A/N: OK, want to hear a funny story? I had been working on this story already, and I was perusing FFN when I came upon a story called "Our Parents' War" by icthyosaurus. It displayed the scene below in the most amazing way, and now I feel like a total fail. :/But here it is, and I hope you'll give me your thoughts on it! (BTW, thanks for making those points, systemman. You should review everyone's stories!)

I almost considered skipping class that day. The rain had made it extremely cold and wet. Not the best climate to fight dragons in. But I decided to go anyways.

The kill ring had been entirely transformed into some sort of maze. Wooden walls, at least ten feet high, blocked my view of the other side, and I wondered how long Gobber had been up last night. We stood uncertainly for a moment, peering at our now unfamiliar surroundings. What dragon would we face this time? I glanced sideways at the others, wondering what they were thinking. I noticed that Hiccup looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all last night. But that didn't stop him from being full of excited energy.

"All right!" Gobber spoke from behind, making us jump. "I've got a real treat for you today." What it was, he didn't explain. Instead, he ordered for us to spread out in the seemingly random arrangement of walls. I took a stance at a three way intersection, not a place I could get cornered. Unlike others such as Hiccup, who had stood on front of a wide section of plain wall. He stood directly beneath Gobber, who was standing where he could watch all of us fight. Which brought me back to my present concern: what was I fighting? Nothing too big; we weren't prepared for anything bigger than a Nadder. Which left the Nadder itself, another Gronckle, or a Terrible Terror.

The door to one of the cages creaked open. I tensed, listening as hard as I could. A few drops of rain pattered on my arms.

As hard as I tried to do otherwise, I saw it before I heard it: a large blue dragon, with a frill of spikes and colorful markings on its wings, which were half-furled against its sides. It had blistering orange eyes and a curved nose horn. A Deadly Nadder.

Quick as I could, I ducked behind a wall to remain unseen. Nadders moved fast, much like a bird. A six-foot bird with teeth and fire. I heard a shower of sparks hit wood somewhere off to my right. "Focus, Hiccup!" Gobber yelled. "You're not even trying!" Trying to do what? Stay alive, or kill the Nadder? Probably both.

"Today is all about attack!" Gobber said. "Nadders are quick and light on their feet. Your job is to be quicker and lighter." Quick and light. I could do that. A shadow loomed over the enclosure as the Nadder leaped up onto the top of the maze, squawking. It whipped its tail through the air, and Fishlegs shouted with alarm and fright as the Nadder sprayed foot-long spikes from its tail. Amateurs. With Nadders, it was better to expect the unexpected.

"Look for its blind spot," Gobber called. "Every dragon has one. Find it, hide in it, and strike."

I poked my head around the corner, watching the Nadder confront the twins, who, luckily, were standing in the monster's blind spot, a place directly in front of its nose, if you could believe it. They had found it, and they were hiding in it, but they weren't striking. No, Ruffnut and Tuffnut were fighting again. They yelled loudly enough for the dragon to judge their position, and the Nadder opened its mouth and blasted a column of fire at the twins. Ruffnut yanked her brother out of the way, and they ran out of view as the Nadder looked around for another victim to toast.

"Blind spot, yes," Gobber chuckled. "Deaf spot—eh, not so much."

I crouched, ready as it swung its ugly head back and forth. Snotlout came jogging up the corridor I was in, and he ducked behind his shield as well. I heard Hiccup, yammering to Gobber about Night Furies, coming closer and closer. The Nadder perked upwards, alert and wary.

I glanced behind me, seeing Hiccup come into view. "Hiccup!" I hissed as loud as I dared. "Get down!" Didn't he know a thing about fighting dragons? I watched the Nadder make its steady progress down the aisle we hid in. It paused, cocking its hidden ears. I took the chance to roll across the exposed ground in front of me. I heard Snotlout do the same, and Hiccup as well, but of course he didn't make it. He ended up flat on his back, and with an angry screech, the Nadder charged after him. Hiccup scrambled after us. No! The other way, the other way! I darted down a path Hiccup couldn't follow, and ended up face-to-face with the Nadder again.

Just as I raised my ax, Snotlout pushed me aside. "Watch out, babe, I'll take care of this." He then threw his club at the Nadder, missing it by a good three feet. The Nadder chuckled at his pathetic attempt.

I glared at him, and he whined, "The sun was in my eyes, Astrid!" like it was the most obvious thing, especially when the sky was covered in dark gray clouds. I darted away as the Nadder charged again, thinking, Keep moving, keep moving! The Nadder pursued me and Snotlout as it slammed into walls, knocking them down and creating clouds of dust and debris. It was right on my tail; Snotlout had ran off somewhere else, and it was just me. I leaped up onto the top of a wall, holding on by my fingers, and heaved myself up and over. Hiccup was standing with his back to me, still asking Gobber about Night Furies. He turned as I yelled at him, and amid a cloud of dirt, I fell on top of him as the Nadder knocked over the wall I had been precariously balancing on. There was a loud thud as my ax embedded itself in his shield. When the dust cleared, Tuffnut jeered, "Oooh, love on the battlefield!"

"She could do better," Ruffnut giggled.

With an angry wrench, I pulled myself off of Hiccup and looked around for the Nadder. It threw a wall off of itself with a crash of wood. I gasped, and seized the ax stuck in Hiccup's shield. It would not come out.

The Nadder was coming closer. I yelled, and pulled the whole shield off of Hiccup's arm by bracing myself with a foot against Hiccup's face. Just as the Nadder pounced, I swung the shield at its face. The shield exploded in shards; the Nadder stumbled off, shaking its head. I stood there, just as stunned as the dragon. I had a chance to kill a dragon and I missed it. All because of Hiccup.

I whirled around, furious. Hiccup was on the ground, with his arms over his head. "Is this some kind of a joke to you?" I snapped, feeling every word fall with the force of a war hammer. "Our parents' war is about to become ours. Figure out which side you're on."

I didn't see Hiccup for the rest of the day, which was good. I didn't want to see his face again for a long time. Though, after a while, I did feel a little bit sorry for yelling at him. But he deserved it. He just needed to wake up and face the reality of what we were doing. I shook my head in disgust as I ascended the spiral platform that led up to the tower where we ate. Sometimes Hiccup treated dragons like they were his best pals or something. I saw him cringe a bit when we talked about the most efficient way to gut a Gronckle, or how best to take down a Monstrous Nightmare. Hiccup really needed to grow a backbone if he was to be a Viking.

Tonight, dinner was a few whole chickens that we had cooked up from our meager stock. A few of us had some leftover fish, though, because the chicken was tough and tasteless. And fish was just healthier than the chicken. Gobber was in the middle of telling the story of how he lost his missing limbs.

"…he was enormous, had to have been twenty feet. And a very unusual color; gold, if memory serves." I sat down at the end of the semi-circle, taking a fish as I went. "It was a nasty battle, one in which he lost a leg." Gobber chuckled. "Oh-ho-ho, but when I took it, he was furious, he was. He darted forward, faster than I could blink, and with one twist, he bit off my hand and swallowed it whole!"

The teens around the fire broke out in a chorus of "Whoa!"s.

Gobber continued. "I could see the look in his face. I was delicious. He must have spread the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg." He held out his stump of a foot, with a wooden peg-leg attached to it by rope.

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon?" Fishlegs said excitedly. "Like if your mind was still in control of it? You could have killed him from the inside, by, like, crushing his heart or something."

Yep, that was Fishlegs. Always thinking about the impossible.

Snotlout growled. "I swear, I'm so angry right now! I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight." He shook the chicken leg he had on a stick. "With my face."

Gobber held up a finger, swallowing a mouthful of meat he had finished with. "No, no it's the wings and the tails you want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

Hiccup sat up a little straighter at Gobber's words. It was impossible to read his expression, a first for me. Was it concern? Surprise? I couldn't tell.

I looked away from Hiccup as Gobber stood up and yawned. "I'm off to bed," he said in his rough brogue. "You should be, too. Tomorrow, we get to the big boys, slowly but surely making our way up to the Monstrous Nightmare." Everyone got tense and excited then, eyes bright with firelight, leaning forward in their seats. "But who will have the honor of killing it?"

Tuffnut leaned back in his seat. "It's gonna be me. It's my destiny. See?"

My eyes wandered over to Hiccup again, and I was surprised to see that he was gone, the fish-on-a-stick he had cooked rocking on his log, steaming in the cool air. I heard footsteps on the boards leading downwards. Moving over to the edge, I saw him clomping down the steps, disappearing into the dark. I hesitated, then returned to the fire, deciding it wasn't worth it to follow him. I had given up on deciphering his weird ways.

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