Defenders of Central City, Book 1: Journey to Icestorm Island

Chapter 4 The Stinger in a Storm

So that was that. The new island was dubbed Icestorm Island and Hiccup decided to work on his map, Skulder searched the island for more petroglyphs, and Shannon and Nightshade took a flight around the island, just the two of them. That's when she saw it. Footprints across the hill. Shannon landed Nightshade to get a closer look. "Dragon tracks." Shannon murmured. They were strangely familiar. Not good familiar, bad familiar. But she followed them anyway.

After a while she reached a forest. Nightshade sniffed the air uneasily. The footprints looked like they lead further into the woods. Nightshade didn't want to go into the forest. Shannon took a deep breath and continued to follow the footprints alone. She heard a noise. "I know that sound." Shannon whispered. She saw a cave. Then she saw movement . She quickly ducked behind a tree. She poked her head to see what was in the cave. "Speed Stingers." Shannon thought. "I got to get out of here." Then she sneezed. All the Speed Stingers looked at her.

"Uh oh." Shannon muttered. Uh oh was an understatement. The understatement of the year to be exact. One of the Stingers started to advance slowly. Shannon made a bolt for it. She ran fast. Fast like Barry. She jumped on Nightshade and they flew out of reach. Luckily Speed Stingers can't fly. "We gotta tell Hiccup about this." Shannon said looking down at the little dragons. Back at the camp Hiccup was relaxing while working on his map. All of a sudden Shannon and Nightshade came exploding into the camp. She unmounted Nightshade and ran over to him. "Hiccup. We have a problem." Shannon exclaimed. "What? What is it?!" Shannon took a breath.

"Speed Stingers. This island is inhabited with Speed Stingers." Hiccup looked at her. "No way! This is incredible!" Shannon looked at him. "Are you kidding me?!" Skulder just came into earshot right at this moment. "What's going on?" Skulder asked. "I found a pack of viscous dragons on the island." Shannon said pointing up at the ledge where she first found the tracks. She looked back at Hiccup but he was walking towards Toothless. "We'll need to be more careful when we go back up there." Shannon looked at him, blankly. "I'm sorry? We're going back up there?" Hiccup nodded and flew off. Shannon sighed. She re mounted Nightshade and flew off. Skulder stood there. "Well, that happened." He muttered to himself.

Meanwhile Shannon caught up with Hiccup. "Are we seriously going to the Speed Stinger nest? You remember what happened with Speedy!" Speedy was a young Speed Stinger the Dragon Riders saved a few years back. Lets just say he ended up paralyzing Ruffnut and Barf, accidently lead an entire pack of Speed Stingers to Dragon's Edge, and worst of all, gave Hiccup a new idea for his flight suit. "Well, this is different, Shannon. We don't have Snotlout here to anger them." Shannon shook her head. "You don't really think we can train these guys, do you?" Hiccup didn't answer. Mainly because they had arrived back at the cave.

"Don't make any sudden movements, Shannon." Hiccup whispered as he slowly unmounted Toothless. "They'll think that you're a threat." Shannon nodded. "Maybe we should study their diet for a bit." Shannon whispered back. While she knew she couldn't stop Hiccup from going near the Stingers but at least she could prevent it. "There might be a fishing hole nearby." Shannon continued, quietly as she slowly backed away. Sure enough, they found a small lake. "if their den is this close to a lake then they probably eat fish." Hiccup said, sticking his hand into the water. Shannon nodded. "But if we've learned anything from Barry, its that creatures that move fast need a ton of energy from food. And I don't think they would get all the energy that they need from fish." Shannon murmured softly. "Maybe they hunt other arctic animals?" She looked at Hiccup questionably and he shrugged. "Maybe. Those footprints over by those trees don't look like dragon tracks. Lets take closer look." The pair walked over to examine the tracks. "Those are Arctic Hare tracks." Shannon said, place her hand on the snow. "Lets go back to the cave and see if we can learn more about the Speed Stingers' habits." Hiccup walked off as soon as he finished his sentence. Shannon reluctantly followed. They made their way back to the cave and watched the little dragons. It took longer than Shannon expected but one of the Stingers finally noticed them. It growled.

"Um, Shannon." "Yes?" Shannon looked calm as could be while Hiccup was quite the opposite. "Remember what I said about earlier about making sudden movements?" "Yes." "Well forget about it, Run!" Shannon didn't need to be told twice. They ran towards there dragons and flew off just in time. "Impressive work Shannon." Hiccup gasped out. "I knew you could handle it." Shannon looked at him. "Just promise me you won't make me come along on another one of your Speed Stinger safaris again."