Chapter 11: In the Machine with the Weird People (Hiccup)

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Previously:
"Haven't heard of him either. How did he survive, though?" Sure the Skrill did, but... that's a dragon!

"Something about being enhanced," Tony waves me off, "it's not important."

"I think he'd be hurt to hear that, mr Stark!" Spider-man exclaims.

"Good." Tony smirks. "Now, where were we?"

Refer to previous chapter for Peter's recount of recent events.

Now:

Once the weird machine lands in the grass, I am more than reluctant to go inside. Toothless gives me an uneasy look, not keen on entering it either. However, we don't have a lot of choice and we end up being convinced to go inside. It can't be that bad, right?

However, the uneasiness temporarily leaves my mind when I step through the doorway and take in the inside. It's... amazing. It's so shiny, clean, and comfortable looking. Like nothing I've ever seen! Bending down to examine the ground, because even that is soft, I feel a pang in my side and realise that now the adrenaline is wearing off, I'm actually feeling the injuries I got from the fall. Not good.

Standing up, I suppress a groan as my vision gets a little blurry again. Great. Spider-man tells me to sit down, or something like that, but I can barely concentrate enough to hear him. I flop down onto one of the seats, which is surprisingly soft. Toothless coming up to me, seeming uncomfortable in this environment. I smile at him and give him a scratch, trying to ease his worries. I take this chance to look him over carefully, luckily he doesn't seem injured. However, the tail? Toast.

"We won't be flying anytime soon, bud." I sigh, looking at the absolute mess of wires. Some completely fried off, some twisted and mangled. We have spare fins, so that's not a problem. But we don't have spare wire and metal. Even the connection rod is bent. So we have a bit of a problem.

"So..." I look up to see Spider-man standing there awkwardly. I forgot about him. He points at the tail, which is currently in my hands, and rocks on his heals nervously as he continues. "Is that a prosthetic?"

"Was." I correct with a sigh. "I guess the lightning, or whatever hit us, really got a good hit in." Probably because Toothless accidentally directed it there.

"Wow. What kind of dragon is it, if you don't mind me asking? Are there different kinds? It is a dragon, right?"

"He's a Night Fury, only one we've ever found. Closest we ever found was a, uh, sub species." I respond, being careful with my words. I don't want to reveal too much to this guy. I don't even know what he looks like under that outfit! "And yes he's a dragon."

"Oh. That's pretty cool!" Toothless eyes the man warily, shuffling his body so he's further away, but keeps a careful eye on him. Spider-man notices this. "Not fond of strangers?"

Not one dressed like that.

"No, not really." I respond instead.

"I had a cat once, he didn't like people either. The second visitors showed up he was nowhere to be find."

Tony appears through a door, "Right. We're taking off now!" He takes a seat opposite me, some kind of drink in hand. "Sorry for the delay, they were trying to climb the jet."

"W-what, seriously?!" Spider-man asks.

"Yeah, don't worry, I took care of it."

"...how?" Spider-man asks, hesitantly. Like he's afraid to ask.

Tony smirks as he sits back and takes a sip of his drink. "Sprayed them with water."

I feel the machine start to rumble beneath us. Toothless looks around in curiosity and I lead him over to the window, also curious to see what happens. I try to ignore the jolts in my side and the increasingly overwhelming headache. I'm sure it'll go away. I just need to relax.

Sure enough, the ground start moving beneath us. I clutch the windowsill tight in nervousness—and to hide the shake my body is developing. Great.

It's odd, because while on a dragon you generally take off right away and with a flap of the wings—going almost vertical if you're Toothless— this machine doesn't. It takes a few seconds of firing something up, before pulling away from the ground and turning in the air. It kind of reminds me of the early stages of the dragon fly suit—where I had to throw myself off cliffs to test its capability. That and the mobility of, perhaps, a Gronkle. They're excellent at hovering, after all— which is what this machine does before moving off in some direction.

As I almost stumble back towards the seat, I come to realise that Spider-man had been speaking the entire time, but I hadn't heard a word of it. I squint up at him, hearing nothing but ringing in my ears. I throw myself down into the seat, not bothering to hide my shudder.

Blurry figure number one immediately jumps forward. Blurry figure number two isn't long behind. I barely concentrate enough to stay awake as my vision moves in and out of focus. What is that wet feeling on my side?

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Ok, you can't tell me that isn't at least slightly exciting. If you can, there's the door.

Jk, you can stay.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Next, as you know, is Peter's POV 😊

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