MDM's Version of How to Train Your Dragon
A/N: Chapter 11 is here! Some of you guys had been wanting more soon! Well, your wish came true. Honestly, this may be the last chapter I post before school starts. I hope I won't get lots of homework on the first two weeks, but the chances of that happening are at most 45%.
Chapter 11, action!
Chapter 11
First Test Flight
It was night when Gobber got the recruits together for a campout dinner. By then, the Misfit Trio had left the cove, all of them silent as they took in what had just happened between Hiccup and the Night Fury.
As they circled around the campfire on one of the catapults, Gobber began telling the recruits the story of how he lost his arm and leg; a story the Misfit Trio had heard enough times. But they weren't paying too much attention to it anyway because of the event that happened in the cove.
"And with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole!" Gobber said, his prosthetic arm being used as a stick to roast a whole chicken. "And I saw the look on his face. I was delicious. He must've passed the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg." He finished, gesturing to his wooden peg leg.
The recruits all quietly gasped with awe, except the Misfit Trio, who were all deep in thought, and Astrid, and who was sneaking red-hot glares at Juno The bleeding stopped, but her nose had swelled up a bit; however not enough to be noticed at first glance.
"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside of a dragon?" Fishlegs asked, who was holding two chicken legs. "Like, if your mind was still in control of it, you could kill it from the inside by crushing its heart or something."
Everyone looked at him strangely and weirdly. Before he could stop himself, Ragnar spoke up.
"That's impossible, because when a part of the body is removed, the nerves in the removed part die and disconnect, so the brain can't tell it to move or do anything." The only ones who were not looking at him like he spoke in a different language were Hiccup, Juno, and Gobber, who were smirking at him with pride.
Snotlout broke the silence by bragging. "I swear, I'm so angry right now!" He gritted through his teeth, glaring at his roasted chicken. "I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight, with my face!"
The Misfit Trio rolled their eyes at his declaration, and they just focused on their roasting fish. Gobber pulled off a leg from his own roasted chicken.
"It's the wings and the tails you really want." He advised. "If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."
That last statement made Hiccup look up in thought. He glanced over at his friends, and he knew that they were all thinking the same thing.
Gobber then let out a yawn. "All right, I'm off to bed." He said. "You should be, too. Tomorrow, we get to the big boys, slowly but surely, making our way up to the Monstrous Nightmare. But, who'll win the honor of killing it?"
The recruits were bursting with excitement. Tuffnut propped his stick around the fire and causally and cockily leaned back with his arms stretched over his head.
"It's gonna be me." he said. "It's my destiny. See?" Tuffnut flexed his left arm.
Fishlegs gasped. "Your mom let you get a tattoo?" He asked him, impressed.
"It's not a tattoo. It's a birthmark." Tuffnut said.
"Okay, I've been stuck with you since birth, and that was never there before." Ruffnut piped in.
"Yes, it was." Tuffnut insisted. "You just never seen me from the left side until now."
Astrid then noticed that there were three empty spots with fish still roasting over the fire. She went to the edge of the walkway and saw three small figures disappear into the night. She briefly wondered why the Misfit Trio just left so suddenly, but after what happened earlier, she couldn't care less, especially about the Solheim girl. Astrid went back to her spot to listen to, and then ignore, the ongoing argument between the twins.
The Misfit Trio managed to sneak away from the campfire with a sound. They quickly and silently sprinted towards the forge. Once inside, Hiccup took out his notebook, opened it to his sketch of the Night Fury, and re-drew the left tailfin.
"You know what we have to do now, guys." Hiccup said, who now turned to look at his friends.
"Are you sure about this, Hiccup?" Juno asked him.
"I've never been so sure about anything before." He replied firmly. "And I've been sure about a lot of things."
"That's true." Ragnar added. "But there's a lot of risks we have to take if we are to do this."
Hiccup was confused by what Ragnar meant by "risks". Then it hit him when he saw the sad and far-off looks he and Juno had. "It's your parents, isn't it?" He quietly asked. His friends both nodded slowly.
Ragnar's parents were Sigfried and Thora Iverson. According to the grown-up Vikings, they were two of Berk's finest warriors, their clan being renowned for it. Also, they said that the only thing that Ragnar inherited from his father was his skills as a fighter and his sense of judgment. The rest, even his appearance, he took after his mother. He was only a few months old when his parents died; Sigfried under mysterious circumstances, and then Thora in a dragon raid, protecting her son.
Juno's parents were Erik and Penelope Solheim. Penelope was a Roman escapee who shipwrecked on Berk with a newborn Juno, born from a broken affair. People said that when Penelope asked for shelter, almost everyone refused, for she was both a Roman and a single mother. But Erik had offered her and her daughter a place to stay. Over time, he and Penelope grew closer, and eventually married, despite what others had to say. Five years later, they died after taking their daughter to safety in a dragon raid. Juno looked exactly like her mother, but the older Vikings could tell that she had her stepfather's sense of compassion, and always wore his dragon pendant, which was a gift for her before he and Penelope died.
Hiccup understood the doubt his friends were feeling. He hardly remembers his own mother, and his father almost never brought her up, since it was a sensitive topic for both of them. And being friends with the enemy felt like betrayal to their own people. As much as he didn't want to tell them this, he still did.
"Guys, hardly anyone in the village cares about us. The only people who do, besides Gobber, are gone. We only have each other and now, that dragon too. We might as well hold on to what we have." He said.
Ragnar and Juno looked at each other, then at the sky from the window. As much as they wanted to disagree with Hiccup, they knew that he was right. They had gotten in way too deep to back out of it now.
"Well, then." Ragnar said after he took a deep breath, and picked up a hammer. "Let's get started."
"Count me in." Juno added after she wiped away a leaking tear.
Hiccup smiled at his friends, thankful that they will always have his back. He handed Ragnar a piece of metal and Juno some leather. The Misfit Trio worked hard through the night, They pounded, measured, weighed, sewed, and pieced together their newest creation. When they finished, they all collapsed in the spare room in the back of the forge. Sometimes, if they were pulling off an all-nighter, they would crash into that room to get some sleep.
The next day, the Misfit Trio headed back to the cove, this time with enough supplies and food to feed a dragon. Hiccup was carrying a huge basket and their creation: a dark brown leather prosthetic tailfin.
"Hey, Toothless." Hiccup greeted in a cheerful sing-song voice.
"Toothless?" Ragnar whispered, not really agreeing with the name. "Really?"
"You have a better suggestion?" Hiccup whispered back.
"My mind is blank." Juno quietly added. "Plus, it kind of does fit since we saw what he can do with his teeth."
"Fine!" Ragnar surrendered. "Toothless it is."
Hiccup gave his foster brother a smug smile to further tease him, then turned to their dragon friend, now dubbed Toothless. "We've brought breakfast." He announced, setting the basket down.
"Hope you're hungry." He pushed the basket over with his foot, the seafood contents spilling over with a sploosh. The Misfit Trio gave quiet shudders, while Toothless licked his lips.
"Okay, that's disgusting." Juno said.
"I'm with you on that." Ragnar agreed.
Hiccup began to circle around Toothless, who was looking at the pile of fish with hungry eyes. "We've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel."
Toothless immediately stopped looking around the piles and growled at something. Hiccup went over and picked up what he was growling at: a long black-and-yellow striped eel. Toothless backed away, releasing a fearful roar.
"No, no, no. No." Hiccup reassured, and tossed away the eel. "It's okay. Yeah, we don't really like eel much, either." He said, wiping away the slime from the eel off his hand on his vest.
"Yeah." Juno agreed. "I don't know how some people could eat those things."
Ragnar picked up the tossed eel and stuck it into his satchel. It could come in handy later. Toothless then began eating all the eel-free fish, one by one.
"That's it." Hiccup whispered gently. "And don't mind me, I'll just be back here, minding my own business."
He went over to Toothless' tail, and brought the prosthetic down to fasten it, but it seemed dragons move a lot when distracted. Finally, Hiccup had to get on Toothless' tail to buckle on the prosthetic.
During all that, Ragnar and Juno were watching Toothless eat, even sticking his head into the basket for some fish that he might've missed. After feeling something being attached to his tail, Toothless slowly spread open his wings. Juno and Ragnar's eyes widened in horror when they realized what was about to happen.
"Uh, Hiccup?" Juno cautiously asked. "I think that maybe you should probably get-"
She was cut off by Toothless flapping into the air and Hiccup screaming as he hung onto his tail for dear life. "-Off!" She finished, sounding panicked.
"This is bad." Ragnar commented as Toothless worked on climbing higher.
Suddenly, Toothless began to plummet to the ground. Juno and Ragnar both covered their eyes, not wanting to watch. Hiccup finally managed to open up the tailfin, and Toothless began to soar up into the sky.
"Oh, my- It's working!" Hiccup cried out excitedly.
"It works?" Juno asked as she and Ragnar removed their hands.
"It works!" Ragnar shouted gleefully as Hiccup and Toothless circled back to the cove and skimmed across the lake.
"Yes!" Hiccup cheered. "We did it, guys!"
Toothless then took a sharp turn, accidently flinging Hiccup off his tail. He crashed into his friends, and all three of them fell into the lake. Toothless tried to head up again, but without Hiccup holding the prosthetic open, it closed, and he went crashing into the pond as well.
The Misfit Trio bobbed out of the water, cheering about their newest accomplishment. Toothless popped out and looked at his new human friends happily, because he knew they would help him become fully airborne again.
A/N: What do you guys think? I personally like Ragnar and Juno's backgrounds. What about you? As I said before, hopefully I could post next week without a mountain of homework coming my way on the first week back at school.
Got to fly! ;)