Ghost's Reign Chapter 25: Get Off Of My Back, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 25, everybody! Yes the chapter title is in reference to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron, feel free to play the song while reading. :D

In other news Obake has opinions about public speaking and teaching jobs. Same, Obake, same. Also initially this was going to be a scene much later but the setup was too perfect here to pass up. "Stay with him" is something my Dad heard from my grandfather a lot growing up—apparently getting bucked off ruined the horse. XD Some of Tadashi's moves are inspired by Grandpa's horses, by the way.

Good news: their finds from that Ancient ship was enough to fund their next trade run, Obake had plenty of leather and metals to work with. Bad news: this also meant that people were expecting saddles and now he didn't have an excuse to not do one for Dibs. Dangit. At least he had his coat back from Momakase, now that she had her desired saddlebags.

It got worse about a day after he finished up the last saddle, had been heading off with the intent to try a few more stunts with Tadashi when Calhoun intercepted and dragged him off by the scruff of the neck.

"I think I like it better when you're terrified of me," he groused.

"And I like it better when I have situations I can work with," she countered. "Now, seeing as how you're the subject matter expert."

Which led to what promised to be a bad experience: flight training.

"All right, now that everyone's here—welcome to dragon training," Calhoun announced, ignoring Obake squashed against the wall and fervently begging for the earth to swallow him whole. "The kitten-whispers and giggle-fights stop right now, if you want to make a mess in your big boy trousers keep it to yourself. Any questions?" There were none. "Fine then. You," she said, turning her attention to Obake. "First step."

He moved his hands enough to shoot her a look that hopefully fully encompassed the WHAT he was thinking. "You mind explaining this farce to me?"

She rolled her eyes and stalked up to him, ignoring Tadashi's slight growl (a Nightmare wearing her saddle growled back, he noticed). "You're the one who dropped this concept on us, you're the one who made the saddles, you're the one who's going to teach us how this works since you're so insistent. Or did you want half the tribe killing themselves on this concept?"

Honestly, that would be a bonus. Especially considering she was asking him to explain this—it was different with Momakase. Here, with a good chunk of the tribe eyeing him…oh come on Carl had figured it out it wasn't like it was hard (at least, not if you made the executive decision to ride a Night Fury).

"Or he just doesn't know."

Calhoun closed her eyes and stifled a groan, turned to the guy that Obake had already picked out. "I already told you: no dragon, no lesson. Now beat it."

"Shouldn't he be able to explain this?" the guy demanded. "I'm sure it's oh-so-simple for him, but for the rest of us peons—"

"Do not make me remove you. It will be in pieces, I can promise you that."

"I'm just saying—"

"You're right, it's perfectly simple," Obake said. "As a matter of fact, it's so simple that I'll be asking you to do the demonstration."

Calhoun looked at him. "What?"

"I don't have a dragon," the guy said.

And he never would, if the way the other dragons were eying him was any indication. "Fair enough, I'll provide you with the training wheels," Obake said, gesturing broadly to Tadashi as he gave the guy a little bow. Tadashi looked offended—

One ear flap lifted a little bit at Obake spinning a finger around as he turned—the hand signal he had been using to let Tadashi know he wanted him to do his worst. After working all the kinks out on the saddle, that actually ended up being quite fun. If you knew what you were expecting.

This guy did not.

As he had hoped, Tadashi let the guy on with little complaint—had a brief worry that he'd give the guy no flak at all, dismissed that as he reminded himself of how the dragons looked at that guy. Furthermore, they had made it very clear that they didn't tolerate arrogance, Tadashi especially.

Tadashi made this very pointed when he slowly turned his head to look at the guy, blue crackling glowing as he gave a sort of snarling grin.

The guy had just enough time to register how screwed he was before Tadashi started bucking, leaping high in the air and coming down stiff-legged like he had with Obake, swinging his wings up to slap the guy before taking great cantering leaps around the area, everyone watching with varying degrees between entertained and horrified.

"Stay with him," Obake called, doing his darndest not to look too amused at the guy's misery. Especially not with that look Calhoun was giving him. Watch as Tadashi did a few more stiff-legged leaps—

And then he was tipping his hind legs up, the guy barely having time to register what was happening before Tadashi summersaulted, crushing the guy under about a quarter of a ton of dragon weight before rolling upright, shaking himself, and prancing off, looking far too pleased with himself.

"Rule number one," Obake said smugly, enjoying the horrified looks the other Yokai had now. "Don't even think about this if you don't respect your dragon. Now, I do think that's enough for today," he said, addressing Calhoun as he moseyed off in Tadashi's direction. "Give them some time for the lesson to sink in."

Calhoun looked peeved, probably more at him worming out of this thing than the job she had before her—he had rounded a corner by the time he heard the wet shunk that was a guy with far too many broken bones being put out of his misery.

"Class dismissed," she said sourly.

Tadashi was down on the beach, saddle gone and him rolling around in the sand as much as he could to get that feeling off of his scales So. Much. EW. Had progressed to scrubbing himself against some rocky spurs on the cliff face when Sharptongue landed on the beach, scales steaming as she zeroed in on him.

"What was that?" she demanded.

"Er, what?" Tadashi asked blankly, staring at her and reflecting that irate Monstrous Nightmares were the worst to deal with give him a hungry Deathsong over a Nightmare that had decided that you had personally wronged it somehow.

"What do you mean WHAT I mean WHAT WAS THAT?" she bellowed, some sticky fire flying as she gestured broadly at the Yokai-nest. "You were supposed to be teaching us to fly with our Yokai! That was the whole point of the saddles and you TESTING them!"

"Now—hold on wait a minute," Tadashi said, shaking himself out before focusing on her. "You can't tell me you were OKAY with that one."

"Yes, I was, because everyone already knew to ignore that one," she hissed. "You could have flown straight off and sent the same message. Instead now my Yokai is TERRIFIED of me because he thinks I'll squash him because I feel like it!"

Okay so putting the fear of dragons into the Yokai was backfiring mightily. "I—look I didn't kill him that guy was huge—"

"Oh, YOU didn't, but while he was laying there groaning Sternglare's Yokai came up and killed it FOR you! What was the point of this whole 'merging of flights' thing if that's the first thing you do, huh?"

Tadashi dug his claws in the sand, doing his best to keep from asking her you don't seriously buy that bunk—he was having it suddenly driven home that some of the dragons were serious about wanting this, about wanting to be friendly with the Yokai, about believing that they were actually trying…Obake had given him the option for the petty route and he had taken it without a second thought.

"You're right," he said, lowering his head. "I'm sorry—that was thoughtless of me."

The Nightmare snarled, like this wasn't nearly enough—

"Sharptongue, that's enough."

They both looked up to see Sternglare living up to his name, giving them a look that definitely made Tadashi feel like a wet-hatchling caught arguing over a sardine—glowered a bit longer from his perch on the cliff before flying down to them.

"This is a setback, nothing more," he told Sharptongue. "This hasn't been the first misbehaving Yokai that mine has taken care of—they understand the price of failure and they won't tolerate such behavior from each other. Now, if you want to remind your Yokai about how you USUALLY behave, you can start fishing. I'll be along to help shortly."

Sharptongue's jaw was working like she still wanted to argue—finally snorted at them both before flying off.

"Thank you," Tadashi told Sternglare honestly, legs feeling a little wobbly with relief.

That just succeeded in getting the other Nightmare to look at him in a way that wasn't quite judgy, but too close for comfort. "That was not my job," he said. "If you're going to be the alpha, then you need to be more assertive than that."

Tadashi gawped at him—snapped his jaw shut, rallied. "No. I'm not going to just—boss other dragons around to get what I want. There's better ways to do this."

"Like with the Yokai?" Sternglare asked. "You know, I picked a Yokai because Swift-Strike suggested it. I entertained this because Little-Brother is so insistent. You have been decidedly stony on the whole matter." Spread his wings, start flapping away—swivel his long neck around to glare at him. "If you're the alpha, then act like one—make up your mind instead of being an indecisive hatchling about it."

Tadashi grimaced as Sternglare flew away, hating how badly that stung—he wasn't being an indecisive hatchling about it, he was very certain in his opinions about the Yokai.

…But his opinions weren't those of the other dragons, and if he was supposed to be a good alpha who listened to his flight, he had to put their concerns above his own.

He actually had to play nice with the Yokai.

So Obake's stunt with Tadashi crushing that mouthy jerk meant that Barb had completely and totally nixed dragon-riding, if he could get one dragon to do that he could get any of them to do it and she did not want Juniper anywhere near the dragons if that was going to be the case. The Zippleback, Noodle-Burger Boy, seemed relieved at this decision, at least.

Juniper was not.

Kick out at the stuffed dummy rigged up for practice fights, kill ring currently unoccupied because Momakase got to have a saddle and had been spending more time in the air than on the ground. Few punches, elbows, spin around and kick at it again, doing her best to work out any incensed energies on it—

It wasn't helping, Juniper was still frustrated she was an adult, Mama, and Obake had done that to impress the fact that random jerks would not be tolerated anymore it was no different than anything Callaghan had done, really—

Kick the dummy hard enough to knock it over, stand there heaving for a while, trying to figure out how to go forward…Mama was definitely out, as was most of the Yokai, if she were honest—Mama had them all cowed into submission on the one topic she cared about, and that was Juniper. And while that was flattering most days, it was starting to be annoying more often than not.

No, she'd have to go solo on this one.

Straighten up, roll her shoulders, consider her options—several of the Yokai already had dragons, there didn't really seem to be any rhyme or reason to how they were picked…obviously forcing the issue with a dragon wouldn't work, so…bribery. Bribery was probably the important first step.

It was why her next move was to sneak to the cold stores, wrapping a fish up and making sure the door was closed behind her. Look around, considering…if she did it in the village then someone would see and that'd get back to Mama. She'd have to try the woods or the mountain to get this done.

Swallow hard, screw her nerves to the sticking point, hustle along the cliff face and do her best to avoid everyone without being obvious about it—Mama had warned her away from the woods, telling her about the dragons and ghosts that would hide in there to snatch her. Considering Obake frequently disappeared into the woods, she was inclined to believe the latter.

The former was why she decided to go forward with it, hoping that everyone else was too full of spook-stories to try it as well, despite the fact that there was nothing left in those woods—not even bugs, the only mushrooms left the poisonous ones, every useful plant pulled up by its roots from harvesting with no concern for planning ahead. That was how all the islands surrounding Yokai could be defined, there were reasons it was referred to as the Ghost Archipelago and it wasn't just to refer to the marauders living there.

And the total lack of all living things in the woods was what made it so downright creepy, she decided as she carefully picked her way through, avoiding suspicious patches that could likely be traps. Woods were supposed to be noisy, all sorts of creatures living in them—these woods were literally dead-quiet, for the simple reason that there was nothing left.

It was what made the yipping and crunching so startling to her.

Freeze, listening carefully—okay it might be a dragon she was looking for one—pick carefully over, senses straining…quiet, quiet, watch the direction you were coming from so your smell didn't give you away….

Yes, it was a dragon. No, it wasn't an available dragon—that was the little Night Fury, Hiro. Obake's dragon.

And there was Obake, teasing the little dragon into leaping for a toy he was holding well above its head. The leaps were definitely impressive, would be horrifying when it finally grew up—finally caught the tip of the toy and started yanking back, Obake having to adjust his stance to keep from pitching over, tugging back as hard as he could—

She couldn't help but tip her head at what she was watching—Obake had always been cool, calm, collected, aloof. This, what she was seeing now…he was almost human, nothing of his usual icy walls to be seen.

Hrff.

Freeze at the warm puff of air against her, gingerly look over—the larger Night Fury, Tadashi. Of course, she was an idiot, Obake probably had him monitoring the area to keep from being ambushed—shove the wrapped fish in front of her, hoping maybe that'd buy her some mercy—

Tadashi examined it, examined her…huffed a little, dipping to pick up his saddle before circling wide, so he'd be entering the clearing at an angle where Obake wouldn't be looking in Juniper's direction.

Obake, for his part, seemed surprised to see him.

"Do mine eyes deceive me?" he asked. "Or…wait, don't tell me, this is a ploy, isn't it? You con me into letting my guard down and then you fling me into the sun."

Tadashi huffed around the saddle, putting it down and shuffling his feet a little before sitting down, doing big cute eyes at Obake before nudging the saddle a little.

"I think your brother has finally decided to kill me," Obake told Hiro. The little dragon wuffed at him, bounded over to the saddle, hopping on it several times as he yipped at the older dragon, who returned the noises in a way that made Juniper almost convinced that they were having a conversation.

Were dragons obake?

Hiro yipped at Obake a few times, making him sag and flip the toy his way. "Fine, fine, but when I die—and I will—I'm haunting you first."

Hiro was far too busy with the toy to care, rolling around, pawing at it and growling and tugging on it before rolling to his feet and shaking it as hard as he could as Obake saddled the larger dragon—looked sharp at the bigger dragon's huff, jumped up to his back alongside Obake before Tadashi took off.

Juniper finally let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding in, staggered a little before leaning against the nearest tree, shaking a little. It was different when she had her mama always between her and the dragons—running into one alone in the woods, having it sneak up on her without her even cottoning on to its presence? Terrifying.

Although…Tadashi was the alpha, and had decided not to hurt her. She might have a chance, if she tried.

Deep breath, steel herself, head deeper into the woods.

She had a dragon to find.