Several months later
It was early one Autumn morning just before the sun was about to come up. Everyone in the village began to stir awake to the sound of livestock moaning and rustling in the sheep and yak fields.
When Hiccup awoke to the noise, she jumped out of bed and ran for the door, knowing what was happening. Just as she opened the door, she was greeted with a Monstrous Nightmare that sent a fireball in her direction. She immediately slammed the door shut to hide from the fire as she said to herself "Dragons." Once the fire stopped sleeping through the gaps in the door, she exited her house and ran for the forge.
The whole village was abuzz with vikings bursting out of their homes with swords, axes, hammers and spears in hand. Hiccup ran and weaved her way from her house, down the hill, through the village as she made her way to the forge.
"Mornin' Hiccup." "What are you doing here?" "Get inside!" some vikings were saying or shouting to her as she ran past them.
Hiccup maneuvered her way past the mass of vikings and dragons with fire raining from the night sky until she turned one corner and walked face first into her dad.
"Hiccup?! What is she doing out aga-?! What are you doing out?! Get inside!" he said as he pushed her off towards the safety of the forge.
As Hiccup ran for the forge, Stoick turned to his cousin Spitelout and questioned "What have we got?"
Spitelout looked up to the mass of dragons above as he replied "Gronckles, Nadders, Zipplebacks. Oh, and Hoark saw a pair of Monstrous Nightmares."
"Any Night Furies?" Stoick asked worryingly.
"None so far." Spitelout answered.
"Good. What about that Wraith?"
"Nothing ye... Ahh, here it comes." he said as he saw the familiar blue glow of the Wraith in the sky as it approached the village.
Hiccup eventually reached the forge where she was greeted by Gobber who was interchanging his arm. "Ah! Nice of you to join the party! I thought you'd been carried off!"
"Who me? Nah, come on! I'm waaaay too muscular for their taste. They wouldn't know what to do with all this." Hiccup replied sarcastically with a grin as she put on her apron and prepared the fire.
"Well, they need toothpicks, don't they?" he joked as he handed her a sword to sharpen and rebalance.
Meanwhile outside, Stoick was planning what to do as he watched the dragons swarm above him. "We move to the lower defenses. We'll counter-attack with the catapults." he ordered to a group of men as they began to run for the catapult.
As they were moving, several dragons swooped down and set fire to some of the houses. "FIRE!" one viking yelled.
The forge became quite for a moment an Hiccup took the opportunity to look outside at the commotion. She saw all the vikings running up and down as they tried to fight the swarm above them. She also saw the buildings that were set alight which were being put out by Fishlegs, Snotlout, the twins and Andor.
While Hiccup was watching, she was abruptly pulled back by Gobber and pushed back to the fire pit. "Oh, come on. Let me out, please? I need to make my mark!" she protested.
"Oh, you've made plenty of marks. All in the wrong places." he said as he handed some swords out to the vikings by the window.
"Please, two minutes. I'll kill a dragon. My life will get infinitely better. My dad might even say 'Good job'." She pleaded.
As much as Gobber admired her tenacity, he knew that she wouldn't last out there. "You can't lift a hammer, you can't swing an axe, you can't even throw one of these!" he said while holding up a bola that got snatched by another viking.
Hiccup walked over to the other side of the forge, gesturing to her latest invention as she confidently replied "Okay, fine, but this will throw it for me." However as she nudged it, it fired its bola right into the face of the next customer.
"See, now this right here is what I'm talking about!" Gobber said as he began to grow frustrated. Hiccup quickly closed the blow launcher and locked it as she apologetically said "Mild calibration issue-"
"Don't you- no- Hiccup. If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all... this." Gobber said as he pulled her away from the launcher and gestured to her.
"But you just pointed to all of me!" Hiccup replied blandly. "Yes! That's it! Stop being all of you!" Gobber returned.
Hiccup was getting annoyed herself now. All she wanted to do was help out and prove herself to her father that she could do good. "You, sir, are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much, raw... Vikingness contained? THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES!" she protested.
"I'll take my chances. Sword. Sharpen. Now." Gobber said in a dead expression and voice. Knowing that the argument wasn't going anywhere, Hiccup grabbed the blade and took it over to the sharpening stone.
Meanwhile outside, Stoick was with a team of men on one of the main catapults. "FIRE!" Stoick ordered. The catapult released of load and brought down one of the gronckles.
The gronckle landed in the village stress and tried to get back up but was still in view of the catapult crew. Stoick ordered them to fire again and they did so but just as the boulder was halfway towards the injured dragon, a blue blur streaked past it, turning the boulder to dust with a blueish-purple explosion.
Stoick watched as the gronckle was bought enough time to escape and the Wraith hovered steadily over the village, watching the catapult crew. "FIRE AGAIN!" Stoick ordered, hoping to try bring down the Wraith.
The main catapult released yet another round that headed straight for the Wraith, with said dragon not budging an inch. As the boulder approached, Stoick watched as it reached for the side of its left arm and revealing a sword not a moment later. It was still rumoured that this Wraith had a sword but most people could never tell. The Wraith never landed much and even if it did, it was simply too fast and had too bright a glow for anyone to see anything. In one stroke, the boulder was cut cleanly into two pieces. With one final glare between Stoick and the Wraith, the glowing fear-class dragon continued on with its interventions around the village.
Stoick's attention was pulled away from the Wraith and towards the side of the tower. He saw how the side of the tower was being set alight with a Monstrous Nightmare emerging a moment later.
"Reload! I'll take care of this." Stoick said as he pulled out his hammer and attacked the Nightmare. He hit the dragon over its head repeatedly whilst the stoker tried to snap at the chief with its powerful jaws.
The Nightmare eventually jumped off the side of the tower and flew away but not because of Stoick's efforts. It was because of an approaching high pitched siren roar that was getting louder and louder.
"NIGHT FURY! GET DOWN!" some vikings in the village shouted.
Stoick knew exactly what the Night Fury was going to attack. "JUMP!" he ordered with the catapult exploding barely two seconds later. Vikings be can to clear out in the area around the tower as the Fury doubled back and destroyed the entire structure with a second strike.
Meanwhile, back at the forge, Gobber looked outside and could see things were getting bad. With the main catapult gone, the village would need all hands on deck for its defence. "Man the fort, Hiccup, they need me out there!" he said as he attached his axe hand and charged outside. Just as he reached the doorway, he turned back and said to Hiccup "Stay. Put. There. You know what I mean."
She was now alone in the forge. This was exactly what she despised. She was a brilliant smith but she absolutely hated being stuck by the fire pit and sharpening stone just fixing weapons as they came. She wanted to be outside and help fight dragons. Looking back to her bola launcher, she pulled off her apron, grabbed her machine and ran outside.
"Hiccup, where are you going?! Come back here!" the line of vikings outside shouted to her as she ran pas them. "I know. Be right back!" Hiccup shouted back apologetically as she weaved past the mess of villagers and burning buildings.
Reaching the far side of the village and finding a quiet spot on a hilltop, she set up her launcher and scanned the skies for a target. "Come on. Gimme something to shoot at, gimme something to shoot at." she whispered to herself.
Her eyes combed the night sky back and forth until she caught a glimpse of a shadow coming towards her. In quick action, she took aim and pulled the trigger. The mesh of ropes and stones fired with enough force that Hiccup was pushed back from the launcher and onto her back. As she pulled herself up, all she heard was a wailing screech and a shadow falling towards the woods. "Oh, I hit it! YES, I HIT IT! Did anybody see that?" she shouted in excitement only to turn around and find that no viking saw what she had accomplished.
She suddenly heard a loud *crunch* behind her and turned around to see an adolescent Monstrous Nightmare. "Except for you." she said in a low tone as she backed up.
Back in the village, Stoick and a team of men had just finished tying down a group of nadders in a net when a loud scream pulled his attention to the other side of the village where he saw Hiccup trying to outrun a Nightmare. The chief let out a heavy sigh and ran after his daughter. "DO NOT let them escape!" he said to the men as he left them.
The stoker dragon had chased Hiccup across the village and into the central plaza, repeatedly firing it lava at her but missing every time. It eventually got to its final shot and lined up a shot on Hiccup she couldn't dodge. She countered by diving behind one of the plaza torches where she narrowly got away from the lava as it hit the support beam and streamed by her.
For a moment, everything was quiet. All Hiccup could hear was the crackling of burning wood and she felt as though she was alone. That was until she felt a presence to her left and a heavy breathing on her shoulder. She slowly turned her head to the source of the breathing to find the head of the Nightmare looming over her and getting ready to strike. Hiccup dropped to the floor and through her arms up in defense and out of fear but just as the Nightmare leaned down towards her, it received a powerful left hook from Stoick.
The dragon staggered backwards from the force of the punch and readied itself to attack Stoick. However, as it tried to fire its lava at the chief, barely a drop of spit came out. "You're all out." Stoick said as he charged the Nightmare and repeatedly hit it over the head.
Seeing that it was out of options, the stoker dragon took off into the sky. Little did Stoick know, a dark maroon titan-wing Nightmare was coming at him from behind in the sky.
By the time Stoick heard the roar of the Nightmare, the dragon had already landed and swung its large tail at the chief. Stoick wasn't able to get put of the way in time and took the tail to his chest, sending him back several meters and landing on his back.
Hiccup rushed to her dads side and tried to help him get back up but the Nightmare was closing fast and nobody could reach them in time. They thought it was the end until a blue light landed between the dragon and the vikings and gave off a deep growl.
The dragon stopped it charge and eyed the small Wraith in front of it. This was also the first time ever the Vikings had a chance to get a look at the Wraith. They still couldn't make out too many details due to the bright glow, but they could see that it stood on two legs rather than four, had no tail and only two wings instead of four. They also knew that since the day it arrived, it was smaller than the average Wraith. However now that it was standing still, they could see how it was no bigger than a tall teenage boy.
Both the Wraith and the Nightmare exchanged a few growls in dragonese as the Nightmare kept flaming up while the Wraith kept pacing side to side, keeping itself between the dragon and the Haddocks.
However after one growl by the stoker, the Wraith stopped dead in his tracks and started glaring daggers at his rival. 'I don't want to fight you, but I will give you a reason to leave.' Draven quietly thought to himself.
The villagers around the plaza watched as the Wraith did indeed pull out a sword from a protrusion on its left arm and pegged the blade end into the dirt. It then slowly began to walk towards the Nightmare with his wings extended and arms down. The nightmare reacted by unleashing its full load of lava at the Wraith. The smaller fear-class dragon wrapped itself within its wings to protect itself, and six seconds later, the Nightmare was all out of fire.
With the stoker's primary attack gone, the Wraith unwrapped itself from its wings and extending them backwards, revealing the bladed spikes on the ends of his wings. With the Wraith still maintaining its slow casual walk towards its rival, the Nightmare became lost within its rage and darted at its smaller enemy with the intention of crushing it between its powerful jaws.
As the Nightmare was about to clamp down on the strange Wraith, the fear-class dug the blade ends of its wings into the ground for added traction and caught the stoker's jaws, pushing back against it with all its might.
Everyone in the village (mainly Stoick and Hiccup) as well as the dragons flying overhead watched speechless as the Wraith was not only winning the pushing fight, but seemed to be protecting the two vikings behind it.
The struggle continued on for a few more seconds until the Wraith shut the Nightmare's jaws, repositioned itself to get closer to the stoker's eyes, reared it head back and let out a blood freezing, spine chilling, ear piercing roar that sounded like a mix of a banshee-like screech and a deep menacing growl. It was the kind of sound one would only find in one of the deepest pits of hell.
After three seconds of the roar, the Wraith let go of the Nightmare and tossed its head to the side. Lowering itself in defeat as well as shuddering in pure fear, the Nightmare made a hasty retreat, bumping the damaged torch tower in the process.
Seeing it was its time to leave as well, the miniature Wraith quickly secreted a thick black smoke from its body that shrouded the plaza long enough for it to grab its sword and disappear from sight. As soon as the shroud dissipated, everyone heard a crackling noise by the torch tower with it collapsing a second later. The top of the tower broke off and rolled down the village, setting free the group of nadders Stoick had captured earlier and allowing the dragons to escape with their catch.
"Sorry, Dad." Hiccup said apologetically with her head held low in defeat. "Okay, but I hit a Night Fury." she quickly added just before Stoick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off towards the other end of the plaza and towards the house.
"It's not like the last few times, Dad! I mean I really actually hit it! You guys were busy and I had a very clear shot. It went down, just off Raven Point. Let's get a search party out there, before it-" Hiccup pleaded until Stoick stopped her.
"STOP! Just... stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter's almost here and I have an entire village to feed!" he explained in frustration.
"Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don't ya think?" Hiccup joked, referring to the fact that most people around the village were overweight to say the least.
"This isn't a joke, Hiccup! Why can't you follow the simplest orders?" he said to her.
"I can't stop myself. I see a dragon and I have to just... kill it, you know? It's who I am, Dad." Hiccup said back to her father in a mixed apologetic and pleading tone.
Little did they know, 'Hood' was behind a nearby house and was eavesdropping. "You? A dragon killer? I know you too well Hiccup. You won't reduce yourself to a killer like the rest of us." Draven quietly muttered to himself with a slight laugh as he kept himself concealed.
"You are many things, Hiccup. You're smart and a great smith. But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house." Stoick finished as he put a hand on her shoulder. He then turned to Gobber and said in a more harsh tone "Make sure she gets there. I have her mess to clean up."
"Quite the performance."
"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped!"
Hiccup rolled her eyes and tried to ignore Tuffnut's and Snotlout's comments as she replied back plainly "Thank you, thank you. I was trying, so..."
Gobber escorted Hiccup all the way to her home on top of the hill. "I really did hit one." Hiccup muttered in defeat. All she ever wanted was to please her father but that always seemed a near impossible task. "Sure, Hiccup." Gobber uninterestingly replied.
"He never listens." Hiccup commented.
"Well, it runs in the family." Gobber added.
They reached the door where Hiccup chirped "And when he does, it's always with this... disappointed scowl. Like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich." She them put on her father's expression and mockingly continued "Excuse me, barmaid! I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms. Extra guts and glory on the side. This here, this is a talking fish bone!"
"Now, you're thinking about this all wrong. It's not so much what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand." Gobber said as he gestured to her. "Thank you for summing that up." Hiccup replied sarcastically.
"Look, the point is, stop trying so hard to be something yer' not. As your father said, yer' smart, talented not to mention easy on the eyes. You need to stop trying too hard. You just need to be yourself." Gobber said in a reassuring tone of voice.
Hiccup turned and placed a hand on her door to push it open when Gobber added "By the way, I do admire your tenacity. A few years ago, you'd dive under the table at the sight of a Terrible Terror. Nowadays, you charged right through the village without a care as dragons swarmed everywhere."
Hiccup couldn't really care for what the master smith said. For her, she still saw herself as a screw up and couldn't please her father. "I just want to be one of you guys." she answered weakly as she entered her home and shut the door. Gobber let out a deep sigh as he turned and started his way back to the forge.
However inside the house, Hiccup's mind kept racing about the dragon she shot down. 'I still have a chance.' she thought to herself as she grabbed her dagger, sketchbook and bolted out the back door and towards the woods.
So that's the first three chapters. Chapter four will be up this coming Sunday and every other chapter will also be posted every Sunday. Let me know what you guys think so far.