It was eventually decided that, despite the Red Death's presence, the Vikings would attack the nest by sea, with the exception of Hiccup's Dragon Riders. They were supposed to lead the ships and rescue anyone who needed rescuing.
Hiccup felt they were underestimating the sheer size of the beast, but there wasn't much he could do. Vikings were, after all, incredibly stubborn.
He was wandering through the forest near Toothless's cove, thinking of everything that had happened. Toothless was off somewhere by himself, probably hunting. Or exploring.
Hiccup wasn't sure when he'd forgotten his own name in the time he was gone, only that when Astrid found him, he'd barely recognized the Norse word that was associated with him.
"Hiccup?" He looked up to see Astrid approaching. "Mind if I join you?"
"No, no... By all means, I don't mind... Really." He smiled shyly, shaking his head.
"So, what are you doing out here?" She asked curiously.
"Oh, nothing... Just thinking." He replied. "Mostly... About what's happened." Astrid nodded and they walked in silence for a bit. "Astrid, thanks."
She looked over at him, surprised. "What for?"
"For finding me," He answered. "I was almost... Not, um... Not..." He sighed. "Astrid, I... Forgot my own name, when I was gone. I almost forgot my language too..."
Astrid's eyes widened considerably. "You forgot your own name? Wow..." He nodded, suddenly interested in his feet.
"I never forgot your name though..." He peeked at her through his hair. "I came back a few times, after... To get things I needed."
"That explains how you got Gobber's sheep." Astrid joked. Hiccup smiled faintly as he sat down on a boulder. Astrid planted herself beside him. "What's wrong, Hiccup?" She asked him gently.
"I... I don't feel... Like I'm home, here anymore... I don't want to forget again, either... It's just..." He admitted. "I want to stay... But, I've been gone too long. I'm used to being... Just me and Toothless, and this... It's weird."
Astrid nodded. "That kind of makes sense... I guess I'd feel the same way if I was gone that long."
Hiccup looked over at her. "Astrid... I'm going back to my island... After the battle, if... If I survive. And I was wondering if, do you... Want to come with me?"
Astrid opened her mouth to decline, but stopped. Hiccup was really cute now... And he wanted her to live with him. Alone. It would be really peaceful and quiet, something she'd never have on Berk... She'd been in his house. There was only one bed... She mentally slapped herself, but nodded anyway. "Sure, Hiccup. I'd love to."
The stupid grin on his face didn't leave until they re-entered the village some time later to find Vikings boarding the ships. The other dragons were already settled on the decks, with their riders nearby.
Toothless had joined them at some point, and now Hiccup swung onto his back as they walked, pulling Astrid on with him. "Come on! We have a battle to win." As an afterthought, he added "Hold on."
She screamed, clinging to him as they took off vertically. Toothless smirked as he took them first into the clouds and then pulled into a steep dive, headed straight down towards the boats.
Cries of "Night Fury! Get down!" rang out on the docks below as Toothless pulled up just short of the water. He landed neatly on the pier and Hiccup helped a thoroughly shaken Astrid off of the dragon's back.
Hiccup was entirely unaffected by his friend's antics. Stoick came storming over. "Hiccup! Son, what were you doing! You almost crashed!" Hiccup snorted.
Toothless leapt onto the deck and made himself comfortable, as he waited for his rider and Astrid to clamber into the boat. "Dad, Toothless is a Night Fury. I couldn't... Stop him from doing tricks if I wanted to. And I've been doing this for... Um, for..." He trailed off, then added "For longer than I've been gone."
Stoick frowned at the thought of his son doing such dangerous stunts behind his back, but he was secretly proud of the boy. "Well, onto th' ship, then. Can't have you getting left behind!"
Hiccup rolled his eyes as he jumped onto the ship but didn't comment. Stoick made the call to set sail and they were off.
"So, what's our plan?" Astrid asked, standing near Hiccup and Toothless.
"Right now? Stay back and rescue people that need rescuing. Which, if the Red Death is as large as I... Remember, will be everybody." Hiccup explained, without looking away from Toothless. "And then... I'll think of something."
He looked up to see Astrid's eyebrows raise as she thought of just how large this thing would have to be in order to defeat such an army of tough Viking warriors.
Toothless warbled something as the dark mist of the nest appeared on the horizon. "Oh, Toothless says that you need to, um, scratch Stormfly under the chin until she collapses. Otherwise, she'll try to fly towards the nest. Can you tell the others to do the same... With their dragons?" Astrid nodded and hurried off to do so.
Hiccup looked worriedly at his friend. "Toothless, should I scratch under your chin too?" The dragon considered it, then shook his head.
"No, you need me to direct the ship. Could you take my tailfin off instead? I don't want to damage it by accident." Hiccup nodded as he sat down next to his friend's tail and began unbuckling the straps.
The Vikings watched, amazed, as the dragons dropped to the deck contentedly after a scratch under the chin. The riders laughed delightedly and kept scratching.
Stoick glanced over at his son and found him fiddling with the Night Fury's tail. Just as he was about to stomp over and ask his son what he was doing, the last strap came undone and Toothless flicked his tail away to stare at the missing space for a moment. "I don't think I'll ever fully get over seeing that," murmured Toothless thoughtfully. Hiccup glanced at him guiltily.
"I'm sorry, Toothless." Just as he was about to fold the prosthetic up, he noticed something. There was a single scale missing from the fin, exposing a small circle of worn brown leather. Then Stoick gave the order to turn the ship into the roiling mist and all thoughts of making repairs fled from his mind.
Hiccup backed away as Toothless's ears shot up and his eyes turned into slits. "What's going on?" Stoick asked gruffly, studying the dragon.
"He's being Called," Hiccup said. "It's how they... How it controls them." Stoick nodded, not really understanding. Hiccup however, could hear the sweet voice of the Queen, calling, and she was hungry, she needed food, and he should feed her... He shook himself out of the trance his dragon had been captured by, plugging his ears.
The Night Fury bounded to the prow and lifted his head, warbling. Stoick shoved someone aside and took over the rudder. He followed the dragon's movements as Toothless let out a low croon, shuffling first to port, then starboard and back again. Toothless tried to take off a few times, only to fall back to the deck with a curse and a thud. The teens watched Hiccup stand by helpless to calm his dragon for a moment before returning to their dragons to make sure they wouldn't wake up too soon and be caught by the Red Death's call.
It seemed like forever by the time the lead ship gently bumped the shore of the wide rocky beach and Toothless calmed down.
Hiccup strapped the prosthetic back onto his tail as Stoick began making attack plans with his commanders. Then Hiccup walked over to the teens, who had started nudging their dragons, trying to wake them up. "Not like that," He said. "They should wake up on their own in a little time anyway."
True to his word, the dragons were up in a few minutes, squawking and roaring at the Red Death, with their riders on their backs. But it was clear to Hiccup as Fishlegs' Gronkle went down, that they weren't enough to take down the beast. It seemed as if all they'd managed to do was make it mad. He could hear it's awful hate-filled voice hurling obscenities in all directions and he winced as one particularily loud scream almost burst his eardrums. He glanced up at the dark clouds hanging above, a plan slowly forming in his mind.
"Okay Toothless, we gotta get up there." The only reason they weren't up there already was that Stoick had insisted they wouldn't need a Night Fury's help. Hiccup suspected it was an excuse to keep him out of the way. He didn't let his dad see how that hurt his feelings, that his own father didn't trust him in battle. He'd followed the man on shore, and Toothless had followed him. He was immensely grateful for that, as the ships were all burning.
"Finally," Toothless bent down to allow Hiccup to pull himself onto his back. "Let's show them what we can do!"
Hiccup grinned. "You got it, Bud." They took off, headed straight for the clouds. Hiccup moved his foot on the pedal, and they executed a manoever that had them shrieking towards the Red Death.
The cry of "Night Fury! Get down!" was lost to the winds as they fired a blast at the demon's mouth, just as Astrid's Nadder was about to be sucked in. Astrid was thrown off of Stormfly's back, screaming, and they dove after her. "Did'ja get her?" Hiccup yelled. Toothless gave an affirmative warble as he glanced at the girl in his paws.
They slowed to drop Astrid off with the amazed warriors watching the battle and order the other riders to the ground. "Alright Buddy, let's see if that thing can use it's wings!" Toothless narrowed his eyes and shot forward. They twisted around and, speeding over it, shot the Red Death in the shoulder hard enough to knock it over.
"Do you think that did it?" Hiccup asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Oh, it did it." Toothless replied grimly as the Red Death took off on enormous wings. They sped through a series of rock spires, only for the monster to simply barrel through them. Hiccup glanced up again.
"Time to disappear!" Hiccup's foot pressed on the pedal, and they were gone, rocketing up into the dark smoke above, with the demon hot on their tail. Hiccup cursed as they narrowly avoided a stream of fire not unlike a Nadder's. He glanced back again as the fire washed over Toothless' tail.
Then they were out of sight in the cool, dark mist, firing blast after blast at the Red Death's hovering form. It ran out of patience and released a wall of fire that seemed to swallow the sky. Hiccup pressed his face into Toothless's neck, his scaled cloak protecting him from the flames. "Okay, Toothless, we can't keep doing this forever. Let's end this!"
"What do you plan on doing?" Toothless wondered, shooting another sapphire fireball at the beast.
"Remember the first time we flew over the ocean?" Hiccup recalled, grinning maniacaly. Toothless understood immediately what his rider was getting at and smirked.
"Got it!" He folded his wings, roaring at the Red Death as they dove down past it. It's evil eyes narrowed and it snapped at them. When it missed, it folded it's own immense wings and let itself fall. They broke through the clouds first and heard the beast inhaling, ready to blast them into oblivion.
"Toothless, wait... Hold, Toothless... NOW!" He screamed, and they flipped over awkwardly, backs to the ground and fired a single blast straight into it's gas-filled mouth. It's eyes widened, fire streaming from it's gigantic mouth as it finally saw the unforgiving rock of the pebbly beach, and spread it's wings wide. As it tried to break it's fall, the relatively thin membrane of it's wings burned away, leaving it to explode as it hit the ground, roaring it's terrible fury as it did so.
Hiccup and Toothless barely had time to get out of the way. Hiccup glanced back as they dodged through the Red Death's spikes, wanting to see how close the flames were to catching up with them.
His eyes widened as he caught sight of Toothess's tail. "Oh no..." He whispered.
The prosthetic tailfin was completely engulfed in flames that licked at the thread holding the fireproof scales to the leather underneath. One by one, the dark scales were slipping away and more of the fin was consumed. It must have been on fire for some time, because most of the leather was exposed and nearly burnt through. Before Hiccup's eyes, the smouldering remains fell away and left them flightless.
He faced forwards again and screamed "NO!" The Red Death's club-like tail, swinging wildly in the monster's death throes, crashed down on them. Hiccup felt sudden pain in his leg as one of the monster's spikes scraped down the length of Toothless's left side, and everything went black.