I know the meme isn't exactly related to the chapter but eh 😂 enjoy 😄

I don't wake straight away; I drift in and out for a little while. I don't take much in, reality mixed with memories and dreams. Mostly darkness. Flying through the sky. A flash of light here. Night sky. Something falling onto trees. Cold air. Sea spray. Then a snippet of me falling, out of control. Vague, far off voices. Hitting something. Jolts of pain coursing through my body.

Eventually, though, I find myself becoming more aware. I feel the familiar scales and breathing of Toothless, I hear his growl and can tell he's disoriented, too. Voices again, clearer this time. I don't recognise them. My eyes snap open. I see nothing but darkness.

"T-Toothless." I mumble, tapping him. Immediately he seems to calm down a bit. The darkness shifts, revealing Toothless pulling his wings away. He peers down at me, angry, scared slits becoming round, concerned pupils. He nudges me, gives a soft purr, asking if I'm ok. "I-I'm 'right, bud. W-where are we? How did we get on land?" I ask him. I look down. We're not on ground, like I thought we are. Some type of rope? Net? It's unusual and white. It doesn't look like it should be holding our weight. "Or, or sort of." I add as a second thought.

There, a voice again! My pounding head snaps up to see two figures standing a few metres away. My eyes widen. What the—?! What are they?! They're so... so weird! One stands, a human-like, slim figure, wrapped in tight red clothing. Even its face is red, with large white eyes! Or, eye lenses. I'm hoping it's a mask. The next figure, taller, a little bulkier but still sort of streamlined. Metallic? Mixed with rich reds, and gold colours. Glowing eyes. Again—eye lenses, hopefully. Where are we?!

Immediately defensive, I roll off the strange material and land on the ground with a thud. Toothless is not a second behind. I face the weird figures, my heart beating loudly.

"Who—what are you?!" I try to sound stern but it comes out as a stammer. I eye the two figures through my helmet as I grab and ignite Inferno. My head is still ringing, and my vision a little blurry, but I try not to show it. I hold inferno in front of me as I move towards them slowly—being cornered by the weird rope is not a situation I see as ideal. Every step I take sends a sharp pang up my side and I try not to outwardly react. I must be more hurt than I thought. "What do you want with us?!"

The smaller of the two acknowledges my sword but I don't respond, I'm too busy trying to decide what the figures are and what they want with us.

"Ah, you speak!" The taller of the two exclaims, waving the arms (?) dramatically. What kind of technology is this?! I'm used to dealing with dragons, not... machines?

"Who-who are you?" I demand and wave inferno in front of me defensively, "Are you hunters? D-Did you knock us out of the sky?!" When they don't respond, I raise my voice. "What do you want?!"

"Hey, easy where you point that," the taller one exclaims, —a man. Voice muffled. I'm assuming there's a man inside there. He lifts his arm which is now glowing from the palm. I don't want to see what will happen. "And we didn't knock you out of the sky."

I flinch at the action and get on the defensive, raising inferno up more. My mind races as I try to figure out how he's doing that and what it is. As my heart beats faster, I forget about the pain in my side. Momentarily.

Toothless growls and starts charging a plasma blast in his throat, ready to unleash it. This seems to put them both off, as the smaller, weird red one steps forward. I point the sword at them as soon as they do this. "Don't." I force my voice to be steady. "Don't come any closer. Do you know what you're dealing with? What our people will do to find us?!" Once they realise something is off, they will stop at nothing to find us.

The red one holds their hands up in defence and stop where they are. "Hey, hey! Let's not get too hasty." They exclaim quickly. A male voice, considerably younger than the other one. I watch him silently, waiting for him to make a move. If all the stuff I've been though has taught me anything, it's that not everyone can be peacekeepers. I used to think I could change anyone's mind. That all they had to do was see what I see. But I was wrong, some people can't change. They refuse to, they're dark and twisted and blood thirsty. Don't get me wrong: I'd love to have peace! I really, really would, but sometimes it's not possible.

"Maybe we can talk this out!" He adds, stepping between us all and waving his arms anxiously. "Something's going on here, there's gotta be some type of misunderstanding."

I narrow my eyes, cautious. This creature is so... weird. "What even—what even are you?" I ask shakily, lowering my sword. "Who are you?" The taller one lowers his arm cautiously. Seeing this, I gesture to Toothless to stand down and he does, but still remains cautious—as do I. He starts pacing behind me, eyes narrowed on the strangers in case they try anything.

"Yeah, right." The tall one scoffs. "Funny joke. We're not idiots."
I clench my jaw. "Neither am I. Now, who are you and what do you want with us?"
"You... don't know who we are?" The smaller one asks timidly. Duh.
"No, should I?" I try to rack my brain for recent rumours floating around the archipelago. I think I'd remember hearing about or seeing a guy wrapped in red and blue and another in some machine with glowing eyes. It's not something I'd be able to forget. We don't get out much, so it's possible we may have missed out. Gobber's right, we should get out more.

"You're sure you haven't heard of us?"

"No. I don't... I don't understand!" I raise my arms, exasperated. "I've never seen anything like you." Why do they expect me to I know them?

"So you haven't heard of the Avengers? Iron man? Spider-man?" The tall one asks. I shrug helplessly. "Spider-man I could understand, he's pretty low class of a hero." Hero? What?

The smaller one gives an offended "Hey!" and looks at the tall one, seemingly betrayed. Wait, so they're talking about themselves?

"I... I don't know what that's supposed to mean." I mutter. That doesn't look like Gronkle iron so I'm gonna assume it's a different type of iron. "But I have no idea who you are or what we've done to piss you off so much. We haven't run into hunters for—for months!"
They practically don't exist anymore. We disbanded so many of them.

"Hunters?" The tall one asks.
"Oh, I'm sorry, do you prefer trappers?" I retort sarcastically. I glare at them, not that they could tell. "Be honest with yourselves."

"We're not hunters..." the small one mumbles. The tall one ignores him and asks questions of his own.

"So you're not here to terrorise the city? Summon an army?"

"Terrorise the— no! We were just doing our own thing when boom, something hit us!" I exclaim. "Why does everyone think we're going to attack them?" I turn and mutter to Toothless exasperatedly, who has stopped pacing and has returned to my side. "Used to be funny, but now it's just annoying."

"It's probably something to do with being wrapped in weird, dark armour!" The small one suggests, which is a little weird because I wasn't exactly loud. "You should fix that. It's not exactly a comforting sight."
I frown. My armour is practical, it helps us blend into the night sky. Which, apparently it is here. By the way. Even though it wasn't night before we got hit. That's weird. Was I unconscious for more than I thought?

"Says the guy wrapped skin tight in bright colours," I retort, snapping out of my thoughts. "Those eyes... please don't tell me that's how you naturally look."

I really hope not. If so, is he blind?

"Wha—it's a mask, dude!" He exclaims, seemingly offended or shocked at my allegation. Toothless shifts beside me, still eyeing both the figures. I'm not letting my guard down, either.

They're so... weird. I'm not sure how we got here, because I'm pretty sure lightning doesn't usually do what it did to us. Was it something to do with how Toothless can harness the lightning? But it's been over a year since he discovered the ability. Something like this would have happened before now, surely? Whatever this is.

I just hope we can get out of this situation. Who knows what Astrid will do when we don't return on time.

Started my job, so for those of you who don't know that might mean I'll be active less, but I'll still be able to make my publishing schedule don't worry. Stay tuned for the next update!