The Great Beyond

Chapter 69: Loyal Order of Ingerman (Hiccup [and Reign])

              Bright, orange light shone against the wooden walls of the Clubhouse as Reign and I showed off the newest tweaks to the Dragon Eye we'd made in the middle of the night, the both of us struck up with inspiration. Although there were many great things about her being back on the Edge for a while, having someone else to bounce ideas off of certainly stood at the top of the list. The rest of the group, save for Fishlegs, stood there with us, either genuinely interested or making their best effort to pretend they were while I explained.

"We balanced the weight using Gronckle Iron so it's lighter and easier to carry," I beamed.

Suddenly, as dragon went whizzing by just behind us, forcing Reign and I to think fast and duck down to avoid being hit. Clearly, Fishlegs and Meatlug were in a rush, and the former wore an expression of sheer panic and terror, looking to Reign and I with wide eyes once he turned his dragon around.

"Oh. Hey, Fishlegs," I breathed, attempting to get my heart rate to come back down. "Uh, we were just going over some of the new features on the Dragon Eye Two."

"You're not gonna believe what I found in Oswald's papers." Reign raised an eyebrow, more interested now that her father was involved. "Okay, I was in my hut, preparing my lesson plan for the Dragon Explorers campout."

"Dragon Explorers?" Snotlout scoffed, interrupting the flow of Fishlegs' story. "Here? Soon? Great. A bunch of kids invading the island." His shoulders slumped down as he jumped off the table. "Ugh. I'm starting to miss those Changewings."

"The Dragon Explorers are not just kids," Fishlegs argued, Oswald's papers nearly falling out of his arms. "They're our future Dragon Riders."

While Fishlegs was distracted, Tuffnut crept over to him and snatched the small journal he'd been using to plan out the campout from his hand. Without any sort of consent, he started flipping through the pages, his brows furrowing once he reached a certain page.

"Hey, wait a minute. Where's the Zippleback badge?" Tuff demanded.

"Travesty." Ruffnut shook her head, disappointed with the exclusion. Snotlout reached over and snatched up the book, taking a gander at the plans himself.

"And the Gronckle badge is the highest rank?" He laughed. "Yeah, right."

Reign rolled her eyes at the trio and their divergence, trying to hear Fishlegs out. Whatever he'd discovered left him pretty shaken up, and wasn't something we wanted to discourage him from sharing.

"Fishlegs, what are you trying to say?" she encouraged, leaning her elbow against one of my shoulders. "You found something in my dad's papers?"

"Oh, it's horrible, Reign. Worse than horrible. I... I can't even say it." He laid the papers out on the table, casting them away from him as though that would resolve the issue and keep him from having to face whatever he'd found ever again.

"Okay, well, just take a deep— "

"Generations ago, my ancestors were Dragon Hunters!" he blurted out before Reign could finish what she was saying.

Once the revelation hit everyone, we stared at Fishlegs in shock, unsure of how the Ingermans could possibly be connected to Dragon Hunters. Although they hadn't outright fought against the chasing away of dragons when we were still at war with them, but they had refused to participate in it, to the point where Fishlegs would do everything he could to avoid using any sort of weapon in training way back when.