI FOOD because this was totally a crucial step in the epic saga of them befriending and taming Yokai and he was ALL FOR IT Tadashi might still be hesitating at the cliff but if Hiro thought this could work then Fred was TOTALLY ON BOARD. This was their moment, their big thing—he had always been convinced that their wing was destined for greatness, was always hoping for something AWESOME but he had NEVER EXPECTED THIS their saga would be LEGENDARY!

Now if only everyone else would hurry up and get on board.

"FRED!" Wasabi bellowed, winging after him. "What are we even doing!?"

"Fishing, DUH!" Fred called back, adjusting his grip on the net—hmm, probably ought to figure this out first, it was all tangled up in his talons. "Help me with this, will you?"

"Uh, Fred, I'm kind of diametrically opposed to nets, because, you know, they catch dragons with them?"

"Ah, but as we have just seen, they catch fish with them too—and if Yokai can figure them out, then so can we!"

"Uh-HUH," Wasabi said, giving him a yeah right look before gingerly gripping part of the net and lifting it up to examine. "So we've established that Yokai catch things they eat in these nets, but they've caught dragons in them and this is not doing much to dissuade me from the point where YOKAI EAT DRAGONS."

"My dude, you're thinking negatively," Fred counseled. "Hiro told us that given the choice, Yokai eat fish over dragons. And since he studied one up close and personal, pretty sure he knows what he's talking about."

"Yeah, uh…just—for the record, Obake gives me the creeps."

Yeah, okay, fair, Obake gave him the creeps too—there was something scarily intense about the dude even before you took in the fact that half his face glowed in a skull pattern. But sometimes the story NEEDED the scarily-intense guy and this was probably like, the prickly outer shell that through the pure power of draconic awesomeness would be peeled away to reveal the awesome guy underneath. Like with chestnuts.

But back to the main thing: figuring out how to get a whole bunch of fish to deliver back to Yokai.

"Okay so I think—no wait turn your end—that's a corner there grab the corner—okay, so how do we get the fish IN the net is the next question," Fred mused, looking from the net to the fish flickering in the water.

"These feel like questions we could have asked on dry land," Wasabi pointed out.

"In retrospect we probably should have watched the Yokai do it. But it can't be that hard, right? Let's start with like, just dropping it on them."

As it turned out, it was indeed that hard.