Book 6 - Mystery of Shadow Mountain - Chapter 7: Dragon Basketball

         I slowly take the gem and say, “Thank you?”

         The gem itself is about two or three inches wide, a spherical shape, and white in the center while pink on the outside.  The gem is an already nicely cut and very beautiful; quite heavy too.  I went back to the cabinet to grab the case the gem was in previously.  I close the case over the gem and attach it to my belt, checking it a few times to make sure it is securely attached.

         The captain questions, “What will you do with me now?”

         As I am about to open my mouth, Cazi yells out from above, “Jarl-la-Beth, get up here.”

         Annabeth and I just look at each other.  One for what Cazi called us and two for, “What is wrong now?”

         The two of us run up to the deck only to nearly get blasted by…

         After shielding my eyes with my arms and being knocked to the ground, I then look back east, “Vixxen!”

         Vixxen and Ragnarok flew overhead and are coming back around.

         Annabeth declares as she calls Anora over, “At least it is just one dragon and rider, granted its Vixxen and her Snow Wraith.”

         I call Fredrick over as Cazi exclaims, “That is the least of our problems.”

         “What’s wrong now?” I question, frustrated.

         Cazi points in the near horizon a small fleet of Vixxen Vikings coming out from the cover of a sea stack, “We did not see them before.  These guys attacked us before we could sweep the area.”

         “Ahh!” I cried out in frustration.  “We can’t take them all on, we have to let them go.”

         “Where are we going to retreat?” Annabeth looked at me with the obvious unasked question.

         Quickly thinking of an idea, I said, “Go due west.”

         With that, we all launched into the air and head west.  Oddly enough, Vixxen did not care to let us escape.  Fighting a little bit on our way out, we retreated to the west.

         Beyond ear shot, Dawn states, “We cannot go back to Mystery yet, or they will see us going to the island and will probably investigate.”

         “You are right,” I reply.  “Reason why we are going due west.  We must keep going until we are totally out of sight.  Even then, we need to make sure we are not tailed and reveal we have an outpost.”

         We then fly for about an hour, probably a little less than that, but we believe we go far enough not to be seen to return to our Edge of Mystery.  Throughout the trip, we kept a keen eye out to see if we were tailed.  Being tailed by a ship would be quite difficult as we are flying fast, yet not at top speed.  The only possible way we could successfully be tailed is if someone did so by dragon.  With hardly any clouds today, tailing someone by dragon would be basically impossible.

         Turning back Mystery, we fly further south to come up on our outpost from the southeast.  This will insure that if Vixxen and her vikings are still there, then they will not know that we have returned to Mystery.  The entire trip took about two hours.

         As soon as we got back we check with the rest.

         Hyrith reports, “Vixxen and her small band of ships left and returned to wherever they came from about a half hour ago.  There are no more signs of them in the area.

         “Good,” I declared.  “Any one up for some fun for a change?”

         This perks everyone up, Elsa asks, “What do you have in mind?”

         “I was going to ask you guys that,” I say.

         Cazi grunts, “Well, where’s the fun in that?  You said if we were up for fun as if you had an idea.”

         “I have a few,” I reply.  “But I am curious if there is anything you guys want to do.”

         Hannah then punches her left palm with her right fist, “Crack a few knuckles over some Hunter heads?”

         Dawn chimed in, “Wrap a sword around their faces?”

         I chuckle, “Other than kicking Dragon Hunter butts, what do you want to do for fun?”

         Cazi questions, “There’s another type of fun?”

         I roll my eyes but cannot help but smile, “Yes, there is another type of fun.”

         Annabeth steps in, “I have a suggestion.”

         Hannah then asks with not too much anticipation, “What?”

         Annabeth simply declares, “Dragon Basketball.”

         Hannah opens her mouth to say something, but when Annabeth’s suggestion finally hit her, she stopped.

         “Please,” Annabeth says.  “Contain your excitement, one at a time.”

         We all chuckle.

         “Let me explain,” Annabeth states.

         Hannah adds, “Please do.”

         “Well,” begins Annabeth.  “Dragon Basketball.  Fairly self-explanatory.  It is a new game I thought of when thinking of how the Twins toss sheep around in their infamous dodge sheep.  Not to be confused with their dodge rock game.  A lot less violence in Dragon Basketball, though if your competitive, it may become… spirited rivalry amongst friends.”

         Cazi quips, “That just describes our everyday lives.”

         “I know, but moving on,” Annabeth continues.  “The objective of Dragon Basketball is simple: Score more points than the other team.”

         Dawn folds her arms and says, “Knowing you guys know, what are the rules?”

         “I’m getting to that,” Annabeth goes on to say.  “The rules of Dragon Basketball are the following:  No more than five riders and dragons on the field at all times; one rider and dragon counts as one.  Counting how many we have here at Mystery, we can have two teams of seven, with two substitutions.  There will always be a defensive team and an offensive team.  The offensive team is trying to score on the opponents’ team basket.  Obviously, the opponent is trying to defend their basket.  Each basket is worth one point.  Either the dragon or the rider can catch the basketball, but once one catches it, they can only have the ball for five seconds before they have to pass or shoot.  You cannot pass it to your dragon or the dragon to you to restart the counter.  Be honest about the counter, zero to five.  When someone scores, then the defending team gets to inbound the ball and then go to the other side and try and score.  If the ball misses, then everyone can go for the rebound to either score or fast break down to the other side, depending on what team gets the ball.  If the ball goes out of bounds, whichever team touches it last before going out of bounds, the other team gets the ball.”

         “Say if Snotlout were playing,” Hannah spoke.  “While in going for the ball, mind you, what would happen if I… oh… I don’t know… happened to take his helmet instead?”

         Annabeth nods as she says, “Glad you asked that though surprised you didn’t say, ‘head.’-”

         Hannah interrupts while saying under her breath, “I was going to, but thought that would be less violent-y.”

         Cazi raised her left eye brow and echoed, “Violent-y?”

         “Anyway,” Annabeth got our attention back to the question.  “There are fouls in this game in which the team being fouled gets to shoot one free shot from a certain distance from the basket.  Three players from each team; defending, offensive, defending and offensive, defending, offensive will be how they will line up; will then go for a rebound as soon as the foul shot is shot.  What are the fouls exactly?  Well, use your common sense to determine what is a foul.  Anything excessively aggressive or what Hannah just described, that would be a foul.  I know, what you cannot do in Dragon Racing, is the same here; it is just you are more stationary most of the time with bursts of movement.  If you basically run over someone or their dragon, then that is a foul and a turnover.  A turnover is when the offensive team turns to the ball over to the other team via knocking the ball out of bounds, an offensive foul, or throwing it to the other team.”

         I declare, “Sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.  Though I have to ask, how much of this did you think of before and how much did you just make up here on the spot.

         Annabeth grinned, “Some of it and the main idea I thought of before.  The rest I had kind of thought about but not really hashed out.  What I just said should really be common sense about any sport, just with specifics to that particular sport.”

         “I do have one comment I would like to add,” I said.

         “Shoot,” Annabeth stated.

         “Very punny,” I noted.  “To have a shot right underneath the basket be the same value of something further out, I think there should be a reward for the skill it would take to shoot from farther out.  Say, two points from beyond foul shot range while anything further in is still one point.”

         Nodding, Annabeth responds, “That sounds fair.  What does everyone think?  Do you agree with that and while we are here, do you agree with the rules?”

         Taking a few moments, everyone thought and then replied with a few yes’s, yup’s, and yeah’s.

         “Then let’s get our dragons and go out to the field that cleared out,” Annabeth said.  Then on our way over to the stable, she added, “Oh, and if you, your dragon, or both are getting or are tired, you can call for a substitution from the extra two on your team.”

         Within about ten minutes, after getting our dragons, we flew in nearer the middle of the island.  We came upon a rectangle like clearing that is surrounded by trees on all side.  On the rectangle are dug out lines for the out of bounds and foul shot.  The size of the clearing is about fifty yards long and thirty yards wide.  Upon landing, Annabeth quickly measured out an extended skill shot for the two points.  Once that was done, Annabeth shows off the baskets.

         “Here are the baskets,” Annabeth shows off, using her hands, the northern bucket in a tree a little over twenty feet off the ground.

         Dawn states, “How do you expect us to get the ball back after making a basket?”

         “Well,” Annabeth replies.  “The team that got scored on goes up and takes the ball.”

         Garth steps forward from behind the group, “And here is the ball.”

         Garth passes me the ball for testing.  The ball is about a foot and a half to two feet in diameter.

         The moment I caught the ball I noticed a few things, “Is it full of air?”

         Garth replies and explains, “Yes.  The ball is a leather ball interlined with tar.  There is a needle sized hole on one side to insert regular air, no need for compressed air.  Try bouncing it on the ground.”

         I did so and the ball came back up to me, “Wow, this is really cool.  Maybe there could one day be a sport with just vikings running around throwing this thing around.”

         “But doing it with dragons, is much more fun,” Annabeth said.

         I retort, “Doing anything with dragons makes it doubly fun, anyway.”

         “True,” Annabeth said.

         “Alright,” Cazi said rubbing her hands together.  “Who’s picking what teams?”

         Dawn folds her arms and says, “I think we already know which two vikings want to be on the same team.”

         “Who us?” Annabeth said genuinely surprised.  “Me be on Jarl’s team?  Why would I want to do that?”  Cazi looks confused.  “I want to beat his team.  How can I beat him if he is on my own team?”

         Eyeing Annabeth, I speak, “Okay, okay.  I see how it is.  You sa going down.”

         “Yeah,” Annabeth responds.  “Down right into the winning column.  Bam.”

         I smile and close my eyes, “I walked into that one.”

         Getting impatient, Hannah asks, “Are we going to pick teams or not.”

         Getting down to business, Annabeth and I are voted team captains.  We each picked one person to be on our team.  Annabeth picks Cazi first.  I then pick Asvord first.

         “Why would you pick me?” she asks, a bit disappointed.  “I would have wanted to beat you.”

         “Exactly,” I said while thinking about my next pick; Annabeth’s second pick is Dawn.  “Having Annabeth on the other team is bad enough.”

         “What did you say?” Annabeth asks.

         “Oh, just something you probably overheard anyway and just wanted to see if I actually meant it.  Because you already know the answer to the question,” I answer and then pick, “Elsa.”

         Annabeth then picks Hannah.

         As I pick Garth, I then remark, “I see we are keeping it all in the family for the start.”

         The rest of the team is filled out as follows: Annabeth’s final picks are Abbie, Hyrith, and Angie.  My final picks are Meen, Explod, and Ali.  We also pick team names.  Annabeth’s team name is, “Electric Firestorms.”  My team name is, “Thundering Sonics.”

         The positions are Point, Wings, Center, and Runner.

         Starting five for Annabeth: Annabeth takes Point, Cazi and Angie take the Wings which flank the Point on both sides, Hannah takes Runner, and Hyrith takes Center.

         Starting five for my team: I take Point mainly so I can defend Annabeth, Asvord and Explod take Wings, Garth takes Runner, and Meen takes center.

         After a few hours of playing, I would like to say it was a competitive game, but most of the time was spent trying to get used to the game, even for Annabeth.  We had to fine tune a few things as we played.  We also lost track of the score.  At point one point after I threw the ball in the direction of Asvord, who cut to the basket, Asvord twirled Spiker to slammed the ball into the basket causing the bottom to fall out.  We found this made retrieving the ball a lot easier.

         When we realized we had lost track of the score and we all were getting tired, Annabeth said the next shot a team makes, they win the game.  Playing tight defense on Annabeth and Anora, she outlet passes the ball to Angie.  I sag down a bit to help on that side of the defense as Angie had been driving to the basket the entire game.  However, Angie passed the ball back up to Annabeth.  Caught off guard, I chase the ball.  Annabeth has Anora run forward for a drive.  I maneuver Fredrick to defend the drive, but Annabeth had Anora flap her wings once to pull back for a jumper.  Fredrick instinctively extends his left wing in hopes of blocking the shot… Barely even touched the basket… However, it went through the basket.

         All that work and Annabeth still gets the shot off.

         I then declare, “Even in a sport she just created, she still beats me.”

         Asvord shakes her head, “Out of all the things you are good at and win, if Annabeth is your opponent, I am asking for a trade to the other team.”

         I could not help but chuckle.

         We all agreed that was fun and we need to do that more often.  Everyone likes Dragon Basketball so much that we decided to do another game tomorrow.      

         With the day winding down, we did our own things until supper was ready.  There, at one point, came an explosion from Garth’s Lab.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but Garth relays that a project he was working for the past couple of weeks just went up in smoke.  He will have to start from scratch.  A few hours later we all met at the Clubhouse when Asvord originally said supper would be ready.

         Ananbeth, Cazi, and Dawn are the last to arrive to supper.  They are arguing with each other.

         “Alright,” I said breaking up the noise.  “Who took out Snotlout’s head?”

         Cazi replies, “If only.”

         Annabeth sighs, “It is alright, I guess.  We really should be arguing.”

         “Yeah,” Dawn says.  “Because it wasn’t my fault.”

         “Well,” Cazi adds.  “It wasn’t my fault.”

         Annabeth chimes in again, “It wasn’t my fault, Dawn is the one who ran in to me.”

         “I was pushed by yours truly standing over there,” Dawn points at Cazi.

         “I did not do anything,” Cazi answers.  “Can I help it if your dragon gets spooked at static electric shock from a Skrill?”

         “Enough!” I demand.  “What happened?”

         “After whatever happen that these two muttonheads described,” Annabeth explains.  “I was nearly pushed off a sea stack.”

         I immediately ask, “Are you alright.”

         “I’m fine,” came her reply.  “My two swords… eh… not so much.”  Annabeth then whistled as she lowered her hands from a high point in the air down about two feet and then made a splashing sound.

         “They’re at the bottom of the ocean?” I question.

         “Yup,” Annabeth said.  “Nothing we can do about it now, I guess.  Let’s just eat supper.  At least that is one thing Asvord cannot mess up.”

         Asvord came in and said, “Well, she can.”

         “What?!” came everyone’s responses.  “She can forget to keep Smoky out of the kitchen before he eats everything that was cooking.  No supper tonight.”

         The whole crew started to grumble.  I tried to cheer them up with the thought of playing Dragon Basketball tomorrow.  But they all mulled off and went to their huts to eat some of their own snacks.

         As they walked off, I thought, “Why is everything all of a sudden going wrong?”

         It is getting late and we all decided to get ready for bed.  Turns out, I will not mention any names but their names rhymes with “A sword,” they forgot to fill the water for the water basin and drinking water, so we have nothing to clean up before bed.  Checking the rain barrels outside, they are surprisingly empty too.  Surprisingly because it just rained recently.

         We turned in anyway and got in the bed.

         For some reason I could not sleep, but I had worked out the entire day and felt tired.  I stayed awake until the moon came out.  When it reached overhead of the clubhouse, the moonlight from the above window shone through my room and a glare of light appears out of the corner of my eye.

         Getting out of bed to investigate, I see that it is the gem that we took from Vixxen’s Captain of the one ship.  Only part of the gem let off a glare.  Turning around to see it in better moonlight, I notice the glare moving from one side of the gem to the other side.  Repeating the process, I see that the glare is staying in one place almost as if it is pointing at something, regardless of how I turn the gem.  Then it dawned on me.

         “Is this gem pointing to something on Mystery?” I ask myself.  “I know we don’t know about everything there is on Mystery, but could this really be connected?”