Finally! Chapter 13! The kids screw up badly and are banished, finally getting to the main plot of the story! Yay! Yay! Okay, here we go! Finally!

CHAPTER 13 – STRIKE THREE, YOU'RE BANISHED!

Astrid's POV

There was a note on my door when I woke up the next day. It was from Stoic. It read:

"Dear Astrid,

Your punishment starts tonight after dinner. You and the others will be cleaning the Great Hall. Hope you don't screw up this time!

Stoic."

Angrily, I crumpled the paper up and threw it at the ground. Clean the Great Hall! That would take forever, even with six of us! I was about to think seven, when I remembered that Hazel wasn't being punished at all. I hated her even more for it.

I decided to go see what my boyfriend (AKA Hiccup) was doing, so I went to his house. I found him and Toothless trying to move a big couch that was so heavy that even Toothless was having a difficult time with it. I walked up behind Hiccup.

"Why are you moving that couch?" I asked in his ear.

He jumped and turned around. "Astrid, don't do that," he said, "You startled me."

"That was the point," I told him, "So what's with the couch?"

"My dad is making me take it outside," he responded, "He says it's old or something and wants to get rid of it. But it's so heavy!"

"Would you like some help?" I asked.

"Yes, please," he replied.

Together, the three of us managed to drag the couch out of the house, although we had trouble when we got to the front door. When we were done, we sat down.

"I can't believe your father is making us clean the Great Hall!" I muttered, "That will take forever! And every day? After every meal? When are we supposed to train?"

"I don't know," Hiccup sighed, "The best thing we can do right now is just do as he says and hope he calms down eventually. It might not be as bad as we think."

LATER THAT NIGHT

It was as bad as we thought. Not only were we not allowed to eat until we had finished cleaning, but there had been some sort of argument between Gobber and Snotlout's father that caused everyone to break out into a food fight. So now there were food globs everywhere, and the six of us had to clean it all up. There was even food on the ceiling that kept dripping onto our heads. I didn't think it could possibley get any worse.

But of course it could. Aside from the fact that no one was talking to each other, Ruffnut shooting her brother nasty looks (okay, that's actually normal,) and Fishlegs eating the food off the floor, we had no way to get the food off the ceiling. It was well past midnight, and probably growing light out by the time we had finished cleaning the rest of the hall. Now we just had to do the ceiling.

We all stood, staring up at it, trying to figure out a way to do it without using our dragons. We could've used a ladder, but they were in the tool shed, and that was locked up until morning.

Snotlout let out an annoyed sigh. "How'd the adults even get food on the ceiling anyway?" he asked, "It's so high up!"

"What are we gonna do?" Fishlegs wondered, "Even if we stood on each other's shoulders, we could never reach that high!"

I immediately wished he hadn't said that; as Snotlout started to grow a wicked grin on his face. A grin I would live to hate for the rest of my life.

Fishlegs's POV

Ten minutes later I was standing on a small tower of stacked tables, wondering why I had opened my big mouth. Astrid was standing on my shoulders, who was holding Ruffnut on her shoulders, who was holding up Tuffnut on her shoulders, and he had Hiccup on his shoulders, and Snotlout was at the top of this rickety tower, scraping at the food on the ceiling.

"Hold it steady down there, Fishlegs!" Snotlout called to me.

"Okay!" I squeaked back, barely being able to breathe. I felt my knees shaking, and I didn't know how much more I could take. Already I knew I was not going to last very long.

"Don't worry!" Snotlout shouted at me, "I'm almost done!"

"Yay!" I muttered, my legs wobbling.

It wasn't until five minutes later when Snotlout shouted "I'm finished!"

And then my knees gave out. I let out a loud yell as my legs buckled beneath me, and every one started falling from the air. As we lay on the tower of tables, groaning of pain, the tables started to shake.

"Of course," Hiccup muttered, right before all the tables collapsed.

We might have been able to salvage something of this mess, if one of the table legs hadn't flown through the air and struck a torch on the wall, knocking it to the ground. We all stared in horror as the walls started to go up in flames, including our only exit.

"Oh no!" Astrid exclaimed, "What are we gonna do?"

No one got to answer as the flames got bigger and the smoke started to fill our lungs. Though we were huddled together, I could hardly see anyone through the thick smoke. Were we going to die here? Trapped by our flame prison?

In spite of myself, I briefly wondered what was going to kill us: choking on the smoke, or burning to death from the flames.

I could already hear my friends' harsh coughing getting worse.

"We've got to get out of here somehow!" I heard Ruffnut rasp.

Through the smoke, I could see Hiccup get unsteadily to his feet. "Come on," he said, weakly, "I've got an idea. We can use this table as a shield to break the door down!"

As fast as we could, we propped up one of the broken tables, which had snapped right in half. Then, holding it up, we rushed at the door. We crashed through the wall easily, and out into the open air. And we hadn't done it a moment too soon, for as soon as we were out, the entire building collapsed.

Snotlout's POV

I stood with my friends as we watched the Great Hall burn. How did this happen? We were just supposed to clean the place, not burn it down! And I knew someone was going to blame me for this.

As I expected, Astrid whacked me hard on the head. "Good going, Snotlout," she growled.

"What did I do?" I snapped back.

"It was your brilliant plan that caused this to happen!" she pointed out.

"Well I didn't know that was going to happen!" I explained angrily, "Besides, I didn't see any of you coming up with any ideas. You were all standing there gaping like a bunch of idiots!"

"I think we might be being a little harsh on ourselves," Hiccup murmured.

"Oh shut it, loser!" I growled.

"Don't talk to Hiccup that way!" Astrid shouted at me.

"Of course," Ruffnut spoke up, "Hiccup needs his little girlfriend to fight his battles for him. How courageous."

"Put a sock in it," Astrid hissed at her.

"Oh come off it," I said, "Like you don't need anyone to fight your battles."

"What did you say to me?" Ruffnut asked venomously, stepping up to me.

"You better watch it," I warned her, "Don't want your secret to slip out, do you?"

"Don't you dare threaten me," she growled.

"I would like to point something out," Fishlegs interrupted.

"Shut up, Fishlegs," Astrid ordered.

I don't know who threw the first punch, but suddenly, all six of us were fighting. More determined to cause our opponent physical harm than coming out on top, we punched and kicked and bit and scratched. Hiccup was underneath me as, trying to fend me off as I wrapped my fingers around his throat. Astrid had one strong arm around my neck, pulling me off the small boy, and cutting off my air. Ruffnut tackled her from the side, and also shoved her into Tuffnut and the three of them went down. Fishlegs was trying to pull us apart, but was having little success. We spat venom at each other, and I felt a hard kick in my side from Tuffnut. I wrestled Astrid to the ground, and I saw Ruffnut pounce on Hiccup.

This fight might have continued all night, when suddenly there was loud pounding of many feet and we were suddenly surrounded by around twenty Vikings, all pointing bows and blow guns at us. Our fight paused, ending as suddenly as it had begun.

I looked around and realized with a jolt that I didn't recognize any of the men who surrounded us. I knew they were from Berk, but for some reason, I had no idea who they were. Then I looked at the others and saw that we all had injuries. Astrid had a cut above her eye, Fishlegs was holding his nose, Ruffnut was lying on the ground, clutching the side of her head, Hiccup had a cut lip and bruises, Tuffnut had his arms wrapped around his stomach, and I felt one of my eyes swelling, even though I couldn't quite remember getting punched in the eye. We were all breathing heavily, looking around at the men who surrounded us. There was utter silence.

"It's the man," Fishlegs whispered.

Hiccup tried to put on a charming smile. "Good evening, everyone!" he said in a chipper voice, hoping to sound friendly.

"No!" I warned, shaking his shirt collar, "No! You don't talk! You're not very good with speaking the words and them coming out nice things! You keep it shh! Snotlout will handle this. Hiccup says nothing!"

Hiccup nodded as I turned to the men. I put on a winning smile. "Hey there!" I greeted, "Sorry for making so much noise and all, but some of us just couldn't control our tempers!" I tried not to look at Astrid as I said this. "Just went a little koo-koo in the head!"

"Hey, don't call us koo-koo in the head!" Hiccup interrupted.

"Shush!" I hissed impatiently, "I will handle this!"

I started to say more when I suddenly felt something sharp shoot me in the arm. I looked down and saw a tiny dart sticking from my arm. "Ow!" I gasped, "Ow. Wow, I feel really weird." I tumbled backwards and Hiccup just barely managed to catch me in time. "Really, really weird," I continued, starting to feel a little loopy and sleepy, "Hey! Aw, I love you guys!" I patted Hiccup on the head as the others came over to look at me. "I love you so much…"

And then all was dark.

…

I didn't know if I was asleep or not. Stars floated all around me as my friends stood next to me, dressed in strange clothes. Mushrooms started to come to life and dance all around, and I smiled. How nice.

Then I felt a rush of cold air and I opened my eyes. I had no idea where I was and weakly reached out a hand. I heard lots of yelling, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in my hand. I looked and saw a tiny dart. "Oh no…" I muttered.

I drifted off again.

…

When I came to again, I was tied to pole next to the other five. They were just waking up as well. I saw Stoic standing in front of us as my vision started to come back. Stoic was addressing a large crowd of Vikings at the edge of the village.

"… And you can see the destruction these kids have caused," he was saying, "And so it is with a deep and very heavy heart that I must banish these six from Berk, never to return."

That woke us all up real quick. "What?" we all asked at the same time.

Stoic ignored us. "They will have an hour to pack their things, and then they will be banished from Berk forever."

We were untied from the poles and sent on our way. Fireworm looked very concerned when I came into my room looking grim.

"Boy," she said, "What is the matter? Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving, Fireworm," I told her, "I've been banished."

"What? No!" she cried. She let out loud sobs as I brought out my suitcase that I had pre-packed with stuff for a long journey. I left my house and didn't look back.

I was the first one back to Stoic, who refused to look at me. The next one back was Hiccup, and as soon as he reached me, our ankles were shackled together. Tuffnut and Ruffnut came next, and they, too, were chained to us. The same happened with Astrid and Fishlegs. When we were all back, Stoic spoke to the crowd once more.

"By the will of Thor," he shouted, "I banish these six teens from our tribe! Be gone!"

A lot of people in the crowd jeered as we slowly started leave the village. We were almost there when we heard someone call to us. Gobber and Toothless quickly ran towards us.

"Before you kids go, I have something for ya," Gobber told us.

"What is it?" Fishlegs wondered.

"I'm not supposed to tell ya this," Gobber warned, "But there is a way for ya to become un-banished."

"There is?" I asked excitedly. Gobber silenced me.

"Here, take this," he said, handing a roll of parchment to Hiccup, "It will tell ya what to do. Come on, Toothless, say yer good-byes."

Toothless rubbed himself against Hiccup sadly, before slowly walking with Gobber back towards the village. As we stared, I could've sworn I saw Hazel a distance away glaring at us.

There we. Go that's the end… of this chapter. I know it was a little bit more serious than other chapters, but I was afraid that if I made it too goofy, it would take away from the point. Next chapter the kids start off on their long road of banishment, and they find that someone has followed them. Who is it? R&R to find out!

PS: Did anyone happen to notice that a certain someone didn't say a single word through this whole long chapter? Do you know who that was?