This is Berk. It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing-To-Death. It's situated solidly on the Meridian of Misery.

My village is a military camp. It is, in a word, sturdy. It was never supposed to be a village – and for that matter, it wasn't really supposed to be here – but seven generations ago an army was engaged in a battle, suffered a full-scale defeat, and a battalion got stranded way out here. In the subsequent fight for survival we became farmers, fishermen, and hunters – and the island's resources provided excellently.

The only problems with this new land are the pests.

You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. We have…

DRAGONS.

Most people would have left. Not us. First of all, we couldn't leave because all our transports had been badly damaged (and we still don't have enough of them repaired to evacuate or enough supplies stocked to get anywhere). Second, well…our ancestors had already suffered one crushing defeat at the hands of a human army, and they had no intention of conceding to an army of fire-breathing, hot-blooded reptiles. Yeah, and we of the here and now inherited their stubbornness issues.

My name is Hiccup. Yeah, I know, great name; but, it's not the worst. Some people actually have normal ones here, but there's also a Berkian school of thought that if a child is given a name that sounds like a callsign, they will become great soldiers. Got me who first came up with that, but it was at least three generations ago and maybe more like four.

Hiccup dove out of the burning barracks. Fortunately, only the outside was on fire, so he didn't cause a backdraft when he opened the door. Faceless soldiers in full armor rushed all around him, firing madly at the dragons that were spewing fire back. It was madness; loud madness. He double-checked his headset and tightened the seals – and in that moment of distraction, an explosion threw him over. He went ahead and finished his systems double-check on the ground, praying that no one and nothing would step on him. Only when he was sure he wouldn't lose his equipment in the next shockwave did he scramble back to his feet.

Everyone who was old enough to get outside by themselves had one of those headsets and was expected to wear them under penalty of getting deafened during the raids. They filtered the sounds of battle down to a level safe enough for the human eardrum to take, and also had communications built in that could be activated manually to talk to someone on the other side of town if you had their call signature – or automatically by proximity. For example, every time Hiccup got within ten feet of a soldier and they noticed him, they shouted at him to get back inside without even bothering to touch their headsets or properly identify themselves.

A massive hand snatched him back from a jet of fire. An equally massive voice boomed over the system. "WHAT IS HE DOING OUT AGAIN –" Hiccup was turned to stare into a dark visored helmet. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT? GET INSIDE!" And he staggered as the big man shoved him in the direction of Weapon Management.

That's General Stoik. I guess that would make him the chief, since he's the highest-ranking officer. They say that when he was a baby, he blew a dragon's head clean off its shoulders with a pistol.

Do I believe it?

Yes, I do.

Stoik threw an empty cart at a flying dragon, breaking the cart and staggering the dragon enough to make it drop its load. Sheep are pretty resilient; must be all the wool padding.

"What have we got?" he asked the nearest lieutenant.

"Most of the usual, sir," was the reply. "Gronkles, Nadders, Zipplebacks – oh, and Corporal Hoark saw a Monstrous Nightmare." Then the lieutenant had to duck and cover as a blast of fire hit one of the roofs and scattered shingles everywhere.

The General didn't flinch. "Any Night Furies?" he asked as he flicked a cinder off his shoulder plate.

"None so far, sir."

"Good."

Hiccup slid through the door and past a man who looked like a walking limb-replacement advertisement. The man's voice grated through his headphones.

"Ah, there you are; nice of you to join the party. I thought you'd been carried off."

Hiccup tugged the mouthpiece down from where it had been knocked. "Who, me? No, I'm way too muscular for their taste." With a little effort – all right, a lot of effort – he managed to get a rather large gun back on the wall from where it had fallen in some shake. "They wouldn't know what to do with all…this." He brandished his arms and gestured at his chest. On someone bigger, the gestures might have looked dramatic, or at least significant. On him…

"Well, they need toothpicks, don't they?"

The captain with the hardware limbs and bad attitude is Gobber. Officially retired from active work on account of his injuries, he's in charge of supplying functional weapons and ammunitions to the active soldiers and repairing the damaged ones they give back. I've been assigned as his assistant and a sort of apprentice ever since I was little. Well – littler.

Fire splashed down the wall of a house. Yes, splashed. It seemed that the dragons most commonly found on and around islands had fire-breath that behaved like water or oil. This meant, of course, that water couldn't put their fires out and in fact could often make it worse. It's why buckets of dirt and sand stood at the corner of pretty much every building, and there was a steady demand for waterless fire extinguishers – which was what the fire brigade was carrying towards the burning house just then, to blast the flames with compressed CO2.

The fire brigade was completely armored up, helmets and all. They could only be identified because they were technically the only teenage privates in town this year, and only told apart from a distance by size and shape. Fishlegs Ingerman was the largest private; his bulk caused people to overestimate his age – while his round, rather sweet face caused them to underestimate. Putting the two together pretty much gave people the right answer of fifteen. Snotlout Jorgenson was second-biggest, and had more clearly defined muscles through his suit. The twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston, were a little shorter than Snotlout and much thinner – and were only distinguishable from each other because Ruffnut was getting curvy and Tuffnut had slightly wider shoulders. Both went against regulations and wore their blond hair very long; Ruff braided hers while Tuff let his hang loose.

Then there was Astrid Hofferson. Tall as Snotlout, curvier than Ruffnut and stronger than Tuffnut (without getting bulky in either department), not even dragonfire was hotter than she. Her blonde tresses were just within regulation length, hidden under her helmet in tight braids; her face was hidden by her visor, but Hiccup knew her eyes were vibrant blue and that she always had a self-confident smirk on her lips. He'd had everything about her memorized ever since girls in general started becoming interesting to him, though he'd never yet gotten the courage to speak to her.

Oh, their job is so much cooler.

Hiccup leaned forward as if to climb out the window, only to be fished backward by a metal hook. "Oh, come on – let me out, sir? I need to make my mark!"

"Oh, you've made plenty of marks," Gobber told him, prodding him in the shoulders, "All in the wrong places."

"Please, two minutes, I'll kill a dragon; it'll be worth a promotion, my life will get infinitely better – I might even get a date!"

Gobber shook his head. "By the time a gun has enough force in it to kill any decently-sized dragon, it's too heavy for you to aim and the recoil throws you half a block. You can't even shoot one of these!" and he waved a tangle-field gun just as an incoming sergeant reached in the window after it. Tangle-field guns were mostly good for knocking dragons out of the air, so they could then be killed on the ground.

"Okay, fine – but this will shoot it for me." Hiccup patted the device he'd constructed fondly. It wasn't a new idea (essentially it was a wheelbarrow that opened up into a tripod, upon which a weapon could be placed when it was too heavy to use by hand) but it had mostly gone out of service as the soldiers of Berk became strong enough to just carry the weapons that would mark dragons. Hiccup was too small and light to carry most destructive weapons – as Gobber had just pointed out – so he had to make use of things that others took for granted.

Unfortunately for his appearance of competence, the stand sprang open and flung a tray that had been left on the device. It shot past Gobber and out the open window to rebound off a soldier's helmet.

Gobber wasn't in the mood for anything like this. "Now see, this right here is what I'm talking about!"

Hiccup tried to stand his ground as Gobber advanced on him. "Just a minor calibration issue, sir…"

"Hiccup, if you ever want to get out there and fight dragons, you need to stop all…" Gobber waved his hands at Hiccup and paused, looking for a place to start, and finally just pointed, "This."

"But you just pointed to all of me!" Hiccup protested.

"Yes, that's it! Stop being all of you!"

Hiccup narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Oh…"

Gobber mimicked his expression. "Oh yeah…"

"You sir, are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much…raw…soldier-ness…contained?" Trying to ignore Gobber's expression – which looked suspiciously like a mountain lion watching a house kitten in a tizzy – he held himself as tall as he could and waved a fist in the air. "There will be consequences!"

"I'll take my chances. Gun, repair, now," and he dropped a baby cannon into Hiccup's arms, the weakened spot in the muzzle plainly visible.

Conceding defeat – for now – Hiccup carried the gun to his workplace and got to work on it. Simply patching didn't work, especially not when it was already starting to crack; he had to cut the damaged part out and fit a new piece of metal in its place.

One day I'll get out there. Because killing a dragon is everything on Berk.

All dragons come in four sizes: Tiny-Tooth, Short-Wing, Broad-Wing, and Titan-Wing. Each is twenty times heavier than the size below it, and is sized accordingly; as one might expect, Titan-Wing kills are the most prized. How prized a Titan kill is depends on how common its smaller cousins are – in a sense, how likely it is that one would have had some practice at dealing with it. They have unofficial Greek-letter classification based on status granted.

Delta dragons are the most common in the lower sizes; all are water dragons, always classified as Tidal, and they most often strike at the docks. They stand at one in twelve of the Titan-Wing dragons. Killing one of them is sure to get me at least noticed.

Gamma dragons are slightly less common in the smaller sizes, though they number one in six of the big guys. Half of them are Tidal class and the rest are Tracker or Boulder; Zipplebacks are among these guys. They are twice the status of Delta dragons.

Beta dragons are the most diverse, comprising half of all the known dragons and existing evenly in all four sizes. Nadders and Gronkles are both Beta; taking down either in Titan form will definitely get me a girlfriend.

Then there are the Alpha dragons; only the best soldiers take those on. Like the Gammas, they are one in six; unlike the Gammas, they don't show up at all in Tiny-Tooth or Short-Wing, and rarely in Broad-Wing. I'll have to look this up to be sure, but I think half of them are Stoker-class while the other half are in Strike. Monstrous Nightmares are Alpha, and they seem to know it. Their fire is on the extremely short list of dragon fire that can actually be easily put out by water – which is a good thing, because they have this nasty habit of coating themselves in it when attacking.

But the real prize is a dragon no Berkian has ever seen. We call it the…

"NIGHT FURY!"

There was a battle outside between roaring, flaming dragons and men with firearms; Hiccup was inside a weapons workshop, running a small electrical saw on metal. This should give anyone some idea of how loud this dragon's incoming shriek was, that with all that noise going on he still heard it. He dropped his tools and jumped for the window, and was just in time to see a sentry tower explode.

This thing never steals food, never shows itself, and…NEVER MISSES.

It's the only dragon to earn the status-quo title Omega. No one has EVER brought down a Night Fury.

Which is why I'm going to be the first.

Gobber secured a grenade launcher attachment to his arm. "Man the fort, Hiccup – they need me out there." He hobbled to the door and, as if realizing that his instructions were inadequate, turned around. "Stay. Put. There."

Hiccup stood there at attention, staring blankly back at Gobber as the big man rushed out the door.

Thirty seconds later he was rushing out the door himself, pushing his contraption for all he was worth and dodging soldiers left and right. Getting outside camp, he set up and switched everything on. He also folded his mouthpiece up so he wouldn't be getting his own panting in his ears.

"Come on, come on…give me something to shoot at, give me something to shoot at…"

It was very quiet this far out. Also very dark; he could see every star in the sky. There were only two tracking devices on his tangle-fielder: a heat sensor, and recently the highest-speed motion sensor he could commission. No spotlights or radar; those didn't work to track the Night Fury. It had been tried, but this thing had an instinct for avoiding spotlights and…for some reason, it could slide right through radar without leaving a blip. The ballistic scream confused more than it clarified, only telling someone that it was coming. But if he aimed the tangle-fielder at the apex of the scream…if the motion sensor did what it was supposed to and caught the direction it was coming from…as long as the Night Fury didn't do any weird turns in the air, he would be able to find which direction it was going. And then…

The shriek picked up.

Hiccup aimed at the tallest thing in his immediate area, which was a surveyor's platform. If it came this way, it would aim for that. The heat sensor started flashing, slowly at first and then more rapidly. It wasn't displaying a dragon, exactly; more like a ball of fire that might have wings. That was the only look anyone had ever had of the Night Fury: what it looked like on a heat sensor right before it…

The surveyor's platform exploded.

The heat sensor fritzed out, but the motion sensor had collected enough information to provide a possible trajectory. Hiccup swung the fielder in the indicated direction and pulled the trigger. Then he fell off the tripod as the recoil kicked him in the chest. It always kicked him when he tried this; his weapon could shoot nets heavy enough to pin a Titan-Wing. At least he'd finally calibrated the tripod enough that the aim wasn't thrown off by the recoil.

A metal net spun into the sky, glinting in the light of the flames. Hiccup sprang to his feet and watched it fly expectantly, manually turning off the filters in his headset – if there was anything to hear, it would be pretty far off.

He didn't see anything…but he heard the familiar sound of cables hitting scales and the unfamiliar sound of a strange roar as its owner plunged into the forest. For a second, he couldn't grasp what happened. Then euphoria hit.

"Wh-I hit it? Yes, I hit it! Did anyone see that?" He looked around, as if hoping to find an audience watching in astonishment.

There was no one there – except for the Monstrous Nightmare that clambered over the cliff and obliterated his weapon by simply stomping on it.

Hiccup slumped as he turned around again. "Except for you," he groaned.

A panicked scream came over the General's headset. He turned away from the Broad-Wing Nadders he'd just netted and saw Hiccup on the run with a very large dragon snapping at his back; with a sigh, he stood up and started on an intercept course.

"Do not let them escape," he shouted over his shoulder.

The Monstrous Nightmare wasn't just snapping; it was breathing fire. Heavy, sticky fire that was almost volcanic, it stuck to everything. Hiccup took refuge behind one of the towers and fire surged around him; fortunately the tower was just wide enough that there was a safe zone his size.

He couldn't hear anything from the dragon. Had it gone away? He slowly leaned out, taking care not to touch the fire, and tried to see if it was safe to come out.

So intent was he on the direction he was going that he didn't notice the massive maw approaching from the other side until Stoik fired several rounds into the dragon's shoulder. Thwarted from its prey, the Nightmare roared defiantly at the general. It tried to breathe fire, but only got a tiny trickle of flame.

"You're all out," General Stoik informed it. Then he rushed, using his empty rifle as a club, and hit the dragon hard enough to make it give up on battle and rush into the sky.

Oh, and there's one more thing you need to know…

The sentry tower collapsed and the top came off, crashing into everything in its path. Hiccup, cringing with every soldier that had to leap out of the way, slowly drew his mouthpiece back down.

"Sorry…Dad."

The tower part crashed right through where the netted Nadders were being held down; the dragons, sensing imminent freedom, made a break for it and were out of sight in a flash. Nor were they the only dragons to fly away – just the only ones that weren't carrying anything. Short-Wings were carrying chickens, Broad-Wings were carrying sheep, and Titan-Wings were hauling yaks. And those were just the ones that had grabbed live food; some had talon-loads of inanimate produce.

Silence reigned in the camp as their departing animals made pathetic cries for help. No one needed to say a word; Hiccup could see just as well as they could whose fault this was. He almost wished that one of those dragons would fly back down and carry him away with the animals.

Finally, as if continuing a conversation that until that point had been telepathic, he spoke.

"Okay, but I hit a Night Fury."

Stoik grabbed his collar and started walking off with him.

"It's not like the last few times, Dad, I mean I really actually hit it! You guys were busy and I had a really clear shot…it went down just off of Raven Point, so we just need to get a search party and…"

Stoik evidently had wanted to have this dressing-down in private, and was frustrated that his own son was determined to talk it out early. He let go of Hiccup's shoulder, opened his visor, and barked out, "ATTENTION, PRIVATE!"

Hiccup straightened up and shut up, glancing around as if looking for someone to support his argument. No one did, of course, and no one would; they never did.

"Winter is almost here and I have an entire regiment to feed – which is hard enough to manage without these cursed dragons carrying off all of our food. And fighting them off is hard enough without you causing disasters every time you step outside! Why can't you follow the simplest of orders?"

Hiccup's hands came up in spite of themselves; despite years of understanding what "at attention" meant, he still tended to wave his hands around when trying to communicate a point. "I can't stop myself, sir! I see a dragon, and I have to just kill it, sir…it's…who I am, sir…" That was lame.

Stoik rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You are many things, Hiccup," he sighed, "But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the barracks." He looked over Hiccup's head. "Make sure he gets there; I have his mess to clean up."

Gobber's hand smacked lightly (for Gobber) into the back of Hiccup's head, and they started for the building.

Most of the fire brigade had shoved their visors up as Hiccup passed them. Ruffnut laughed at him while Tuffnut complimented his "performance" – which wasn't a good thing anyway, since he and his sister both liked it when things broke in the most dramatic way possible.

"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped!" Snotlout proclaimed, waving at the scene of the disaster.

Hiccup shrugged. "Thank you, thank you, I was trying, so…" Behind him, Gobber shoved Snotlout over by his helmet.

Fishlegs didn't have anything to say; if anything, he looked just a little bit sorry. They had been friends once, before he'd gotten so big. Hiccup tried to tell himself that the other boy was working subterfuge, trying to coax the other privates around to a more intellectual way of thinking so that they would better appreciate Hiccup; if that was the plan, it wasn't working very well.

Astrid was silent, too. No telling what she was thinking as she studied the helmet she'd taken off, but she seemed to be disappointed.