Hiccup awoke to the roaring of engines from outside, the city of San Fransokyo buzzing in the morning. He sat up in Tadashi's bed, the blanket still laid across the bed perfectly, but wrinkles gave away the spot on the bed he slept on. One of the pillows had ended up on the floor, which he picked up and set back on the bed neatly.

As Hiccup spent a quick minute or two making the bed, Hiro also sat up. It was Sunday, meaning there would be no classes for the day—just a free day of flying around the city.

"Let's go get Toothless," says Hiro. Hiccup rushed down the stairs, and Hiro followed. Cass was already working for the morning in the café.

"Morning, Aunt Cass," says Hiro as she passed by.

"Morning," she responds hastily, moving onto the next customer. "Is this the guy from university you were talking about?"

"Yep. This is Hiccup," says Hiro. "Hiccup, this is Aunt Cass."

"Nice to meet you ma'am," Hiccup says, holding out his hand. Cass took his hand, and the two of them exchanged a handshake—at least Cass wasn't at the slightest bit querulous about having an unknown guest sleep in her home for the night.

"Okay, so you two have met now, and that's great!" exclaims Hiro, looking for the quickest path out of the conversation just to reach the garage and get Toothless. "So, I've got to head back to university and work, because we can't really finish the project here. We've still got hours to go, also."

"Oh, okay." Cass moved on to the next customer.

The two of them turned away and headed to the garage, finding Toothless taking up a good amount of the space. His head perked up when the two entered, and he swiftly pounced Hiccup, giving him another wet lick on the face.

"Okay, okay, bud, it's good to see you too," says Hiccup, pushing himself up.

Hiro proceeded to open the garage, and Hiccup mounted Toothless. Hiro took a seat behind them, and soon they were soaring at breakneck speeds through the city. They flew so low that Hiro could have sworn Toothless's prosthetic grazed a building, but it kept functioning—it hit nothing.

"So you want to go to university, academy, whatever you told me to call SFIT?" asks Hiccup, his voice nearly raised to a shout.

"Yeah. I'll contact the others just to let them know I'm there," answers Hiro with a voice at a similar volume. They felt like they were screaming at the top of their lungs, and they could barely hear each other.

Hiccup and Toothless decided not to add any flair to the flight—not with Hiro onboard without any restraints. They could save all the tricky maneuvers for later, when there are more opportunities in the central business district.

They pulled up, and suddenly the flight became less nauseating. They reached a stable altitude, one well above the buildings in the city, and one where they could directly fly to the institute. Unlike the Lucky Cat Café, the institute stood out like a tower erected in the middle of nowhere.

When they landed outside the lab, Hiro rushed into the building and sprinted straight for his computer. Hiccup took a bit more of his time, and he decided to bring Toothless along with him into the building, thinking that all the others' projects would be turned off for now.

Once Hiro reached the lab, he was quite shocked to see Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and GoGo all inside, working on each of their respective projects. He assumed Fred was also around, being the school mascot.

"Oh! Hey, guys! I didn't really expect you to be here already!" says Hiro, heading to his lab. "I was actually going to contact you guys and tell you to come here, but since you're already here, I guess I don't have to do that!"

When Hiccup reached the lab, he was also quite shocked to see the others working. Seeing Hiro at the back of the room and heading to his lab, he decided to rush through the room, watching out for any equipment, especially Wasabi's laser induced plasma.

The closest they got to any of the other three's experiments was a few feet from GoGo's bike. Hiccup and Toothless entered Hiro's lab to find him activating Baymax.

The white robot came out of the case and inflated himself, growing up to the same height Hiccup last saw him at, towering over all of them. Baymax stepped out of his charging station, and right away, Hiro began suiting him with his armor.

Then they all left the building, spending almost the entire day out and about in the city. Though the city had adapted to continuous sightings of the six, they had not grown used to seeing Hiccup and Toothless flying around with them.

Throughout the day, they didn't seem to find much crime. The only thing that was even worth noting was someone dressed up as a bird and dumping a whole bucket of an odd mixture onto someone's car—an obvious prankster is obvious. Everyone got their fair share of laughs, except the owner of the car, of course.

As the sun was about to set, the eight of them all returned to the university after a restless day out in the city. Hiccup and Hiro took Toothless back to the Lucky Cat Café, and Hiro managed to sway her into letting Hiccup stay again.

Time continued to fly, and soon several weeks had passed. Hiccup, though he would never even think of forgetting his old life at Berk, continued to learn about all the city had to offer, starting from the most basic things.


Back in Berk, business continued as usual, though there was a tension in the air, now that the chief hadn't been seen in several weeks. They had just lost a chief a few months ago, and nobody knew what it would be like should they lose another one with no proper heir. The one question that everyone asked themselves was: Who would be the new chief if Hiccup doesn't return?

Astrid, Gobber, Valka, Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins all met up in the great hall during dinner. Gobber had called the meeting, telling them it was nothing but planning for a search for their lost chief.

"So, Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruff, Tuff, you five can go searching for Hiccup. But until then, someone has to take over temporarily," says Gobber.

"You," says Astrid. "Because you're someone the entire village would trust, being Stoick's right-hand man and Hiccup's 'advisor,' as some would call it. I would not trust Spitelout running this place."

She ignored the stare Snotlout shot at her.

Gobber bit his lip, sending the clear message that he didn't want to run the village—he didn't even know how long it would be until Hiccup arrives back on the island, or if he could even come back at all!

But he obliged. "Fine. You kids can leave at dawn and begin searching."

They split from there. Astrid went back to her house and started preparing for a lengthy search, packing up enough food to last them a whole day, while the others hung around for a few more minutes to finish their meals.


Hiccup lay on Tadashi's bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about how he hadn't seen any of his friends, other than Toothless, in weeks. He had learned a few basic things about the technology that was present in the city, such as how to simply operate a computer.

During his few weeks in San Fransokyo, Hiccup had never come across the slums where illegal bot fights often took place, as Hiro had tried to keep him away from that section of the city. He didn't even think of holding back the truth about the bot fights from him, but as far as Hiro knew, they were still overrun by gangs and thugs.

Searching for a way to remind himself of Berk, he tore a piece of notebook paper out of one of Hiro's journals and took a pencil, placing the tip near the paper. One motion, one click in his mind was all it took, and soon his hand was flying all over the paper.

Once he was out of room on the first one, he tore out another piece, and then another, and another. The pencil became quite dull several times, which Hiccup had to resolve every few minutes using a pencil sharpener, one of the things he had learned to use.

After only about a minute, his hand started to ache, but the fought past the throbbing and kept on drawing, the quality not diminishing even the slightest bit as he moved on.

By the time the whole pencil had gone from basically brand new to nothing but a little stud that would probably break the sharpener if he tried to sharpen it again, Hiccup marveled at all the things he had just drawn. A map of the archipelago. Sketches of several dragons from the Book of Dragons, including Screaming Death and Bewilderbeast. Sketches of many of those who reigned from Berk and other nearby islands—Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruff and Tuff, Gobber, Valka, Alvin, Mildew, Savage, Stoick…

Hiccup crumpled up the lower quality drawings and tossed them in a bin, leaving the rest of them on the desk.

He stood up and nonchalantly trotted down the stairs, reaching the verge of tripping at least twice before catching himself on the railing each time. When he reached the café, he found Cass there. "Hey, Cass, I think I'm going to go for a quick walk," says Hiccup.

"Mm-kay," Cass replies, too occupied with those beside her.

Hiccup navigated his way to the garage and opened the door, expecting to find his dragon there waiting for him.

But what he found was nothing but an open space, and the garage was open, revealing the streets outside. There was no trail.

His eyes widened, and his heart rate shot straight up as he began to panic, hoping he was only dreaming. He pinched himself in the arm once, twice, thrice, for good measure, only to find he wasn't waking up—this is definitely real.

Knowing where Hiro would be at this time of the day, he rushed out of the garage and took off toward SFIT. He's never gone on foot to the institute, so he did his best to try to trace the path he took on Toothless—he was lucky that he didn't always travel in a straight line.

Once he reached the robotics lab, he barged straight in and found everyone working, and Hiro in his own lab. Hiccup's legs—or leg—felt like it could collapse under his weight, and he felt short of breath, so he had to stop for a few seconds and slow down as he made his way across to Hiro's lab.

"Hiccup!" Hiro noticed him right when he entered. "Did you not take Toothless here?"

Hiccup snapped his fingers and leaned against the doorway, breathing heavily. "No. I came here because I thought you might have an idea of where he is. I went to the garage, and he wasn't there!"

"Oh no." Hiro bit his lip. "This can't be good."


"All set?" Astrid calls out to everyone, seeing that everyone was present—Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, everyone was there, and Hiccup's absence still made them uncomfortable, even after weeks.

"All set!" Snotlout announces, and then they all took off, away from the island.

"First place we want to go to, Outcast Island," says Fishlegs.

They turned in that direction. Eventually, after about half an hour of flying, a large island came into view. It looked like a desolate island, like it was uninhabitable by humans, with a darkened landscape. Dead trees were scattered around the island. But looking closer, they could actually see several structures on the ground. Although they haven't been there in a while, they knew they had reached their destination.

Outcast Island.

It was teeming with dragons, though no one could tell whether they were wild or trained—they decided that they would treat them like wild dragons should an of them get close just to be safe, as no one knew what Alvin could have done to his island in the past few years.

Spotting Alvin and Mildew near the island's highest point, they landed right behind them, much to Mildew's dismay. Alvin turned around and nodded.

"I haven't seen you five in years!" he exclaims in greeting, but half-sneering in the process. "So, how's life been on Berk?"

"It's fine, I guess?" Astrid answers uncomfortably. "Okay, not really. Hiccup and Toothless have been gone for weeks now and we have nothing that could lead us to where he went. Since you're the closest to Berk, we decided to come here and see if you've got any leads. And honestly, we don't really want to visit the Berserkers right now."

Alvin shook his head. "I've got nothing, but I do remember seeing a slight distortion in the night sky a few weeks back, and it might have been Hiccup and Toothless, but now that I'm thinking back to it, I highly doubt it."

"Well, it's something. It'll help to know which way it went."

Alvin pointed in a certain direction. "I believe it went that way," he says.

"Okay. That's all we need for now. We'll tell you if we find anything." Astrid mounted Stormfly again, and the group took off in the direction Alvin pointed in.

"So how exactly do you plan to find anything going in this direction?" asks Fishlegs. "There are hundreds of islands, and who knows if there's a cave or something on any of them that they could be staying in? Maybe Toothless's tail broke, and now they can be stuck on any island."

Astrid led them lower to the water. "Then look around for anything floating in the water."

They continued on for a few more hours, dodging several islands along the way. They only spent about a minute on each island looking for caves before moving on, continuing in the same direction.

Then they reached something that was worth taking note of. They shot straight up in order to get a better view of it.

Another desolate island.

And a light rumbling noise, similar to that of the Screaming Death, whose rumors were still spreading around the archipelago.

But there was no scream.

And there was no dragon.