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Grian stared into the distance, watching as their destination grew closer painstakingly slowly. He slumped over the steering wheel, and gave a groan of boredom.
"Why is the boat so slow todayyyyyyy."
"Because the main sail fell off when we fought the pirates last week. The captain really should know what's going on with his own ship." Pearl said
"I knowwwwwww."
"What's Grian complaining about now?" Impulse asked.
"Are we there yet again." Pearl answered him
"Yeah, that makes sense." Impulse then walked back to the back of the ship where he had been sitting earlier.
Grian slumped even lower over the steering wheel. "I miss Professor Beak. And yes, I know we had to leave him behind because the people on this island don't like dragons, and he would be in danger there."
Mumbo poked his head out of his workshop, and said,"Grian, you know that if everything goes well, the ship will be fixed soon, then we'll be back to exploring the seas with our dragons."
With renewed vigor, Grian stood back up, and said "Yeah! You're right! We'll be there before we know it, and then things will be back to normal!"
"Actually, I estimate it will be at least another hour before we reach land." a voice called down from the crow's nest.
"Not helping, Scar!"
Scar's prediction turned out to be accurate, and they reached the island in slightly over an hour's time. Grian was the first off the boat, practically leaping off the bow as soon as it was close enough. The village they'd arrived at was a particularly large one, but it did have a large shipyard, as most settlements did. A small crowd had gathered to come look at them.
One of them, a man with a red shirt and scruffy brown hair, stepped out of the crowd, and said, "Welcome to our island! I would ask what brings you here, but considering the state of your ship, I don't think I need to. There's no need for you to worry, I know a guy who'll have it fixed up in no time!" the man had a cheerful grin on his face the whole time while speaking.
"Ren, are you really sending these innocent people off to see the mad inventor? I know you two work together, but really?" One of the other villagers asked.
"C'mon, he's the best guy for fixing anyone's ship."
"I personally would love to meet this inventor. I'm a bit of an inventor myself, after all." Mumbo said.
"Well then, it seems that's sorted,so if you lot would follow me, I'll take you to his house!"
Grian turned to look at his crew. Mumbo had already gotten onto the dock with him, and Scar was swiftly making his way down the rigging. Pearl was tying the ship to the dock, and Impulse was staying with the ship to make sure nothing got stolen. Ren began to lead them through the village, and soon they had left it behind, heading up the hillside.
“So, how’d your ship get so badly bashed up? Was it the dragons, because if it was, Doc and I can deal with them for y’all.”
“No. That won't be necessary.” Grian said, trying his best not to snarl. Great. Of course this guy was a dragon hunter.
“Especially since it was pirates.” Pearl chimed in
“Aw man, pirates are the worst! Unfortunately, I’m not a pirate hunter, so I can’t offer you any help there.”
“It’s fine, we get into arguments with those guys all the time!” Scar says
“And whose fault is that?” Grian asked
“Well it sounds like you lot have quite the interesting story. I consider myself a storyteller, so if you wouldn’t mind telling me yours, I could give you one of mine in return.”
Scar looks like he’s about to agree, but Grian cuts him off. “Nah, it's not that interesting of a story.”
Scar opens his mouth to protest, but Grian stamps on his foot. He hisses in Scars ear, “Do you really want to hear a DRAGON HUNTERS story?”
“Oh. I didn’t think about that.” Scar whispers back. “Why does he have to be so nice, Grian?”
Pearl butted her head in between the two of them. “What are we whispering about?”
“Why we shouldn’t tell this guy the story about the pirates because there are too many dragons in it.”
“You raise a good point. As annoying as Joe and Cleo are, I don't want to send a dragonhunter after them.”
“Maybe we could tell him a version of it without the dragons? Please Grian?”
“Fine, but I’m doing it. You will not tell an accurate version of the story.”
“What are you guys muttering about back there?” Ren asked.
“Who gets to tell the story, because Grian thinks Scar will do it wrong.”
“I will not do it wrong, as a matter of fact I will do a much better job than you would.”
“You will leave out the part where it's your fault they got mad at us.”
“And?”
“And how are you going to start the story without mentioning that.”
“I mayyyyy have been planning on saying it was your fault.”
“SCAR!”
“We’re here!” Ren called out. In front of them was a door embedded in the side of the hill, with several windows at various nearby spots in the hillside. “You’ll have to tell me the story later, because I really want to hear it now.” He then knocked on the door eight times.
The door swung open, and a very tall man with half of his face covered by a burn scar, and a large scruffy, slightly signed beard.
“Ren. Who are these people?”
“Visitors! They need their ship fixed, and they have an excellent story!”
“We can pay!” Scar said.
“Good. What exactly is the damage to your ship?”
“The mast fell off.” Grian informed him in a very dejected voice.
“And there’s some small holes in the sides. I patched them up, but it would be good if someone else took a look.” Mumbo said.
“You’re the ship's repair person then? You can help me out if that’s the case, someone who knows the ship will be very helpful.”
“Yes. I’m also a bit of an inventor, so I’d love to hear about what sort of stuff you make.”
Doc grinned at Mumbo “We are going to get along great.”
The walk back down to the docks went much quicker than the walk up. Impulse saw them coming and waved at them. “Have we got repairs sorted now?”
“Yep!” Pearl said
Grian sprinted over to Impulse and whispered in his ear “They're dragon hunters we need to get the stuff off the ship!”
“What.” Before Impulse had a chance to say anything else, Grian dashed below decks, and was already grabbing all the bags.
“What is he doing?” Doc asked
“Oh, one time someone was repairing our ship they stole a bunch of our stuff. Grian’s a bit paranoid now.”
Impulse and Pearl followed Grian down into the hold, and helped him carry all of their stuff out.
“Awwwww, you really don’t trust me? I promise we won’t steal your stuff.” Ren was somehow making the biggest puppy dog eyes.
"We just met you today. For all I know, you could be a thief." Grian informed him
Ren thinks for a moment, tapping his foot. “Y’know, if you wanna keep an eye on me, you could tell me that story.”
“Alright, you win. I’ll do it. Scar, no interruptions.”
“Even if you get it wrong and I need to correct you?”
“I am not going to get it wrong, Scar.”
“Are you surrrreeee? Maybe you should just let me tell it.”
Grian shoots a glare at Scar. “I will do a great job.” he cleared his throat, and began to tell the story. “So we’d bumped into Joe and Cleo again. I don’t know if those are actually their names, or what they told us their names are, but it's what they told us to call them. They weren’t planning on attacking us, as we’d met them so many times that we’d made a truce, but this time, Scar decided that he wanted to sell them some particularly sparkly rocks he’d found.”
“This is lies and slander, Grian! Lies and slander!”
Grian ignored Scar’s protest, and continued talking “He managed to convince them to give us quite a lot of money from them, as he’d claimed they were magical. You’d think you would know by now not to try and scam PIRATES. Pirates' entire job is stealing and lying, and scamming people.”
“This is all untrue! Totally false!”
“AHEM. They didn’t notice straight away, allowing us to get some distance between us. Unfortunately, it didn’t take them long to notice and then they-” Grian stopped. This was the bit where they’d flown over to the ship, but he couldn’t say that in front of Ren.
“Then they what?” Ren asked
“They rowed over to us in their rowboat, and since Scar was too busy with the money he’d scammed them out of them to see them coming, they managed to ambush us.” Pearl said.
“Right! Thank you Pearl! When they ambushed us. Joe stayed down low, and stabbed some holes in the side of the ship to distract us. And Cleo went straight for Scar. He panicked so badly he fell out of the crows nest, and his money spilled all over the deck. Luckily he wasn’t hurt because J- Impulse caught him. We’d all been caught off guard, and hadn’t worked out why they were attacking us yet. Joe was now done with stabbing the side of the ship, and I’d worked out he was down there and gone to attack him, so he left, and went to grab the stolen money. Then, Professor Beak attacked him, because he’s very protective of shiny things.”
“Who’s Professor Beak?” Ren asked. Grian froze.
“My- uh- Bird! He’s my pet bird!”
“You have a pet bird? Can I meet him?” Ren cooed
“NO!” Grian panickedly shouted “Uh- because the pirates stole him!”
Ren's face became incredibly sad. “They stole your bird???? That’s evil! I will help you save him!”
“No, no! It’s fine, we can get him back on our own. Besides, they’d never hurt an animal.”
Ren’s face remained sad. “Alright.”
“Now, back to the story. Professor Beak had just attacked Joe, so he grabbed him to make him stop doing that. Then, Cleo got down from the crows nest, and grabbed the rest of the money. Then they both jumped in the rowboat and rowed away. Scar wanted to go after them to get his money back, but we, uh, we didn’t have a rowboat anymore. So we couldn’t get the money back. Or Professor Beak.” Grian stopped talking, and took several moments to regain his breath.
“I was right! That was a very good story! Wait. You didn’t mention when they knocked your mast down.” Ren said confusedly.
“Well, thats because uuuuhhhhhh.” Grian said. The truth was, Cleo’s dragon, Scarab, had knocked the mast down, but Grian was trying very hard not to mention anyone’s dragon in his story, even if he’d already messed that up once.
“Because they didn’t knock the mast down during the fight, Cleo just damaged it while we weren’t paying attention, and it fell down later.” Impulse said.
“Oh, I see!” Ren grinned cheerfully. “Thank you very much for the story, and I’ll make sure not to purchase any gems from your friend!”
“Grian! Look what you’ve done! You’ve tarnished my reputation, and scared off a potential customer!”
“Done!” Doc called out. He was indeed done. The mast was standing back up again, and the ship looked good as new.
“Thank you!” Grian jumped up, and started investigating the mast. The other quickly joined him, and they concluded it looked good.
Impulse handed some of their money to Doc as payment, and they pushed the ship out of the harbour, sailing away much faster than they had sailed in. Mumbo flopped on the deck “This guy is a really good dragon hunter”
"Well he shouldn't know about our dragon, I did a pretty good job of hiding the fact we have them, I think"
"No offense Griba, but your story was kinda suspicious. You kept 'forgetting' things"
"I know, I probably shouldn't have told him the story in the first place, should have I"
"It might not have been your best idea, mate"
"Let's go get our dragons back and get out of here."
Soon, they arrived at the island their dragons were hidden on. The dragons had spotted them coming, and were waiting in the trees by the shore. They all leapt off the boat, and ran over the their dragons, Scar ahead of the rest of them.
"Jellie! I missed you so much I'm sorry we had to leave you behind, and I'm going to give you five million cuddles!" Scar leapt at his dragon, who was a smaller white dragon with silver gray stripes. She curled around him, purring happily.
As Grian reached the trees, a parrot coloured blur flew out of the trees, slamming into him and knocking him onto the ground. "It's nice to see you too, Professor Beak." Grian told his dragon. Professor Beak was a small, particularly frilly parrot coloured dragon.
"Nugget!" Pearl called out. "You can come out, it's safe now!" A pair of large round eyes blinked at her from the bushes, and then her night fury leapt out, landing with her front paws on Pearl's shoulders, happily rumbling at her.
Mumbo's dragon, Hog, bright pink and the second smallest out of all their dragons, walked up the him and started sniffing around his feet in greeting. “Hey bud. I missed you too.” Hog gently headbonked Mumbo in the legs.
Instead of going to the forest, Impulse went and stood by the shoreline. Soon, the head of his dragon peeked out of the water. He grinned at Impulse with all of his teeth. “Hey Thunderstorm. How’s the water around here?” The Thunderdrum gave a satisfied rumble. Impulse’s dragon was by far the largest dragon in the group, and was too large for the boat. Luckily, Thunderstorm, being an aquatic dragon, was capable of swimming alongside the boat.
As they all happily reunited with their dragon, they failed to notice the small rowboat that was making its way towards the island. Ren sighed. “I knew their story didn’t quite make sense, but I can't believe that they’re dragon riders. Don’t they know how dangerous dragons are?"
“Some people just have no common sense, Ren.”
“I know. Let’s go get those dragons.” Ren pulled out his sword, and a few nets, ready for a fight.
“You know, you are a terrible liar, dragon rider.” Ren spat. The five of them spun around in shock, staring at Ren. Grian drew his swords.
“You will not hurt our dragons.” he snarled. The others all readied their weapons as well, Scar with his daggers, Pearl with her longsword, Impulse with his axe, and Mumbo with his shortsword. Ren charged.
Pearl lunged forward, and met him with her sword. Doc, still in the boat, fired the cannon he had attached to it, hitting Impulse and Thunderstorm, trapping them. Thunderstorm cried out in distress. Grian dashed over, and started trying to cut through the very thick net with his daggers. This was a slow process, as the net was very thick. Mumbo ran over to the boat, planning to dismantle the cannon, but Doc easily picked him up and flung him away. Scar lunged at Ren, having snuck around behind him, and with Pearl’s help, pinned him to the ground. Doc fired another net, attempting to trap Jellie with it, but she was prepared, having seen him fire a ner earlier, and dodged it easily. Ren attempted to get back up, but nugget jumped on him, making sure he couldn’t get back up. He immediately gave up, as a night fury glaring in your face tends to be rather scary. Professor Beak, who had immediately taken to the air when the fight began, decided that now was the perfect time to dive bomb Doc. This rendered him unable of firing the cannon again, as having a dragon clinging to your head, regardless of the size, tends to get in the way of your ability to do things. He yelled angrily at Professor Beak, demanding he get off! Grian, who had now managed to free Impulse, hopped up onto the front of the boat.
“Surrender!” he triumphantly said.
“Fine, just get your dragon OFF OF ME!” Doc shouted.
“Yeah, I would also appreciate that.” Ren said.
“Alright, but there are a few conditions you need to agree to.”
“First! You never hurt our dragons again!” Scar said
“Secondly, you leave Joe and Cleo’s dragons alone too.” Pearl said.
“Thirdly, maybe actually get to know some dragons. They aren’t that bad.” Impulse said.
“Why don’t you prove it then.” Ren said. “You’ve got dragons, prove they aren’t that bad.”
Doc just huffed dismissively.
Grian grinned. “Professor Beak, you can get off him now.” The dragon quickly did as he was asked, even if he thought the best way to do it was by climbing down Doc’s shirt. Pearl also got Nugget to get off Ren, and he stood up.
"Oohhh! I got this!" Scar said "Jellie! Belly rubs!"
Jellie instantly flopped onto her back upon hearing that. Scar leaned over, abd started giving her the promised belly rubs. Soon, she was sprawled out all over the beach, purring happily.
"Are you sure that's not just a hairless cat?" Reb asked.
"How dare you! Can't you see her wings! My wonderful Jellie is very much a dragon!"
At this point, Jellie decided to yawn, revealing her sharklike rows of sharp teeth.
"Alrighttttt. Not a cat."
"Even though Jellie isn't a cat, quite a lot of dragons display rather catlike behaviors." Mumbo said. "Though not all of them do. Hog is an exception, he's more like a dog or pig."
"And Professor Beak is like a bird!" Grian chimed in. Grian had climbed up onto his head, and was now perched there, although he was probably too big for it. Grian, oddly enough, did not seem to mind.
"So," Doc began, "You're saying, if you can befriend them, they'll stop being so aggressive, and actually start acting like pets."
"You are correct." Mumbo said.
"Well, I would say I'll believe it when I see it, but," Ren glanced at Jellie and Scar, "I can see it right now."
"Yeah, I can see that you have a point." Doc said.
Ren hummed, thinking. "Hey, Doc, wouldn't having dragons help us protect our island a lot better?"
"Yes, it would. And imagine what I could do with their fire."
"I'm kind of scared now." Grian said.
"Don't worry, I don't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it."
"You tried to hurt us." Impulse pointed out.
"Sorry." Ren said sheepishly.
"I am also sorry. I was wrong about thinking you were dangerous."
"Well, I'm glad that's sorted!" Grian said. "We really need to get going. We promised the Big eye crew a race soon, remember?"
"Oh yeah!" Pearl grinned "Me and Nugget have been looking forward to that!"
"Bet Bdubs is gonna complain having a night fury is cheating again."
"Oh he always complains."
"I think Hog and I might really stand a chance this time!"
"A chance at not coming last?"
Mumbo's face fell, and he stares at Grian sadly.
"Oh, they're gone." Impulse said.
"Did we scare them off with our bickering?"
"Probably. Now come on! Let's go!"