"Zero, there you are!" Strider ran up to me, and I gave her a well-deserved hug. Spark yelped and ran to hide behind my leg. "You do not know how much trouble we went through to find you. Moth here was the only reason we could!"
"Moth? The Deathsong?" I asked, tilting my head at the Deathsong across the room.
"Oh, yeah. She's your newly discovered older sister!"
"Oh, really? Okay."
"Wait, wait wait, stop right there. You just, believe them?! Believe me? A random stranger that you literally just met?!" Moth hissed, walking forward to
"Eh, I'll sort proof out once we get home-"
"ZEROOO! ARE YOU ALRIGHT HERE?! SOME STRANGE DRAGONS ASKED WHERE YOU WERE AND APPRENTLY YOUR FRIENDS SO WE SHOWED THEM WHERE YOU WERE GOING. I JUST NEED TO MAKE SURE THEY DIDN'T KILL YOUUUU!" Flare's voice echoed through the tunnel.
"Yeah! Do you mind coming down?" I roared back. Soon enough Flare fell onto the moss below the entrance.
"You have a weird friend choice." Moth hissed at Flare and Flare roared back. The amber snake-spider, Pilot, crawled from under Flare's wing, then retracted its legs by merging(I did not know it could do that) together and slithered to me and up my neck. I didn't mind, though. "Wait... Is that Scarlet...? Is she dead?"
"Calm down... Maker above... We all are at least friends to me, so you guys try to be friends with each other, please. And no, I think she's knocked out"
Sorry to interrupt you but in a minute, Ambrose is going to rise from that circle and kill you all if you don't take care of it.
Oh, OH.
I dashed towards the peace symbol (not so peacey anymore...) and tried to stomp on it, but it did not work.
"Zero, are you okay?" White'Scales asked, concerned for my mental well-being.
"Well, we all not be okay if... Okay, screw it." I jumped and shoved half the glowing fungi in the circle, as well as some dirt, into my mouth. I painfully gulped down.
That... Would be stupid if I didn't gain more power. Luckily, I'm not evil. But it could've gone the other way and Ambrose could've possessed you but since he was NOT ready for that, you caught him off guard and I accidently absorbed some of his power.
"ZERO! That was stupid, and I know my brother isn't stupid! What was that all about?!" Moth rushed up to me and bonked my head.
"Uh, well..." I proceeded to explain about Ambrose and Sol, how Scarlet made a deal with Ambrose to make her all-powerful and stuff.
"Woah... Well, tell Sol I say thanks! Or can he hear me?" White'scales pondered, walking up closer.
I can hear her loud and clear!
"He can," I answered. "Also, Flare, what are you gonna do, now that Scarlet's gone? You're technically next since your champion, right? Is that how it works?"
Flare perked up at that, "As much as I'd love to be Pack leader and change the rules around here, Scarlet had a son. He's young, yes, but unless someone adopts him-"
"Okay, let me take him," I replied, getting stares from Strider, White'Scales and Crimson.
"What? You already have brought back enough dragons, Zero! We don't need more!" Crimson growled, he seemed to have stopped being scared.
"Um.. um... I wanted to come with Zero to b-but I guess it's okay-"
"Spark, no, if you want to, you can come, anytime.."
"Okay, I think we should head outside. The guards White'scale stung should be waking up now and Flare's friends must be waiting. Oh, I forgot to tell you, White'Scales can make things fall asleep with enough Venom."
___________________________________________________________________________
So it's been an hour since the whole Scralet thing and I decided I would take her back to the edge, even with Flare persisting me that they could lock her up(Look, she's my favourite villain from WOF, and who knows, maybe she can reform?). The guards almost immediately came to terms with Flare being the new leader and already sent messages to half the dragons that were stuck here and didn't enjoy life here to free them. She decided to keep the Arena open for dragons who wanted to duel for fun and monthly championships (she still will be Champion).
Almost all the dragons that were born here, some of the dragons that were kidnapped but worked outside of the arena left, most of the prisoners that were captured left once they were free. That's a lot of what Flare has done but I'd have to come back later once everyone has come to terms with this.
It took a bit of convincing to let me partially adopt Lux(Scarlet's Deathsong son)but in the end, he let me take him with his mother. Spark wasn't the only one who wanted to follow, Dready(DreadGleamer), and by extension, Goldy(GoldGlare), wanted to follow us. This saddened Flare but she knew that she'd be okay with her other friends to help. Energy actually offered to give some of the flightless dragons and carry the knocked-out Scarlet(White'Scales gave her another dose), and I happily agreed. Seems like saving the whole island allowed us to be friends.
"Remember you all need to visit!" Flare called out. Pilot was on her head, waving an arm goodbye as well. Flare had decided to keep him.
"Of course!" I happily replied.
We took off and in what felt like forever to me, we were back home at night. Hazel was waiting for me at a cliff edge and hugged my leg as soon as I returned. She was sitting there for literal hours.
"Zero! Oh, I missed you!- There is no way you came back with double the dragons."
"Hehe, sorry... Oh, right. Lux, Spark, Dready, and Energy, meet Hazel and vice versa. Make sure you use Deathsong around her so she can understand you guys."
"The dragon riders have been looking all over for you, you'll have to tell, why, where, and how you were gone! And I should tell the dragon riders about this."
"No need... No need..." I could hear Tuffnut's voice, sounding very disappointed.
"H-How does this dragon keep coming back with more dragons?!" Hiccup asked, his voice a mix of surprise and frustration as he watched Zero with raised eyebrows.
"I don't know... But Zero, you seriously scared us by disappearing one day and then coming back four days later!" Astrid added, crossing her arms with a concerned look. "We were all starting to think something happened."
Some of the dragons were out, like Toothless, Stormfly, and Hookfang who was a bit suspicious of Energy.
"Well, something did happen..." I muttered. The dragons on my back had climbed off and were stretching, Hiccup was examining Dready and Goldy closely who were a bit wary but otherwise okay.
"Zero said something did happen." Hazel translated. I did not tell you to translate.
"How do you know..?" Tuffnut asked, eyeing Hazel. (Um, yeah, I wanted to make it so they don't know Hazel can speak Deathsong.)
"Well, Zero taught me how to speak Deathsong. And before you ask, all dragons can understand each other, they just have kinda like different tints. All they have to do is switch to Deathsong and I understand, if not it's kind of blurry."
"So this whole time you could understand dragons...?" Hiccup asked.
"Well, yeah, Zero taught me."
"Then what happened to Zero?" Astrid also asked. (Oh no, I'm running out of words for Asked)
"You heard her! What happened."
"Very long story, I'll tell you later. Anyways, I think you should get going, Energy."
"He said this exactly, 'Very long story, I'll tell you later. Anyways, I think you should get going, Energy.' Wait, who's Energy?" Hazel again translated for me.
"The Monsterous Nightmare."
"Yeah, I knew that! The other Monsterous Nightmare."
"Thank you, Zero for saving our Island. Sorry, I mistreated you early." Energy bumped heads with me. ( A sign of Greeting/Thanks back at Sc-Flare's Island) " See ya, GlodGlare, DreadGleamer, Spark, I will miss you." He made sure to bump heads with all of them before flying off leaving Scarlet's body on the ground, she seemed to be waking up. Hazel approached her
"Are they dead-" I snagged Hazel away before Scarlet's jaws came clamping down on her. Dready shot some mist balls at her which exploded and made her unable to move. "..."
"Don't walk near a former tyrant unless I allow you to, ever," I growl. "Tell them that we can tell them everything later tomorrow, we need to get to our cave okay."
"U-uhm, Zero said that he'll tell everyone later tomorrow..." Hazel muttered, shocked from almost getting eaten.
I waited for all the dragons who wanted to, crawl on my back so I could fly back over to the cave where everyone got nestled in. All the younger ones were cuddled in the middle of me and the adults slept where they wanted to. I also met Pebble and Viper the Slitherwing as well as Strider's brother, Snake. He told me why he was sent here but changed his mind after the dream he had. I was very thankful for the sculpture they made, it was pretty. The sculpture was of me surrounding three eggs, maybe because I like baby things.
Before I went to sleep, Dready approached me to talk.
"You know, you deserve the role of Alpha."
"Me? I don't think so."
"You'd be a good Alpha, you know. Think about it, Zero, please? I've not been a pack for a while and you'd be a good leader."
"... I will."
"That's all I ask." He nodded before walking off.