A/N: Thank you to BerkMan for another constructive review! I really appreciate the encouragement! Anyways, a departure from the Toothless POV because this could only really be written in the third person, for the omniscient perspective! Anyway, please R&R!
3rd person POV
Seven days of hard fighting later, heavy losses on the dragon side, and much quartz later, Hiccup was getting tired of all of these armored guns popping up here and there, and needed a way to get rid of them. He invited Astrid over to the table.
"We need to get rid of these armored gun things for good. Toothless can only deal with three of them at a time, and all the other dragons just…can't."
"Well," Astrid mused, "These guns have to be made somewhere, right?"
"You're thinking of hitting the factories, aren't you Astrid?"
"Yep."
"The problem is, with those anti-dragon weapons all over the place, it isn't safe to do that kind of mission with all the dragons."
"Isn't Toothless invisible at night?" Astrid glanced over to the jet-black snoring reptile.
"Well, he is, but he's only one dragon, and he can only shoot six times."
"Right, then he recharges for ten minutes, then he can shoot six times again. It's a perfect amount of time, really. It's just long enough for people to think you're gone, and then you hit them again."
"You make a good point, Astrid. Toothless will be virtually undetectable. We can bombard with impunity. It seems as though air superiority will win this war." Hiccup turned to his paper and started planning. Of course, he would want to hit the village of Myanmur, the closest village to the front, where he had seen had some of the massive forges that were capable of pumping out those metal beasts. He then realized that the armored guns were getting rarer and rarer. He wondered if the Berserkers were running out of resources to use to make them. He then added the shipyards to the list. The Berserkers certainly had a fleet ready by now. Hiccup would need to get some reconnaissance done, to figure out what to hit to hurt them most. He walked over to Toothless. Then, he pinched Toothless' ear. A bad idea, in retrospect.
Toothless reared up and roared angrily. "Sorry bud. I had to get you awake." Toothless gave him a look that said, don't do that. "Yeah, I know you don't like it when I pinch your ear, but we need to get some reconnaissance done tonight, and you're the only dragon that's built for stealth." Toothless grumbled, but eventually bowed for Hiccup to get on. Besides, he'd been unable to fly for eight days. He wanted to get back up there and fly! So he took off for his first flight in a week and a day.
About three hours later, they got very close to Myanmur, and Hiccup observed that the fleet was nearly a hundred and fifty ships strong. It was about right for the reduced number of dragons left after the – so far – one-and-a half week war. Unfortunately for the dragon side, half of the dragons left were wounded. Hiccup took great care to note where the factories were, and the shipyard location. There was also a long stretch of flat stone, suitable for landing dragons on.
"Amazing, isn't it, bud?" Hiccup breathed. Toothless cocked his head in a what-do-you-mean sort of way. "They build those massive self-propelled machines on land, but on the sea, they still use longboats and catapults." Hiccup couldn't see, but Toothless frowned. Eventually Hiccup added, "See how close you can get to the village, bud, before they notice you. Toothless grudgingly obliged, and got to around a hundred feet or so from the factories before someone yelled, "THERE!" and Hiccup and Toothless sprinted off back to Berk. They landed at an hour or so into the new day. Hiccup glanced over to Toothless, and asked, "How far away can you hit those factories and still hit and destroy them with one shot? Two hundred feet?" Toothless pointed up with his claw. "Three hundred?" Toothless nodded. "So the plan stands a good chance of working. You can go back to bed now, bud. Now it's just a matter of putting all the pieces together and making a workable plan." Toothless checked his right wing one more time before going off to sleep. Hiccup pulled an all-nighter planning the strike. By the time Astrid woke up and came downstairs and started scolding Hiccup for staying up "ALL NIGHT?!" and waking Toothless, his plan was virtually fail proof. Hiccup laid out his plan before Astrid and asked if she could find any way to counter it, using what they knew the Berserkers had so far.
Meanwhile, in the empire of Berserk, Dagur was approving contracts with deals to acquire weaponry from a faction known to them only as the Russ. They had gotten all their designs so far from the Russ, and now were trying to acquire a real counter to dragons. All the weapons they had: The armored guns, the artillery guns and the anti-dragon weapons were all Russ designs. Dagur made another voyage to Russ after getting out of the armor fused together by that insufferable little boy and his dragon. His task? To acquire some SPAD aeroplanes from the IRAS. The Berserkers' main problem, however, lay in their constant attempts to mix Russ technology with Viking methodology. But of course Dagur didn't see the problem. Some elements of his armies would say that he didn't see anything, let alone the problem with his own armed forces. But if they spoke up, they'd get executed for treason.
That evening, Hiccup laid out his plan, step by step, to Toothless, and then added,
"We do it tomorrow night; my brain is too tired to do it tonight." Toothless nodded, then assembled all the tamed dragons, and asked them to repeat the plan over to everyone else. He asked them to say it back to them, just in case they missed something. They didn't. Then they ran off and told everyone else within a matter of twenty minutes. The dragons then decided to get ready for the offensive, with the Nadders chomping down on magnesium, the Gronckles eating rocks like there was no tomorrow, the Nightmares conserving their fire (it recharged by itself) and Toothless doing the same. When Toothless arrived back to the Chief's house later that evening, Hiccup was passed out and snoring over the table. Toothless carefully slid his body under Hiccup's and brought him up to the Chief's bed, where Astrid was also snoring. In their sleep, Astrid snuggled up to Hiccup. Toothless couldn't help smiling his toothless attempt-of-a-smile.
