Disclaimer: I do not own the "Dragons" franchise. The franchise is the property of Dreamworks animation studios.

Author's Note : I came up with this one a while back. I noticed that three people have written stories where Hiccup catches the Scourge of Odin instead of Astrid, but I wondered how the story might play out if it had been Snotlout. I kept on thinking about it and this story is what I came up with. I'm not sure how accurate this is to how things would actually play out on the show, but this is my idea; there's no wrong way to fantasize.

Well, here it goes. I hope you like it. As usual, my only rule is No Flames. Constructive criticism and helpful suggestions are welcome, obviously. Please be honest.

The Dangerous Encounter

The sea was calm and quiet during the morning, not a sound to be heard, save for the waves and a few seagulls. Suddenly, the silence was disturbed by a Monstrous Nightmare flying at high speed through the sky just above the water with a human on his back

"Woooohoooooo!" The rider, Snotlout Jorgenson cheered as his dragon, Hookfang, soared through the sky. And then he leaned right and splashed water from the sea before doing twists and turns through the sea stacks. "Yeah! That's it, Hookfang! You got this! Snotlout! Snotlout! Oi, oi, oi!"

The dragon finished his display by flipping in mid-air and then landing on top of a sea stack and setting his whole body ablaze. Snotlout wooted and pumped his fist in the air.

Snotlout smiled proudly at his dragon and said, "That was awesome, Hookfang! You were awesome! I'd like to see Hiccup and Toothless try to top that! Ha, ha!"

Hookfang doused his flames and purred, happy to receive praise from his rider. They may have disagreements and he might pull some tricks on his rider that he thinks are funny, but that did not mean that they disliked each other.

Snotlout then stretched and said, "Well, I'd say this area checks out. No enemies for miles. Looks we can head back to the Edge and tell the others that everything's..."

Snotlout did not get to finish his sentence because Hookfang started growling. He looked in the direction where Hookfang was growling and saw mist up ahead. Upon closer inspection, Snotlout noticed something inside the mist. Snotlout then took his spyglass out of his dragon's saddle bag and looked through. When he did that Snotlout noticed that the thing inside the mist was a boat; a fishing boat by the look of it.

"I see it, Hookfang. We should get out of here and tell the others," said Snotlout. He was about to turn Hookfang around to head back to the Edge when he got another idea, "On second thought, let's go check it out now."

On his rider's order, Hookfang took to the air and flew towards the boat. He landed on the deck and allowed his rider to dismount him. Snotlout grabbed his axe and took a fighting stance. He signalled for Hookfang to get battle ready, which he did and started looking for any signs of life. Upon looking, Snotlout began to notice that the boat looked like it had not been kept for some time.

"Must be abandoned. What a rip-off," said Snotlout. And then he shrugged and said, "Oh well. C'mon, Hookfang, let's get out of here."

He was about to mount his dragon and leave, when suddenly, Snotlout heard glass shattering followed by a painful scream. Snotlout felt really nervous when he heard that and was about to get on his dragon to leave. He then remembered his father.

*Flashback*

Little Snotlout cried his eyes out as he sat in his bed. He screamed for his parents to help him as he listened to the scratching noises outside his window. His father finally came in to check on him.

"What's the problem, Boyo?" Spitelout asked.

"There's a dragon trying to break into my room!" Snotlout cried.

Spitelout smacked himself in the head and said, "Really, Boyo? You're crying because of scratching sounds?"

"But the dragon's gonna eat me!" Snotlout cried.

"That's not a dragon! It's just some tree branches scraping against the window," said Spitelout, "You're a viking, Snotlout. Vikings don't get scared and run away from every little sound they hear. Toughen up, Boyo."

Snotlout sniffled and then lied back down in his bed to try to sleep. As he watched his dad leave the room, Snotlout could have sworn he caught a glimpse of his mother shooting his father an annoyed look.

*End Flashback*

With his father's words in mind, Snotlout changed his mind and went to take a look inside the boat. He slowly walked into the entrance to the lower deck, axe in hand, and looked for any signs of life. He saw nothing at first, so he decided to call out to whoever might have made the noise.

"Hello? Anyone here?" Snotlout called, "Hello?"

Snotlout then smelled the air and recoiled in disgust as his nose picked up something revolting.

"Ugh! Gross! What stinks in here?" Snotlout asked no one in particular. He then found a torch on the wall and grabbed it. He held the torch up to his dragon and asked, "Hookfang, can you give me a light?"

Hookfang breathed fire on the torch, lightning it up. Because he was too big, Snotlout had Hookfang wait on the deck while he searched the inside. With that, Snotlout cautiously walked inside the boat and again started calling out to whoever might be inside.

"Hello? Anybody here? Help me out a bit here. Will ya?" Snotlout called, trying hard to ignore the stink. Once he reached the end of the hall, Snotlout gasped at the sight before him; finally realizing why no one answered his calls and why it smelled so bad in there. "Oh my gods. This can't be happening."

Snotlout started slowly back away in fear. Then suddenly, a green skinned hand grabbed his left arm and scratched it. Snotlout screamed in horror and threw the torch down on the floor. He then raced out and back to the deck, back to Hookfang.

"Hookfang, we gotta go!" Snotlout screamed. He noticed Hookfang looking at his arm, "I'm fine. It's just a scratch."

With that, Snotlout and Hookfang took to the sky and flew away. Snotlout's hope was that once he got back to Dragon's Edge, he could just forget the whole thing.

Back at the Edge, Hiccup was in the clubhouse having Toothless weld a broken connecting rod back together. Hiccup was wearing a pair of spectacles over his eyes. Right in the middle of welding, Fishlegs took notice of the spectacles.

"Interesting material," said Fishlegs, referring to the lenses, "Seems organic in nature."

"Deathsong Amber hammered thin," Hiccup explained, "This is strong enough to stare straight into the eyes of a Flightmare."

"Fascinating," said Fishlegs, "May I?"

"Please. I insist," said Hiccup, handing over his spectacles.

Fishlegs took the spectacles and put them on. He gasped in delight as he watched Toothless weld the metal. While this happened, Astrid entered the clubhouse, the twins following close behind. Hiccup noticed that Snotlout was not with them, which he found curious because he should have returned from patrol by then.

"Shouldn't Snotlout have been back by now?" Hiccup asked.

"I'm sure he's fine, Hiccup," said Astrid, reassuringly, "He probably just got distracted or lost."

"Or maybe he got eaten by a Scauldron," said Tuffnut, sounding like nothing was wrong.

"Tuff, that's rediculous," said Ruffnut, "If anything, he's been captured by Hunters."

Hiccup rolled his eyes at the twins and then turned to Astrid and Fishlegs and said, "I'll give him five more minutes and then I'm going to go look for him."

"You don't have to," said Tuffnut, "Here he comes now."

Everyone looked up and saw Hookfang land outside the clubhouse. Snotlout dismounted the dragon and walked over to his friends, still clutching his arm. Hiccup noticed the scared look on his face and became concerned.

"Snotlout, what's wrong?" Hiccup asked, "Did you see something on patrol?"

Snotlout nodded his head, too freaked out to talk.

"What was it?" Fishlegs asked, "Hunters? Trapped dragons? Viggo?"

Suddenly, Tuffnut appeared next to Fishlegs and said, "Oh! I love this game! Okay, now it's my turn, everyone quiet. Snotlout, is what you found bigger than a yak box?"

Snotlout walked to the opposite side of the room and said, "I found a boat. I think it was a fishing boat."

"I'm supposed to guess before tell me. Doesn't anyone know how to play this game?" Tuffnut whined. And then he smirked at his sister and said, "But just for the record, a boat is bigger than a yak box. So, I'll just score this one win for the old T-nut. Scratch one-off in the Tuff...nut... column."

Tuffnut slowed down as he realized that Snotlout still had his back to everyone else. It was also not hard to tell that he was still pretty freaked out instead of being annoyed with him like usual; this was not typical behavior for Snotlout.

"That boat was just drifting out there," Snotlout explained, "Hookfang and I went to take a closer look. At first we didn't find anything, but I looked inside... I found... I found... Oh gods."

Astrid could see that he was bothered by something, but they had to know what happened.

"What was it?" Astrid asked, "What did you find?"

Snotlout was silent for a moment and and then he slowly turned to face his friends and said, "Bodies. Dead bodies. It was the freakiest thing I've ever seen. We got out of there as fast as we could."

Hiccup noticed that Snotlout had taken his hand off his arm and saw four scratches. "What happened to your arm?" Hiccup asked.

"This?" Snotlout asked, looking at his scratches, "A guy from the boat grabbed my arm and scratched it with his nails."

"Wait. There was a survivor?" Fishlegs asked, "Shouldn't we go get him?"

"It's already too late," said Snotlout, "By the looks of it, it was too late before I got there."

"Oh," said Fishlegs, feeling bad about what happened, "Well, you should let us clean and bandage your arm. It might get infected."

"Okay," said Snotlout.

Fishlegs led Snotlout over to the table and then grabbed his med kit. Fishlegs proceeded to clean up Snotlout's scratches and then wrapped a bandage around his arm. Once he was done, Fishlegs advised him to not get it wet for the next few days.

Hiccup sat down next to his cousin and asked, "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Snotlout. He let out a sigh and added, "I just wanna forget the whole thing."

"Okay," said Hiccup, "We don't have to talk about it anymore."

Snotlout then smiled at Hiccup and said, "So, did Astrid seem worried about me?"

Hiccup smiled as he rolled his eyes at Snotlout. As annoying as he can be, it was good to know that the experience with the boat did not change his cousin's attitude. If only he knew what was to come. For within his very blood stream was... The Scourge of Odin.

Author's Note: So, what do you think? Good set up, right? I may have made Spitelout seem like more of a jerk than necessary, but as I was writing, it just felt like the right way to go for the flashback. Like I said, be honest.