Age of the Dragons (HTTYD Fanfiction)

Chapter 12

Fortunately, this is a full chapter, if a little short. No Part 1, Part 2 nonsense this time!

The island in the distance shrank with every passing wingbeat. Shadow couldn't seem to stop looking back behind him. Back at the small shapes of the Berkians still watching them.

But in less than five minutes, they were gone, and Shadow focused his attention back on the scenery ahead.

The journey would hardly take until the next evening, if they flew quickly and high in the sky.

Shadow squinted ahead at the islands Hiccup had seemed to enamored with. It had to be something from Hiccup III's journals. After all, very few of them looked like anything special...

Hiccup.

Shadow missed him already. The laughs they had shared, the battles, the work and the play, the good times and the tough times.

It was already difficult to leave New Berk, knowing that he would see Hiccup again in just two weeks, but to not know if Hiccup would ever succeed, if he would ever see Hiccup again...

Shadow could hardly dwell on the thought.

Islands passed swiftly below them, coming and going across the horizon in a matter of minutes. Shadow watched them all with dull eyes, lost in his memories.

He wasn't sure what he would do without Hiccup.

~/|\~

Annie slammed down the acceleration lever, and the thrusters began to push forward. But instead of sailing smoothly off the Dragon, the metal creaked mournfully, and the ship shuddered forward very slowly.

Inch by inch, they slid off the ship, and sank down, the bottom of the device touching the water while they moved at a snail's pace. But in a stroke of luck, the ship was light enough that the water began to push them forward, until they bumped against the rocky barrier. "UP!" Sarah yelled, and the two pilots pulled the controls as far up as possible.

And with a horrible grating of steel against rock, they slowly moved up, until, finally, they reached the top, and burst forward in a rush of speed! Hiccup had barely a second to glimpse a row of Nordic Runes? on the top of the rock before they were gone.

Suddenly, they were sailing through the air, the thrusters getting closer and closer to their intended velocity.

And as the rock wall had all but vanished behind them, the Speedometer and the actual traveling speed finally synced up. "Now up some more!" Annie said, and the ship turned slightly upwards, coasting smoothly into the sky.

Both pilots looked uneasy. Sarah had only ever read about the controls in a hoverplane, and Annie had never seen anything like it before. But she was an expert at flying with a dragon, and that was enough experience to make the ride relatively smooth.

The Berkians stared in awe out of the small windows at the scenery passing down below them. They were all very familiar with flight, but this was a completely new experience. The flight was so smooth they could be watching a film of the Earth below instead of actually flying. There was no wind on your face, the bright sun was filtered out by Selective Window Tint, there was no sinking and rising like there was on a dragon.

And none of the Berkians liked it.

As the flight passed by, the atmosphere in the ship became tenser and tenser. The next part of their plan was very risky. They had no proof that the explosion would be plausible enough, or that the police wouldn't immediately arrest them for arson, or if the island would be intact enough to remain alive through the explosion, or if there was still fuel in the pipes that could kill them all... There were too many variables for anyone to feel confident.

"On track for arrival tomorrow morning," Christopher reported, fiddling with the dials on the Navsystem. Hiccup nodded. "Makes sense." And all were once again lost in their thoughts about the upcoming event.

~/|\~

As the night came, the ship slowed to a halt, pulling into a hover. Christopher and Sarah bent over their controls, pressing away, until there was a whirring, and the Unusual Molecular Motion Sensors and cameras had been activated. Annie toggled the tint, darkening the outside of the windows so that no light could be seen from the ship.

"Alright," Tyler said to the Berkians, who began to unfasten themselves from the seat belts, "Time to rest."

As the sun began to rise into the sky, and the red and oranges of the sky were replaced with blue, the hoverplane started up again, proceeding at a slightly slower and more cautious speed towards their destination. The time to disembark was just a few hours away.

Soren stared at the passing Atlantic Ocean below. It was so different from the oceans around New Berk. It didn't sparkle in beautiful small waves, light blue and translucent, but was a sickly blue-gray color, filled with a nameless assortment of thick contamination. The water did not sparkle, but ended in small waves encrusted with jagged splinters of white foam.

This world that he had grown up in, that they all had grown up in, was horrible. All it took to realize that was a bit of perspective.

And at 9AM, the ship slowed once more. It was time to disembark.

The atmosphere in the cockpit was tense. The hoverplane glided slowly through the air, sinking towards the intended island.

"Christopher, check our blockers." Sarah said. Christopher ran through a series of tests, and nodded. "Active. Nothing short of a high-class Destroyer ship can find us." "Good." Annie said, as they sunk slowly towards the small land mass below.

The Berkians peered out the windows, seeing the clouds pass by, and the islands in the water below take shape. The minutes of descent seemed to stretch on like hours, but ended all too quickly.

With a quiet whir, the hoverplane locked onto the ground and the wing thrusters deactivated. They had landed.

Sarah, Christopher and Annie fiddled with the controls, powering down the multitude of complicated devices that made the flight possible. Finally, Sarah pressed a large blue button in the center of the control panel, and all the flight systems locked onto power off.

With a hiss, the gangplank extended, hitting the floor with a quiet thump. The original riders filed out of the cockpit, assembling with Tyler in the main body of the ship. "Alright team," Hiccup said, "It's showtime."

Aaaaaaaaand the cliche chapter end strikes again! I know I'm one of those annoying authors that spends a lot of time building up to major events, but if anything, that makes the major events more major! Next chapter, I (do not) promise that explosions will begin!