(This isn't working on the Grapevine...
)
Chapter 3
Diverse Zskillsz
Geode tightened her grip on Sardine’s saddle, cursing herself for volunteering to lead this mission. Every patch of turbulence sent them spinning like they were drowning in a huge river.
“SO,” yelled Scarlett, who was taking the right wing position. “DO WE HAVE A PLAN FOR ONCE WE REACH THE STORM?”
“GET IN THERE, TRAIN THE SKRILL, AND GET OUT,” Geode yelled back.
“FOR SOME REASON, I THINK THE PLAN COULD USE A LITTLE MORE ELABORATION,” Scarlett retorted.
“ME TOO. LET’S DO THIS!”
Sardine dove forwards into the storm, fighting to stay balanced. Now Geode couldn’t hear a lot of what the others were saying.
“WHAT...KIND...BEGINNERS TEST...THIS...ANYWAYS?” asked Chicken, whose jetpack allowed her to fly much more steadily than the dragons(seeing as the wind was charging it to the max). Apparently before now, Chicken had been just a Keeper of the arena, but she had been asked to join the Berk’s Grapevine Spy Guild-y Thingy.
“...KIND…MORE TEST THAN BEGINNERS,” said Heather, who was on left wing.
“OH…” Chicken clucked.
“CANADA, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!” yelled Eira, swerving to avoid the red and white Groncicle, who now looked like she had recently thrown up. Stormspike screeched, caught off guard.
“I THINK...AIR…TOO...ELECTRICALLY CHARGED...HER,” Zira shouted back. “...SEND HER...SCORPIO...ICE CAVES...ARENA.”
Just as the two dragons popped back into the Arena(as long as there was a computer nearby, you could get in), Geode noticed something about the air they were flying in. It smelled strange - almost like the description of…
“GUYS DRAGON ROOT WINDY WATCH OUT!” Geode shouted, wasting no words, but it was too late. The large black dragon was already struggling to keep altitude. As they watched in horror, Windy crashed onto the ground.
Naturally, all the other dragons crashed as well.
“Ugh…” Geode hauled herself up and examined the sky. The storm had all but stopped except for the rain - obviously the wild Skrill had flown away into the wherever-this-was sky.
She examined their surroundings. They were on a beach, and seeing as it curved around as far as Geode could see, on an island. The beach gave way to a small patch of forest before reaching the other side, which was also a beach. The dragons, who were mostly all back to normal, didn’t seem suspicious of anything on the island, so it seemed like a good place to rest. Besides, it was almost nighttime here. Usually this would mean Geode would be freaking out over what was happening back home, but the Riders had assured them that time would more or less freeze while they were on their training missions. Apparently they were easier to cloak when they were less powerful, meaning the better they got at spying the more they would need to sneak around. But for now, everything was good - a second in the modern world meant a whole month here.
But when Geode said most of the dragons…
“How’s Windy?” she asked Fishy, who was their unofficial doctor. (She had been studying medical things that Geode would probably never understand, and since she was a good study-er she might as well have had a PhD. They all trusted her, especially since she had also learned about dragons and their medical issues somewhere in the past.)
“Not good,” said Fishy. “The dragon root has a strange effect on her - I’ve never seen it before. It’s like it’s trying to take over her mind and then the rest of her. It’s downright creepy…”
“Hmm,” said Geode. “Wait here…” she took off towards where the others were building a camp for the night, led by Junior Architect Sylvi.
“Eira! Do you have your saddlebag?” she asked, once she’d reached them.
“Yes,” Eira said, after a dramatic pause in which she had put on a confused expression and pretended to think.
Crack! The sound of a campfire starting up distracted Geode. She looked over just in time to see the flames die in the light drizzle, even though they were covered.
“Okay. Good. So here’s the thing...it can summon anything, right?”
Eira looked at her suspiciously. “Yeeees…”
“Great. I need some salt.” Geode said, as clearly as she could.
Eira’s suspicion was immediately replaced with concern. “Grimoras?”
“Possibly.” Geode led her to Windwalker, who was now twitching uncomfortably as the best medic they had tried to calm her down.
Eira sprinkled salt all over Windy’s scales, but it elicited no reaction. Geode blew her bangs out of her face nervously.
Suddenly, a large wave washed over the dragon, and her eyes snapped open. She fired instantly, causing three surprised Grapeviners to jump out of the way as the campfire restarted, stronger this time.
A small, white, green and red-tinged dart fell onto the sand.
Geode snatched it up. “Gotcha!” But when she lifted it closer to her face to examine it, she frowned.
“That’s strange…”
But nobody had time to react, because in that second, more stun darts flew out of the sand, striking them, their dragons, and (to Sylvi’s later disappointment) the one wall of their camp that had managed to stay upright.
The wall crumbled to dirt, and Geode’s consciousness went with it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fishy woke up upside-down. Literally.
Her eyes snapped open to see the bright outline of a boulder blocking the entrance to a cave. When she tried to move her arms, she found that they were pinned to her sides with something like spider silk - sticky and strong.
“Hey,” said a voice. If not for the spider-silk-like thing, Fishy would have jumped high enough to clear the pile of translucent things that were stacked over in one corner of the room. As it was, she was wrapped so tightly in her cocoon that she could only shake slightly.
“Oh. Did I startle you? Sorry,” came the voice again. This time, Fishy tracked the voice to a cocoon in the far corner that had Geode, for once in her life with her bangs staying out of her face, encased in it.
“Nah, it’s fine. So…” Fishy paused. The blood rushing to her head made it harder to think, but she remembered something that could have been important. “You were saying...something was strange about the dart we found?”
“Yeaaah...it was almost like…” DeWhite shook her head angrily. “I can’t remember!”
“I can,” said the cocoon in the far corner - but the voice sounded unfamiliar.
“Oh. Good. Wait, who are you?” asked Geode.
“Ragna. But you would know me as Windwalker, I suppose,” said the cocoon.
Fishy gaped. “Wait, Windy? Seriously?”
“Well, I have to type somehow, don’t I?” asked Ragna/Windy.
“Good point,” said Geode. “So, Miss Windwalker, why the human-ness all of a sudden?”
“Reflex,” said Windy. “Sometimes I fall asleep in dragon form at home, and then if someone comes in and sees a dragon instead of me...well, long story short, it would not be good for anybody. Anyway, the darts reminded me of Sandshark darts, only modified in some way. More spidery, I guess.”
“Riiight...Sandsharks,” said Geode.
A metallic chink announced the presence of Luna activating her bladed shields, which did nothing.
Ragna shifted into Windwalker, successfully tearing her cocoon apart. She then proceeded to tear off the cocoons with her talons.
“Thanks, Windy. Or Ragna, I guess-” started Fishy.
Windy growled.
Fishy held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, Windy works too!”
The boulder creaked and everyone froze.
“Sandspiders,” whispered Geode.
“Nice name. Now how do we get out of here alive?” hissed Fishy.
“I have no idea,” Geode replied...just as the boulder was pushed aside by one of the strangest dragons Fishy had ever seen.
Sandspiders were dappled black and gold, about the size of small Speed Stingers, slightly smaller than their Sandshark counterparts. They had little green tips at the ends of their ‘fin’ (adapted from Sandsharks), and bloodred, almost glowing eyes. They had four legs (each with webs in between their talons), thank Thor, but their wings were more adapted to keeping balance on sand and swimming than flying. Fishy predicted they would only be able to glide short distances, but could be powerful and deadly in the water. Suddenly she caught sight of a bright red hourglass symbol on the back of the dragon that had slunk into the room and was now growling at them, spidery needle teeth bared.
Fishy froze. Of all the spiders for Sandsharks to evolve into, why did it have to be Black Widows?
More Sandspiders began to pour in. Fishy looked around desperately for an exit.
A zapping noise announced that Geode had opened her USB Taser. Luna raised her blade-shields defensively. Sparki readied his rainbow peace sign keychain. The others all prepared for a fight as well.
The lead Sandspider growled. Fishy, who understood more Dragonese than a normal Viking(though not as much as Hiccup did) could make out these words.
“Food...stay...we eat...run...not help you.”
“Umm...yeah, I’m thinking no,” said Fishy, as best as she could, in Dragonese.
“You are...wishing blue?” asked the evidently puzzled Sandspider.
Fishy sighed, which seemed to be enough for the dragon. He signaled to his pack, which growled and advanced.
The lead Sandspider shot several darts at Fishy in a neat, orderly line. Fishy stepped to one side, then watched in horror as the boulder behind her crumbled to dust.
Just because of a few well-aimed darts, marveled Fishy. These darts were grey, gold and red and seemed to be corrosive as well as incredibly strong and heavy, as opposed to the knockout darts, which seemed small and light.
Another dart whizzed past her, and Fishy picked up the nearest thing to her to defend herself: a piece of translucent blue plastic. The dart slammed right into the middle of it and it shattered.
The Sandspiders whimpered, and suddenly, Fishy got an idea. She picked up another translucent thing from the pile, which upon closer inspection appeared to be a pale pink glass plate. She smashed it against the wall.
The Sandspiders began retreating, much to the surprise of the Grapeviners.
Fishy picked up a third item from the pile. The vivid green of the plastic lightbulb (whaaat?) seemed to wink at her as she held it up to the entrance to the cave.
“BEHOLD!” she bellowed. “THE GREEN-PLASTIC-SHINY-THINGY!”
The Sandspiders shrunk back nervously. The Grapeviners stared at the scene in front of them. Her next move would determine whether or not they would live or die.
Fishy placed the lightbulb back on top of the pile of objects and extended her hand to the lead Sandspider.
After an agonizing moment, the Sandspider pushed its scaly nose into Fishy’s palm. The sand dragons were no longer a threat, and they would be free to live.
After coming back out into what was now the beach at night, the Sandspiders burrowed into the sand and left with some parting Yak Chops. The camp was rebuilt and this time, partially dug underground in honor of the Sandspiders, who would act as night guards for tonight. After that, the trained dragons could do whatever they wanted, although Fishy hoped they were still going to be on the Grapeviners’ side. They were charming little dragons when they trusted you.
That night, what with the warm fire, her friends all around her, the safe feeling in the air and the brilliant indigo velvet sky sprinkled with diamonds above, Fishy found it very easy to fall asleep.