I Won This Thing Chapter 1

The Gronckle flew around the perimeter of the training ring, looking for someone to shoot at. It had taken five shots already, and four targets had left the ring in varying stages of shock and pain. The dragon's first shot had been aimed at Astrid and was a total miss. Fishlegs was the first to be ejected, his shield blasted into smoldering fragments. The twins had dodged a shot, but when they came back together to blame each other for almost getting hit, a follow-up shot had hit both their shields at once. Snotlout had tried to jump over a fireball, but it hit at his feet and set his boots on fire. He had hot-footed it out of the ring in record time. The dragon had one shot left.

There were two targets left, Hiccup and Astrid. The crowd was openly rooting for Hiccup, who had somehow become quite successful in the ring. He never struck a dragon with his weapon, but he knocked them out as they came to him. No one quite knew how he did it. He made it look easy; most of the time, he didn't even seem to care. But there was no arguing with results. When he began dragon training, few would have bet a copper on his survival, but now Hiccup was well on the way to winning the grand prize – the chance to kill a Monstrous Nightmare in front of the whole village.

That was intolerable to Astrid. When they started, she was the front-runner; everyone expected her to win. Her chances were snatched away from her by Hiccup, the most unlikely competitor she could have imagined. Now, everyone was talking about Hiccup; everyone in the Great Hall wanted to sit with Hiccup; and unless she could turn this thing around, Hiccup would be the village hero at the end of the day. There was no way this son of a half-troll, rat-eating munge-bucket was going to outdo Astrid Hofferson!

Hiccup had taken cover behind one of the low wooden obstacles that littered the training floor. Astrid dropped next to him, watching the Gronckle flying around the ring. She suddenly realized who she was sitting next to. She angrily shoved his shield to the ground and ordered, "Stay out of my way! I'm winning this thing!"

"Good! Please, by all means," Hiccup stammered as she leaped for a better position. Killing a dragon was the last thing he wanted to do. Well, no; disappointing his father would be really bad, and so would making Astrid mad. He watched her go, then looked up and saw his father watching him. He was struck by an unpleasant thought: whether I win or lose, someone I care about is going to be mad at me today.

Astrid leaped, rolled, and hopped the length of the ring, keeping the fat dragon in sight. It kept circling; it didn't see her. She worked her way back, stopped to catch a quick breath, and said out loud, "This time! This time, for sure!" She leaped over the obstacle, unleashed her battle cry, and hopped over the very last obstacle.

But something went wrong. She never figured out what she did wrong. But her toe caught the obstacle and she fell flat on the stone floor; her axe flew out of her hand and slid away from her.

The sound of the axe hitting the floor distracted the Gronckle, which was headed for Hiccup. It turned and charged at her instead; it meant to bite, not to breathe fire. She scrambled to her feet, leaped across the floor, rolled, and picked up her axe. In her haste, she grabbed the handle wrong; when she swung, she hit the dragon with the flat of the blade instead of the edge. But desperation lent strength to the blow. The Gronckle's eyes rolled back in its head, and it plopped senseless to the ground.

Astrid turned her blade and wound up for a follow-up strike, but it wasn't needed. The dragon was down and the game was over. She'd done it! Hiccup saw it fall and heaved a sigh of relief.

Stoick announced that the Elder had decided who the final winner was. Hiccup tried to sneak out of the ring, as he had so often done. "So... later!" he excused himself. Gobber caught him and held him back. Astrid decided that Hiccup was not leaving early this time; he would stay here and face his failure and her triumph.

"I'm kind of late for –" he again tried to sneak away. She caught him within the points of her axe.

"What?" she asked in a silken voice that signaled danger. "Late for what, exactly?" He didn't get the chance to answer. Gobber stood between them – nervous Hiccup and confident Astrid – and held out his hook-hand over Astrid's head.

The elder smiled and pointed! "You've done it!" Gobber shouted. "You've done it, Astrid! You get to kill the dragon!" Their friends surrounded them and celebrated; the twins did a head-bump that nearly knocked Tuffnut senseless. They raised Astrid up onto Fishlegs' shoulders and paraded her around the ring, to the cheers of the crowd. Hiccup was left standing where he was. He looked up just in time to see his father's back, stalking dejectedly away.

That night, in the Great Hall, everyone wanted to sit near Astrid and tell her how awesome she was. Hiccup wound up in the place he knew so well, eating at a table by himself, alone and unnoticed. "Welcome back to the Land of the Nobodies," he said to the empty seats. "It's like I never even left." At least he now had a friend, a real friend, but he couldn't bring that friend into the Great Hall. His real friend had four legs and scales. His other so-called friends would kill him on sight.

He tried to sneak upstairs to his room afterwards, but his father heard him. "Hiccup, let's talk." Oh, great; this always ends well.

"They told me you were doing so well in the ring! What happened?"

"I don't know, Dad. It was headed right for me, I was all set to take it down, and all of a sudden it turned around and went after Astrid instead."

"Son, the whole time when I was at sea, looking for the dragons' nest, I was thinking about you and hoping you were doing well. When I got back and heard from Gobber that you were winning in dragon training, I could not have been more proud! I only wish..."

Yeah, I know what you wish, Hiccup thought. You wish, for once in your life, you could have seen me do something right. Sorry, Dad, I guess you got the wrong offspring.

"Well, maybe next year," Stoick went on. "You've had a busy day. Go on upstairs."