Ghost's Reign Chapter 40: Flight of the Lost, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 40, everybody! I have missed warm weather but working outside all day is exhausting me. X\

Emotions are hard but I have slowly over the years gotten better at writing them. Saying that, I'm glad this cluster of chapters was written out well ahead so I could iron everything out. Also in canon Bessie doesn't affect birds since Baymax interacted with an owl in the woods but we're going artistic license here. As for the tea affecting them differently...Excedrin puts me in a fog but doesn't bother Mom, so I'm going to say it's one of those individual chemistry things. And pretty sure Obake's quoting the Ultimate Spider-Man comic.

In other news, I like how the franchise keeps ping-ponging between Gogo is an ice queen and Gogo does have a heart and is soft—she's the first one to hug and reassure Hiro in the movie, but the series tries to paint her as so cold that Baymax shorts out when he sees her hugging a kid. Me? She's like how I do Fred: meet in the middle, she's got hidden depths but also little patience.

Moving on...Obake references Moana and oddly HunterXHunter—"Lost people go left" comes from when the group was lost in the labyrinth during the hunter trials. Also The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island. "Directionally challenged," meantime, comes from my Dad. As for the Seashockers...look up videos of manta rays breaching.

Even with being pinned against something warm, waking up was enough of a slog that Obake knew he wasn't yet in top form. There was a lot of grumbling involved when Tadashi finally heeded his attempts at escape and allowed him to go tumbling out.

Gogo and Momakase were gone.

Huff—wasn't sure why that winded him so much. He had wanted them gone, ordered them to go….

"Wrr?" Hiro noised at him.

"It's nothing," he muttered, glaring at the surrounding forest but not focusing on it. He had no reason, no right to be mad at them for doing what he wanted, for not sticking around for his vitriol. He got what he wanted, it was time to move on.

And then what? Be some mad hermit who conversed with rocks? Momakase was right, Tadashi wouldn't stay, he had a flight to tend to—and he'd be taking Hiro with him. Somehow, in his hazy plans—which hadn't even seen an oven, let alone were half-baked—he had pictured them staying.

Rub his face, massage his temples—Momakase was right and it still galled him to think that, he didn't have a plan and that was his thing. It was just—

It was just the thought that even after all this time, he was nothing more than the ghost brought in from the cold.

"Well look who's up finally."

Jerk upright, startled—

Had to blink a few moments at the sight of Momakase and Gogo coming through the trees, Gogo with a deer in her jaws—finally belatedly noted the kettle sitting upright in the fire.

"Ah," he noised finally. "Ah…are you okay?"

"Me? I'm fine, back to your regularly scheduled Momakase," she said, stretching. "What about you?"

Ugh. "About fifty percent."

"I guess it's better than nothing."

He made a noncommittal noise at that, not wanting to ask the next question: are we okay? She drove him nuts and needled him, but she also willingly went along with his schemes and was at least cordial with him—he hadn't realized until this morning how much the idea of her just walking away hurt.

Sigh—ugh he really didn't want to do this, he'd really love to just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. She seemed willing enough, despite her movements being stiff—give it until about noon, maybe dusk, and they'd be back to normal, such as it was.

Pity there were three predators in the clearing that were all giving them pointed looks—mostly him. Like he was the one who had to apologize. Look away—oh come on, Hiro, not you too.

Ugh, fine. "I…suppose I should apologize for my behavior."

She twitched, startled—apparently expecting him to follow the norm. "I suppose you should," she said finally.

Squint at her, raise an eyebrow. "I suppose you should apologize for your behavior as well."

"I suppose I should," she said, rocking back to go from a crouch to a sitting position, resting her arms on her knees. "But I won't."

"I suppose you think you have nothing to apologize for."

"No I don't." Twitch a shoulder when Gogo huffed. "Could I have been more tactful? Yes. Can I blame it on circumstance? Yes. Will I? Oh goodness yes that's the only benefit to that stupid thing."

Huff at her. "I feel the same on all counts, right down to my stupid headache." Which wasn't quite done, but had at least dimmed down to a manageable dull ache instead of an all-encompassing pain.

She huffed back, but hers was more disappointment. "Fair enough, but I still want answers."

"And I still don't want to give them. Agree to disagree?"

"Fine." Poke the fire. "But for the record, you're going to want to keep the bit about the dragons to yourself."

Oh crud what had he said. "Come again?"

An eyebrow went up in response to that. "I said, don't go telling anyone else you don't have the dragons' loyalty, that's the only thing keeping you in one piece at Yokai right now."

Ah. "Ah, but you see, that would only be a problem if I intended to go back."

"You're still on about this? We already discussed why that won't work. What, you'll be some hairy hermit who thinks too highly of some rock?"

"Ah me, I was hoping I dreamt that," he sighed, resting his head in his hand.

"Mmm, sorry, no—and by the way, you would be dead by now if it wasn't for me, so you're welcome."

Glower at her. "I'm recovered enough, I think, to hear the whole story."

She narrowed her eyes at him, searching for some metric…finally agreed, set to regaling him with their escapades on Muirahara Island as she carved up the haunch Gogo had ripped free for her.

"No comments?" she asked, a few minutes after she finished.

"My first is I certainly hope Callaghan never learns of this thing," he said, pondering this story. "Could you imagine how that would have turned out?"

"And him motivated for revenge now," Momakase said. "And then there's you, wanting to go off by yourself and get marooned, where you'd be a sitting duck."

"Not this again."

"Yes this again I reserve the right to call you an idiot you idiot."

Huff, go back to the topic at hand. "As for affecting the dragons as it did…it could be a strong magnetic field…you didn't notice any birds, did you? Bother to check a compass?"

"Oh I'm sorry, my compass was in my other pack," she said dourly. "As for the birds…no, I didn't notice any. Why?"

"Birds navigate on the magnetic fields surrounding the earth—it's part of the why and how of compasses," he added when he noted her confusion. "It stands to reason that other animals do too, specifically dragons, who can navigate when there's no sun or stars to go by."

"So if the rock screwed up the birds, then that's also how it could have screwed up the dragons," Momakase summarized. "So that's them then. What's your excuse? That thing knocked you for a loop, took you out of commission for days—your face was actually sparking. What was that?"

So that would explain why his head still felt like a dragon was chewing on it. "I don't know."

"Liar. You don't even have a guess?"

Ugh. "No I don't. If you want to be a superstitious clod like the rest of them I suppose you can say I was cursed by a dragon, but I think we can both agree that is idiocy of the highest level."

"Usually yes, but a rock laid you flat without even touching you, so I'm willing to entertain that concept a little. Either that or your skull is half-dragon. Can you tell north, I wonder."

Oi vey. "You need to cut back on Jian's tea, it's making you talk nonsense."

"Oh so now it's the tea's fault."

"Either that or you were always this ridiculous and I just never noticed."

"Could be that," she said cheekily—fortunately went back to slicing up the haunch and was silent for a while. Obake leaned back against Tadashi, eventually started considering the tea and wondering if it was worth it.

"You're supposed to be drinking that," Momakase said, not looking up from prepping a second kettle of water for soup.

"Oh good grief—Carl couldn't come so he has you being the mother hen instead?" Obake asked.

"Keep in mind that Jian told Carl because he knew he'd stay on you about this."

"I'd rather not."

"It's supposed to make you feel better and you weren't complaining about it the past few days."

"The past few days anything was an improvement."

"So drink the stupid tea."

"No. I've reached my threshold, I'd rather have manageable pain and lucidity than no pain and foggy thoughts."

"So we'd get a repeat of Muirahara Island? Then I insist, definitely drink the stupid tea."

"No."

"Oh come on if it kills my pain it'll kill anything."

"And obviously it doesn't affect your thought processes like it does mine. I'm not doing it."

She considered him for a long time, looked at the tea, the little packet of dried medicinal herbs—

Picked up the latter, scooped some out and dumped it into the soup.

"If you want to eat, you will," she told him cheekily.

Oh good grief. "I hate you. I really, really do."

Tadashi joined Gogo when she went off hunting again, mostly to stretch his wings, mostly to shake off that remaining fugue lingering from that weird island. Also, in the hopes that he could sort out his feelings on Obake.

But probably most importantly…see if he couldn't figure out where they were.

Hence why he and Gogo were circling the island high in the sky, loosening themselves up, making sure everything was calibrated, and trying to see if there were any distant landmarks they recognized. There were not.

"Maybe we try again tonight," Tadashi murmured. "We can try to take a star reading."

"At least we know where north is again," Gogo said. "Granted, I don't know which direction we flew away from that island, but…." Huff, irritated, shook her spines out. "We can't have gone that far off course."

Boy Tadashi hoped so; he didn't like the way his mind kept running to all the worst-case scenarios. Was everyone dead, hunted and killed by the Yokai? Was anyone out looking for them? If they did, would they run into that island with the crazy fuzzy thing and its pet rock that downed dragons just by existing?

"Tadashi!"

"Uhhh—what?" he asked, shaking himself before looking over at Gogo.

"Get out of that rut, it's not helping," she ordered.

Ah. "The circling, you mean?"

"I mean the thinking of all the worst-case scenarios."

"Sorry, sorry, I just—" Glance away. "I thought we'd be back by now."

Gogo huffed. "Honeysuckle and Older-Light-Fury are running the flight, they'll be fine."

Tadashi waffled his wings a little, trying to figure out how to word his main issues. "They shouldn't have to," he said finally. "I'm supposed to be there doing the job—I led everyone there and then we stayed and now I'm off flying over who-knows-where for a—a—"

"Okay, let's start with 'calm down,'" Gogo ordered. "After that…yeah sure, your job is taking care of the flight. Does this not extend to helping a flight member through his breakdown?"

Tadashi glared at her. "Obake is a Yokai. The same Yokai that shot Little-Brother down."

"Yeah, funnily enough I didn't forget that fact in the last five minutes. You know the other bits I didn't forget? Him fixing that mistake and stopping the other Yokai from killing dragons. Him nearly killing himself keeping Hiro safe on that other island. Yes, he's monstrous and dangerous, all the Yokai are…but I stand by what I said earlier. There's something good there, and the reason you're so irritated with yourself is because you can sense it too but you don't want to."

Dangit that was a point. And yes, he kept trying to keep that fixed in his mind, that night when Little-Brother went down screaming as some skull-faced Yokai cheered…except it kept butting up against everything that came after. Little-Brother being hale and hearty, the skull-faced Yokai fighting their bad alpha and winning…yes he could argue that said Yokai trying to ride him like some tame pet was an issue, but he had decided to try to give the not-dragon the benefit of the doubt….

That terrifyingly broken look in his face when he begged to be taken anywhere but the Yokai-nest, and the insistence that he not go back.

"What happened back there," Tadashi muttered.

"Be more specific," Gogo ordered, finally breaking from their circling patterns to scan for fish.

Tadashi flew after her. "When we left, something had spooked Obake badly. What if it was something bad, something that could threaten the flight?"

"Then Older-Light-Fury kills it," Gogo said. "Stop giving yourself gray scales over this."

Sigh, scan the ocean again for something edible…felt that probably wouldn't happen, judging by the shapes beneath the surface—Seashockers, a couple breaking away from the pod to track their shadows. "I'll just feel better when we're back at the nest."

"If we can ever convince Obake to turn around," Gogo said.

Tadashi snorted. "He got scrambled by that island too, and the only way he can actually make me stop flying somewhere is to stab me—he's going back whether he likes it or not."

Gogo glanced back at him, quiet and considering for several long beats…finally looked forward again. "If you say so."

Somehow, that just made him worry more.

Trying to take a star reading that night just confirmed that they were lost.

"I don't suppose you noticed which way we went when fleeing that island," Obake asked Momakase.

"Oh sorry, I was too busy trying to get three drunken dragons and one unconscious lunk away from the scary bear-man," Momakase said.

Obake huffed at that, stalked back to the clearing to find that the dragons had not succeeded in their own hunting. And apparently getting antsy themselves, if they way they let themselves be saddled was any indication. Or maybe they wanted more distance between themselves and that island, if they were indeed flying away from that island instead of accidentally turning around and heading right straight back towards it.

"The island was back that way," Momakase said when he posited this, looking around before pointing. "I remember that bit at least. Now where are we going?"

"Elsewhere," he responded, not having a more concrete answer than that. "And what is this we business?"

"Oh please—forget the fact that you're about useless by yourself, I'm not flying around all lost and by myself. If I'm going to do that, I might as well travel in the direction you're going and laugh at you."

"Don't do me any favors. Now go. Away."

"What do you think?" Momakase asked Gogo. "Should we listen to him?" Gogo shook her head. "Hmm, seems you're outvoted."

"I need you two to vote in my favor," Obake told the two Night Furies.

Tadashi's response was to flip his head so one of his ear flaps slapped Obake in the face.

Flying in a singular direction and hoping they ran into something familiar was only going to do so much. Obake had gotten his wish, he was truly and thoroughly lost.

Somehow, this didn't bring him as much peace as he thought it would.

Let's start with the fact that there weren't any islands showing up anytime soon—the dragons eventually had to land on a sea stack to rest their wings for a while, and the only one available was so thin that they basically had to cling to the edges, Gogo perched precariously on top as Tadashi clung to the side, Obake and Momakase hanging on tight like limpets, all of them trying to get something resembling rest but constantly distracted by the fact that there were dark shapes circling in the waters beneath. Very large dark shapes.

"What do you think?" Momakase asked, peering over Gogo's shoulder.

"Seashockers," Obake said, watching as twin rows of fins broke the surface and sank back down. "I'm reasonably sure this won't be a problem."

"Reasonably sure?"

"We're flying, we're on a sea stack too big for them to knock down, they're not known for breaching like a Submaripper would. We'll be fine."

"You could at least sound more than reasonably sure."

"Excuse me for not napping on this flight."

The dragons eventually had enough, slipped off and flew away when the midday sun started baking them, taking at least some solace from the breeze they created as they slipped through the air. Less comforting was the fact that the Seashockers followed them. Even less was the sneaking suspicion that they had been following them for quite some time.

"Persistent, aren't they?" Momakase asked, glancing down.

"Any other day I could respect that," Obake said, glancing back as well as Tadashi angled higher and locked his wings in place. Scan in every direction, saw no land but for the little spit they were rapidly leaving behind. Think, think—there had to be a better way to find the next island!

Vague memories of how wayfinders navigated—come on, he had read every bit of information about them they had and picked their old chief's brain about them after one of their wandering tribes had passed by and offered trade—how did they go from one island to the next when they had no clue where a bit of land was for certain?

Okay another star reading was going to have to wait until nightfall and testing the water to see if there was a warm current was just hazardous to their health at this point. Birds—birds rarely traveled far from land unless they were specifically built for long flights like an albatross…except there wasn't even a cloud in the sky, let alone a bird. Glance back at Momakase, noted she was trying to take a nap on Gogo's back. Well that wasn't necessarily a bad idea….

He woke up a while later with the feeling that he'd probably have a sunburn to deal with later, blinked owlishly and looked around, trying to determine if their luck had improved any.

"This isn't—hey!" he barked—Gogo shook a little and startled Momakase awake. "This isn't working—we're going to have to try a different direction."

"Are you crazy?" she demanded.

"Well we can't turn around now."

"And as far as you know you're hooking a left right before we hit the next batch of islands!"

"We're not going left," he said flatly. "Lost people go left."

"Please clarify what we are then."

"Directionally challenged," he grumbled. "We can try angling higher, maybe the height will give us a better vantage—"

"Look out!"

Tadashi and Obake both squawked, the latter from Tadashi abruptly changing course, so fast that it threw him against Tadashi's wing and had Hiro leaving claw marks along his neck and saddle—the former because a Seashocker had actually launched itself into the air, narrowly missing them before diving back into the sea.

"Wha—how!?" Momakase squawked as Gogo drifted back over, scanning the ocean frantically now. "Those can't fly! How did they get up here!?"

Obake had a guess, had it confirmed when another one shot out of the water, fins pumping—there had been one lady with the wayfinder tribe that had told him that manta rays could launch themselves high out of the water with no trouble at all, and considering Seashockers had basically the same shape—

"I think they're getting tired of waiting for us to drop out of the sky," Obake muttered as the dragons slipped back towards each other.

"Well I am not dying here today," Momakase said, pointing Gogo's head up and ignoring her grumbling rumbles. "It was bad enough we nearly died on stupid hermit island, I am not getting ripped out of the sky by Seashockers. Come on, up higher!"

Obake didn't think this was going to help, but it was better than nothing—glance back down as Tadashi followed, doing his best to ignore how bitterly cold it was starting to get the higher they went—so much for being warmer closer to the sun.

"We can't keep this up," he told her. "The dragons' strength isn't infinite—eventually they'll get tired and start coasting back down, and I don't know about you but I can't handle being up here for too long."

"Then I suggest you pull one of your bright ideas out of your ear," she snapped back, hunched in on herself. "This is your fault!"

"How is this my fault—how is any of this my fault!?"

"You want me to make you a list!?"

Tadashi started to growl, was shushed quickly by Gogo—Obake, incensed, ignored them, focusing more on his main source of ire.

"I never asked you to follow me!" he snarled, pointing angrily at her. "I told you not to follow me! You being here now is your fault, not mine!"

"I'm out here because YOU picked a job and then refused to do it! This IS your fault!"

"What job!?"

"Being chief!" she railed. "No you don't get to shove it all off on Carl, you wanted the job, you were the one who was supposed to do it!"

"I didn't WANT this job!"

"Then why did you take it!?"

"Because I figured I was going to die anyway, I might as well take Callaghan with me!"

"Oh, that worked out well then," she spat venomously. "You let him go, take the job, and then don't die. Really screwed that one up."

"What do you want from me," he snarled back. "My head on a platter? Why don't you take it and put us both out of our misery?"

"Oh no you don't, I'm not doing you any favors," she growled. "You're the one in charge now, you're the one calling the shots, you've already called some shots, you don't get to abandon everything because being kidnapped rattled you."

"That wasn't it!"

"Then what was it!?"

Almost answered her—swallowed it. No. No, he wasn't explaining this to her, he couldn't—look around, desperate for a way out of this mess—anything—anything—

A Seashocker leaped up, alerting him to the fact that they were starting to drift back down—

A dark shape rammed into it just as something blotted out the sun above them. Look up—

Dragons.