A New World, Complicated

Chapter 27: Worst In Show (Reign)

        My eyes darted around as the large figure of Snotlout and Hookfang twirled two circles in the air, then dove straight down toward the water. He reached down for a cloth dummy floating in a dinghy we'd sent adrift a few moments early, and for a split second, I actually believed Snotlout might have been able to pull off a successful rescue training mission. Then, rather than landing back on the sea stack where the rest of us were waiting, he looped up around with Hookfang.

"You know, I hate to admit it," Hiccup sighed, "but Snotlout actually looks like he worked on his rescue training."

Just as he finished saying that, Hookfang took a hard dive straight down into the sea.

"Uh, let's not get ahead of ourselves," I scoffed.

The two of them managed to come back up with the rest of us and land safely on the rock. Snotlout held the dummy up, a satisfied smirk on his face as though he'd actually done something right.

"Another victim saved." The head of the dummy broke off from the rest of the body and rolled onto the stack below us. Snotlout let out a surprised scream and threw the dummy to meet the rest of its body.

"Yeah, you got the victim part right," Fishlegs teased.

"Shut up, Fishlegs. Big deal, so its head fell off. It's not like he's on fire or anything."

Hookfang seemed to take that as a command, because he opened his mouth and spat flame onto the decapitated dummy, then immediately jumped on it and stomped to attempt and extinguish the flame. He slowly turned around, and Fishlegs began to open his mouth to shoot back some well thought out insult.

"Shut up, Fishlegs."

"Okay, who's up next?" Hiccup shouted, trying to divert everyone's attention away from the two boys' bickering. "Astrid? Stormfly?" A smirk crossed my blonde friend's face.

"Sure, why not?"

The two of them went around the side of the sea stack and floated down to the bottom of it. Hiccup and I made our way over to the other side of the cliff to watch as she executed the exercise she and Stormfly had been working on. Her dragon shot spines from her tail in two rows, and Astrid began to use them as hand holds to get up the rock. According to the sundial, she made it up in an astonishing three minutes.

"Great work, Astrid," I complimented, smiling at her.

"Great work?" Snotlout blew a raspberry. "Try lame work. Hello? Flying dragon? Might be a little quicker to get to the top of the sea stack."

"What if your victim is trapped on the side of the cliff and your dragon can't get me close enough? You ever think of that?"

"Yes. No." He turned his head away from the rest of us. "Shut up, Astrid."

"Okay. So, uh, Fishlegs, looks like you're up."

Without a word, he tapped Meatlug's neck twice and pointed up. She spread her little wings and began to flap them, causing them to suddenly shoot high into the air.

"I call this the stop, drop-" He twirled his arm around, and Meatlug suddenly plummeted down, only stopping a few inches about the sea stack. Panicking, Hookfang tossed Snotlout from his back, causing him to land right where Fishlegs and Meatlug were heading. "-and hover!"

"I like it, Fishlegs," Hiccup declared.

"Oh, come on. That's not rescuing, that's falling."

"Actually, this is falling." Meatlug suddenly collapsed on top of Fishlegs, completely smothering the Viking underneath them.

"Hookfang, rescue." I could barely hear him underneath the hulking dragon. Hookfang decided to dive off the sea stack instead of helping his rider. Shaking his head, Hiccup turned to the twins.