Hiccup groaned a little as he started to wake up from his peaceful night's slumber only to be fully awakened at the prodding and growling of his Night Fury.

"Ok, Ok bud I'm up!" He said pushing the snout of the muscular dragon off his face, "It can't be time for our morning flight yet." He said looking out the window at the top of his room but the sun was already up and the sound of the morning activities were already under way.

He opened the door to look out on Berk as the shadows of the sunrise lingered in the streets as the baker's shop was already at work and so was the smithy. Mulch and Bucket were climbing into the ship to set off in search of the day's catch as Toothless brought out the saddle.

"Ok Bud, one quick ride around the island and then we need to get to the academy." Hiccup said as he mounted the saddle and attached the final connecting rod that allowed Toothless to fly, "We're off to investigate those other island's near Breakneck Bog and I'm sure Snotlout would love it if we were late." He finished as he mounted the saddle and Toothless took to the sky.

The feeling of flight never grew old for Hiccup as he looked down into the small village as it disappeared beneath the wings of his ebony dragon. The wind pulled at his hair with every fall and as toothless climbed the slow, melodic, beats of his wings were almost like a lullaby to Hiccup. The island was beautiful this time of year as the spring thaw left only a few clumps of snow around the island and the green grass could already be seen poking through the normally brownish soil.

As they circled back to the side of Berk Hiccup could see Stormfly and Astrid approaching the Academy and from the sound of it the twins were already inside with Barf and Belch. Hiccup let out a sigh, "Come on bud."

He pulled into the arena with a gust as Astrid dismounted and turned to the twins who were busy throwing stuff at each other.

"What are you two doing?" Hiccup asked

"Ruffnut said if you throw a dagger hard enough it will stick into metal so I called her out on it, now we're trying to see if her dagger will stick into my helmet." Tuffnut responded as a knife flew right past him and Hiccup embedding itself into the side of the entrance just as Snotlout entered with Hookfang.

Hookfang looked quickly at the knife then snarled at Ruffnut and Tuffnut who quickly hid their throwing utensils behind their back.

"Well Hiccup nice of you to finally join us!" Snotlout said with a sneer

"Actually I'm pretty sure we were here before you." Astrid remarked placing her hand on her hip

"Oh, please! Hookfang and I were here hours ago we just got tired of waiting and went for a ride." Snotlout said with confidence as Hookfang shook his head and went to join the other dragons.

"I'm sure that's what it is." Astrid said sarcastically turning to the other riders who were present

"Well everyone's here," Hiccup started, "Everyone except..." he continued looking around

"Whoa, hold on,... just a little to the left!" Came the voice of Fishlegs as he and Meatlug came around the corner and landed in the center of the arena. "There you go girl!" He said getting off and chucking a rock into the overlarge mouth of the Gronkle, "So guy's, what'd I miss?"

"Nothing yet." Hiccup stated as he pulled a barrel to the center of the ring and places a small map on it, "For today I promised my father to go and check out the islands surrounding Breakneck Bog." Hiccup said gesturing to a group of islands on the map that looked like a hand.

"What! Not Breakneck Bog!" Fishlegs said backing up in fear, "Hiccup don't you remember the Smothering Smokebreath's and what they did to Berk?"

"That's precisely why we need to go to the other islands." Astrid chimed in, "Daguur knows that we can outsmart him if he tries to use the Smokebreath's against us again but we don't know if there are other dragon's in the area that might be more dangerous."

"Astrid's right. These islands are mostly unexplored, who knows what kind of new dragon's could be there." Hiccup finished

"Well hopefully they're ready for Hookfang and I! I'd like to see one dragon try to defeat us! Right Hookfang?" Snotlout said hitting his dragon in the shoulder. Before anyone could stop him Hookfang had Snotlout in his mouth shaking him wildly back and forth.

Hiccup sighed, "Can one of you get him out we need to be leaving if we're going to reach the islands before noon."

"I'll do it!" Tuffnut said turning to the Monstrous Nightmare, "Last time Ruffnut did it and got a cut, now I want one too!"

Everyone shook their head and turned back to the map as they spoke Tuffnut could be heard in the background, "Yes! I betcha mine's bigger!"

"Now to save time we're going to split up the four remaining Islands. I'll start with the one closest to Breakneck Bog and Astrid, you take the one next to that." Hiccup started as the other three came and looked at the map, "Snotlout you take the third island and Fishlegs you take the pinky."

"What about us?" Tuffnut asked

"Yeah what are we gonna do?" Ruffnut continued

"I need you two to go back to Breakneck Bog and see if there isn't anything we may have missed when we were there last." Hiccup said gesturing the the thumb of the islands.

"What and deal with those annoying Smokebreath's again! No way!" Tuffnut said and Ruffnut shook her head in agreement.

"Well Hiccup I guess you were right." Astrid said with a smile

"Right about what?" Hiccup asked confused

"You know... When you said the twins could be out annoyed by the Smokebreaths. It does seem like the Smokebreaths are more annoying than the twins ever were." She said with a smile

"Wha, Wait!? You said that?" Tuffnut said looking at Hiccup

"How dare you! Everyone knows we're the most annoying ones here!" Ruffnut said pushing her finger into Hiccup's chest as he backed away

"Yeah just wait till those little dragon's get a load of us! They'll be so annoyed they'll probably give us metal just to get out of their hair!" Tuffnut said

"Pbbt! Dragon's don't have hair!" Snotlout chortled

"Huh!? Well if they did they'd probably give that to us too." Tuffnut said as he and his sister mounted the Zippleback.

"Is everyone clear on what we're doing?" Hiccup asked mounting Toothless

"I'm not!" Fishlegs said nervously from the back of Meatlug but no one paid attention as Hiccup and Toothless ran out of the gate and took to the sky.

Soon the group was on it's way to the Finger Islands as they had started to call the cluster. The sun was high and the water clear it was a good day to fly. They all waved to Mulch and Bucket as they passed the final stone pier that marked the edge of Berk's waters.

It wasn't too long before the Finger Islands became visible on the horizon and the group started to split up.

"I have a really bad feeling about this!" Fishlegs stated as he turned towards the last island.

"Those Smokebreaths won't know what hit em!" Tuffnut said rolling down towards Breakneck Bog.

Soon it was just Hiccup and Astrid as they flew over their respective islands.

"Hiccup!" Astrid called out as she flew towards the far end of her island, "Please, be careful!"

"I will!" He called back as she disappeared in the distance, "Alright bud it's just you and me." He said and Toothless growled an acknowledgment as he dove towards the center of the island.

They landed in the shade of a small forest as the face of the giant mountains blocked the sun, bathing everything in a dull shadow. The vegetation was thick for a while but soon it opened up to a large field with grass everywhere high enough to cover Toothless. As they walked the dragon would poke his head up out of the grass every once and a while to see where he was going.

It wasn't too long before the grass gave way to a strange formation that comprised of igneous rocks with steam shooting out every so often. As Toothless stepped a foot outside of the grass his ears dropped back and his eyes narrowed as he let out a low growl and backed into the grass line.

"What is it bud?" Hiccup asked as the dragon backed farther into the grass, "Ok I'll just take a quick look around then we'll go, alright?"

Toothless shook his head and got in front of Hiccup, he turned his head slightly and growled behind him as the vapors formed a thin cloud around the landscape.

"Don't worry bud if I get in trouble I'll call for you." Hiccup said trying to get around Toothless but Toothless put himself back in the way, "Fine I'll... Oh hey Astrid!" Hiccup waved, Toothless turned for a second and turned back only to see that Hiccup was gone.

Toothless roared into the mist but backed up next to the grass and perked up his ears.

Hiccup found himself in a strange world of smells and sights as charred trees were intermittent with patches of green grass and flowers. The stench of rotting fish was in the air and Hiccup coughed as the vapors of the igneous mist burned his nose.

Suddenly a pattering of feet broke the silence. Hiccup turned quickly but couldn't see anything.

"Hello!" Hiccup called but nothing answered.

A flop behind him caused him to turn around and look as a small black object now adorned the ground. He looked closer and touched it only to find it was a bird. It was perfectly healthy as far as Hiccup could tell except for the fact that every once and a while it would twitch and flap uncontrollably. He heard a clicking noise and stood up quickly and looked into the mist to see he was surrounded on all sides by strange shapes in the mist.

"Who are you!?" Hiccup called out and pulled out his dagger.

A few more clicks and the shapes started to move in. Hiccup brandished his dagger menacingly as a ray of sun finally peaked through a crevice in the mountain and lit up the ground. Before him were about five small dragons that he'd never seen before.

They had a strange water-like quality with teeth that were rounded and a coral-like head. They had two legs that were very close to their head and after that a long tail that dragged along the ground. Their wings were also very rounded at the fingers and they seemed to shine with a moistened coat of scales that was a vibrant blue on top and led to a dingy green on bottom.

They came out growling a low dog-like growl to which Hiccup just put down his dagger slowly, "Well hey there little guy, don't worry I'm not gonna hurt you." He said as three of the foremost dragons watched him put down the blade.

The dragons hesitated not knowing what was going on, "That's okay, I'm here to help." Hiccup said reaching out slowly to the middle dragon. The dragon looked around confused, "That's right..." Hiccup said as his hand got closer to the little dragon.

Suddenly the dragon snapped at Hiccup's hand which caused Hiccup to back up quickly. Suddenly all the dragons on every side started to close in and jump and yip, "Oookayy this isn't working!" Hiccup said and put his hand to the side of his mouth and let out a call for Toothless. Just as he did a dragon that was hanging on a tree next to him opened it's mouth and shot a deep blue liquid at Hiccup that got in his eyes and immediately started to burn.

Just then a shot of plasma hit the ground on both sides of Hiccup as through the mist Toothless ran. Hiccup reached out through his blurred vision and his world took a quick spin before everything cleared up. He grabbed Toothless' saddle and the both of them took to the sky.

It wasn't long before Astrid and the other's showed up.

"Hiccup what's wrong we heard your dragon call!" Astrid asked concerned

"There was this... new dragon down there and it got... something in my eyes." Hiccup explained

"That's not good!" Fishlegs blurted out, "We have no idea what that stuff can do we need to try and wash it out!"

"I'm fine! I think it only effects small animals, my vision got blurry for a moment but I can see fine now." Hiccup said slightly annoyed

"Either way we should head back to Berk, we can investigate more tomorrow." Astrid said and Hiccup nodded his agreement.

"Wake up!"

"What?" Hiccup asked

"I said we need to wake up early tomorrow I don't want to be at these islands after dark." Fishlegs quivered

"Yeah me neither." Hiccup concluded

That night Hiccup's mind was full of nightmares as visions of those dragons and the burning in his eyes kept coming back to haunt him. By the time morning came he was more exhausted than he was when he went to bed.

"Morning Dad!" He yawned as Stoick prodded a dying fire.

"Mornin' son." He said cheerfully

"Where's toothless?" Hiccup asked looking around

"Toothless was out bothering Bucket and Mulch for some fish the last time I saw him." Stoick said getting up from the fire and going to the door.

"Oh good, I need to get to the Academy and meet up with Astrid and the others to finish our investigation of the Finger Islands." Hiccup said

"Well make sure that you're home before supper and... wait who were you meetin'?" Stoick asked

"You know Astrid, Snotlout, the twins..." Hiccup responded with a shrug

"I know Snotlout and the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut but... who's Astrid?"

Part 1 of 3 I hope everyone is interested. I am still working on my Treasure Planet Fanfic but I have been so busy lately that it's been nearly impossible for me to write on it. So I am writing this little episode of Dragons (My all time favorite movie and TV series) when I don't have time to do anything else. I know it seems contradictory but for some reason certain ideas will flow and allow me to write a lot in a short time whereas I often have to work harder for my other stories. Keep reading and enjoying.

Ultima S. Next Part 2