Lazy Power (HTTYD x Espinas)

Swarm 'o' Seltas

It was a couple days after they had met, and the nest had been re-arranged to be a bit more comfortable for Blacklung, with some small chunks of iron ore and sparkly moss added to the main nest, and some space added between some branches for Blacklung to relax. His wing was recovering nicely, with him able to glide for at least a little.

The two had just waken up, and were very, very hungry, well, one more than the other anyway. Blacklung was repeatedly stamping the side of 'Crown' as the Espinas had been nicknamed, trying to imply some urgency.

Ah yes, after the day they met, the green behemoth had finally introduced himself by the name of Crownhorn. An older dragon who couldn't be bothered to remember how he ended up in these seemingly endless mudflats, living each day Poisontoad to Poisontoad (Blacklung was not impressed) and hardly socializing with the neighbors.

Back to Blacklung stamping on Crown's head. After while, the smokebreath gave up and started sculpting balls of mud with his claws, waiting. After a couple minutes, Crown started stirring and opened his eyes. "WAKE UP YOU OLD FART!" Shouted his good friend as he chucked all his mud balls at Crown's head, though it didn't do anything but annoy Crown.

"I'm up, I'm up" He muttered, scratching his neck with his wingtips. "I'm hungry!" The little gremlin shouts as he hucks the last mudball at Crown's toe. "Yeah, get on and quiet down, I'm still groggy"

After a little while, they come to their usual hunting grounds, expecting the usual sound of croaking and squishing. They came to something far different as usual this time however. The pond was dried up, a bunch of dead animals covered in bites and scratches, some with even melted skin!

Both dragons look on in silent horror for a little while. "Uh, Crown? You ever seen something like this before? A bunch of chewed and melted frogs?" Blacklung asks, his friend nodding his head in response. "A couple times. Not usually this far out though, and not nearly this gruesome"

With the utmost caution, Crown investigates on one of the least mauled toads, looking for obvious signs of what did this. The only thing I really find is a specific smell. It smells like rancid fish left to cook in the sun.

"Seltas" he mutters. He barely remember the smell with how far he is from the hidden world. They love to scout out a location for food, and spray pheremones for their queens. Also, soon as there is one of them, there's too many of them.

"Welp, were leaving Black. I dunno bout you, I can't be asked to get rid of giant roaches" Crown deadpans. Black jumps off of his friend's head and looks at Crown. "Why? There are so many reasons not too! A) I can't fly, and I doubt you can with that gut of yours. B) We've thrived in this bog enough that I'm sure its worth defending and C) What the hell is a Seltas?!"

Crown shrugs as the 2 first points are brought up. He can't help but frown when Black asks what Seltas are. "Listen, Seltas are somewhat common pests from my little corner of the hidden world. They are essentially giant insects with horns the size of you black, and they are rarely on their own. If there's one nearby, there is high chance there is either a nearby swarm or a queen, either of which would be a huge problem for us, with the sheer amount of crap they eat"

Black gives some thought, about to answer till he hears some distant buzzing along with some desperate shrieking not to far. Wordlessly and surprisingly quickly, Crown hucks Black onto his back and takes to the sky. Black is taken aback by the surprise and how quickly Crown is flying in only a few seconds.

After a minute or so of flying, they see something in the distance. A light green and white Raincutter (Who he remembers as Wormguts) and a pair of flying green cockroaches with horns.

"Black, hold on tight, thing's are going to get rough" Crown says, a quiet irate tone evident to Black, of whom scuttles to the underside of Crown's armored neck. Almost instantly Crown is behind the first of the roaches. "WORM! I GOT ONE, GET THE OTHER!"

Crown grabs the roach by a wing with a talon and the horn in the other.  The roach screams in surprise and starts picking at the nearest talon with a pair of spear like pedipalps. It had little effect however. Up until it got got in a jab between some scales.

Black starts scrambling in panic, not liking being between a visibly angry Crown and a scrambling roach. "Oh gods!" "They aren't involved in this little bug!"

After a bit more tusling, the roach breaks free of their grasps. It makes some space, angling itself so it's horn is aimed at Crown. In an moment, it charges towards them almost too fast. In a panic, Crown turned his armored back to the roach. 

In a quick squelch, Crown roared in agony and hate. Black looked over and saw the bug's horn slightly imbedded in his friend's back. "Crown, we have a problem!" 

Crown was a bit to busy to hear Black in that moment. He looked over to his back best as he could and felt a familliar tingle rise in his guts. He openned his mouth, a purpleish red glow comming from the depths of his throat. 

The roach saw this and started squirming, irritating the shallow stab wound and making Crown even angrier. With another roar, he shot the flying attacker in the head with a fireball.

After a quick scream, the bug's horn was severed from the bug, of which had a smoking crater in the center of its body. Clearly struggling to move, it tried to stay flying. It was exhaling purple smoke from its mouth bits, while its wings were still on fire. After a moment, it's wings almost entirely burned away and it started falling, Wormguts and the second one beneath it, sparking an idea from Crown "BLACK, I'M GONNA BOMB IT! WHEN WE GET CLOSE, LET GO OF ME!"

Black hesitantly nodded, while Crown closed his wings and aimed his head toward the falling roach. Quickly building speed, he aimed his horn toward the roaches' abdomen.

Getting closer and closer, Blacklung let go, looking for a good spot to not crash into, eventually deciding to look for a tree.  He kept an eye on his friend and Wormguts until they were little more than figures. He felt his breath hitch when the black silohoutte of Crown going so fast he was nearly blurry collide with the first roach, and shortly intercepting the second one with extended talons, crashing body first in the distance, while Wormgut's wounded figure crashes not to far away.

Black felt his breath hitch. And as quickly as he could, he ran to the crash site, hardly felling the ache and how short of breath he was.

First he managed to make it to where Wormguts landed first. He hadn't made it. He had crashed into a thicket of mangrove trees, his neck seeming to have snapped upon collision with some of the trees, not that there was any shortage of thorns and gashes across his body from his own fight with the insect.

Ignoring the need to throw up, he moved to the other crash site. It was smoking with purple smoke'd fires everywhere, with green and dark red blood everywhere, a mix of broken thorn like spikes and insect limbs. Black eventually found the remains of the second roach, the one Crown had caught on his way to the ground.

Let's just say it was a damn good landing pad for the dragon and leave it at that.

He also found half of the gored roach, and a trail of deep footprints leading in the direction of Black and Crown's nest. He scuttled in that direction, hopping for the best and praying to whatever god would listen that his friend and savior would be okay.

"I feel like how this Seltas looks" He heard Crown groan as soon as he was home. The Seltas in question was a mix of chitin shards and insect gore being chewed on. Black was crawling all around him looking for any mortal wounds, only finding a mild stab wound on his back from the horn.

"Did Wormguts' make it?" Crown asks randomly. Black contemplates lying, but decides against it. "No, he was mauled and broke his neck after he landed in a mangrove thicket." Crown looked to the sky and moaned sadly. "Wormguts... I'm sorry I was too late"

He looked back down to Blacklung and painfully got up, a visible patch of cracked and scabbed scaled and spines. "Mind if you walk a while? I doubt I can carry you. We're leaving the bog." He orders, understandibly upset.

Blacklung nods, and follows him, niether of them going in any particular direction.

(What would you rate my fight scenes out of 10?)