Red Death and Final Breath

The change was amazing! Alvin Treacher felt instant power being pumped through his veins by his powerful beating heart. The small room he had been in seemed to shrink into a puny little thing. He was big! He could do anything!

A small part of his brain nagged about destroying someone named Hiccup Haddock, but that didn't matter now! Not when he was unstoppable, unbeatable, and he could burn the city to the ground. He relished in his power, and began to work to break free of the earth that held him.

Astrid reacted instantly to Snotlout's words. She grabbed both of them by the collar and ran like a mouse being chased by a starving cat. Thankfully, the guards that Snotlout and Astrid had knocked out were already gaining consciousness, so they didn't have to stop to help them.

"GET OUT!" Astrid yelled as the trio raced past them.

Astrid pushed Snotlout and Hiccup out the front door just as a chunk of the ceiling fell down upon the footsteps they left behind them. Ruffnut and Tuffnut's friends were no where to be seen, but police officers were scattered about the streets, helping people out of buildings.

"What, exactly, is going on?" Astrid asked Hiccup, straining to see him in the darkness of the night. Snotlout began coughing up dust, so Astrid thumped him on the back.

Hiccup rolled up his pant leg and began tightening the bandage Astrid had wrapped around it. "Plutonium is radioactive. N.E.S.T. is reproducing the dragon experiment."

"And who is Alvin Treacher?" Astrid asked.

"It's hard to explain." Hiccup's forehead wrinkled. "The short version is that he's the guy who would like to see me and my...dad... dead. We need to get to the center of town!"

The rumbling stopped and a loud groaning came from one of the skyscrapers in the center of the city. Without warning, the whole thing collapsed.

"No!" Astrid yelled. What if people had been in it?

"Don't worry," Snotlout choked from beside her. "No one was in it. The building was set for demolition." Before Astrid could respond to him, the ground began to shake again.

"Astrid, I'm afraid of what's going to happen," Hiccup whispered from beside her. "I don't think I have the courage to face whatever is underneath the ground."

She shot him a look. "You'd be an idiot not to be afraid. Besides, courage isn't the absence of fear, it's being afraid and pushing forward anyway."

Concrete, glass, and rubble shot into the air as something burst from the ground. It didn't matter that it was in the middle of the night and the the mountainous thing blocked the moon. Glowing with red fire, the beast arose from its dirt prison.

"Come on!" Hiccup took off running. The beast gained altitude in the air, flapping large, leathery wings. It roared, the sound shattering what windows were still intact across New Berk City.

"What is that?" Astrid shouted, sprinting after him. In retrospect, it was a stupid question. But Astrid's brain just couldn't comprehend something THAT big had been underground.

The wails of sirens filed the air, and police cars and firetrucks parked haphazardly in the streets. From the pit where the beast had exploded from, thugs began pouring out into the streets.

"Find Stoick," Hiccup told her and Snotlout, a determined look in his eye. He morphed into the Night Fury. Those around him shrunk away as if he had the bubonic plague. Several officers shouted and tried to shoot at him, but he shot into the air, roaring a challenge to the bigger dragon.

"Astrid!" Stoick hollered as he squeezed out of a police cruiser, but he was too late.

Astrid didn't have time to see what happened to Hiccup or Stoick. One of N.E.S.T.'s goons rushed at her, and she jumped into action. She used her attacker's momentum to trip him then and rammed her elbow into the back of his head.

"Duck!" Snotlout shouted at her. Astrid flattened herself to the ground immediately and a bullet whizzed over her head.

"Thanks," she hollered briefly, blocking a punch from her next opponent. She disabled the guy with a judo flip to the ground.

"Hey! I just saved your life. Does this mean that you'll go out with me now?" Snotlout asked. Astrid pushed Snotlout down and threw an uppercut into the face of a man who had been about to whack Snotlout on the head.

"Now we're even, so no." Astrid continued defending herself. Several times, she heard roars that shook the world, but she didn't have time to see how Hiccup was faring. She did, however, notice that Stoick was a force to be reckoned with. No criminal who stood in his path was safe from his massive fists.

The number of bad guys seemed to be thinning out as they were overwhelmed by the police force. Astrid separated herself from the fray and searched the sky.

Hiccup was shooting bursts of fire at the huge dragon's chest, but it didn't seem to notice them. It turn, it opened its colossal mouth and spewed red fire on the city below.

Astrid racked her brain, trying to find a way to help Hiccup, but she couldn't think of anything. He was at the mercy of his own devices.

The Night Fury roared at the Red Death (the name he mentally gave the beast) but it continued its work of burning the city. The Night Fury felt like a gnat trying to get the attention of an elephant.

The Red Death had small eyes and large nostrils. While dragons had excellent hearing, the Night Fury couldn't see its ears. So the Red Death mainly relied on smelling, which meant it could find the Night Fury easily since he reeked of dragon scent. Then the Night Fury saw the wings. The Red Death's wings were tattered. If the he could just get the Red Death up higher in the air where he had the advantage of speed, he could make a move.

The Night Fury sliced through the air right above the Red Death's wings and shot a burst of energy at them. That angered it. It flapped its poor wings, gaining altitude as it followed him.

In the midst of all of this, the Night Fury was still racking his brains, trying to think of a way to destroy the evil dragon. He didn't even know if any part of Alvin's mind was still sane, or if he had given into the mental turmoil that came with the changing into a dragon. Probably the latter, considering some of the evil deeds Alvin had under his name. He loved thrills and before he had turned sour, the guy had swallowed fire at a circus.

Wait a minute... swallowing fire. The Night Fury knew what he had to do. It was a good thing, too, because the Red Death was gaining on him at an alarming rate as they climbed higher into the sky.

The Night Fury curled his wings around himself as he shot up and into a bundle of clouds. He unfurled them and hid in one of the fluffy masses as the Red Death searched around for him. He wished Astrid was with him. Astrid didn't know it, but she was the one person whom he wanted by his side right now because she always knew what to do.

The Red Death snorted angrily, swinging its massive head left and right, smelling for him. The Night Fury waited for just the right moment before revealing himself. He sent an energy burst straight into the Red Death's nose.

Loki's tricks, did that anger it! Its opened its mouth as wide as a whirlpool and started to suck everything, including the Night Fury, into its depths. The Night Fury fought against the current, trying to turn around to deliver his final blow. His wings strained at the effort, but he managed to make the maneuver and send his final attack of fire straight into the Red Death's mouth. Pain exploded in his wings and over the commotion of the Red Death burning up from the inside, he heard an unhealthy crack.

The Night Fury let out an unearthly scream as he began to plummet to the ground, trying in vein to get back up into the air. Just when things couldn't get worse, something large and spiky crashed into Hiccup, sending waves of agony up his already hurting leg and wings.

He was vaguely aware that he somehow unwillingly changed back into his human body form as he fell to the ground in a world of fire, wreckage, and wild pain.

Astrid hated being on the ground as helpless as a newborn lamb. She watched anxiously for Hiccup when he disappeared behind the clouds. The flashes of light illuminated nothing but the large shadow of the beast that had come from the ground.

"Where is he?" Snotlout asked from beside her, shielding his eyes from the sun that was rising over the horizon.

"I don't know," Astrid snapped back, cracking her knuckles restlessly. A roar louder than the rest reverberated through the air and then an explosion lit up the sky, brighter than Ruffnut and Tuffnut's fireworks.

The humongous beast came crashing out of the clouds towards the ground. When it hit, the buildings underneath it were crushed. Concrete, rock, and glass flew like shrapnel into the air. Astrid pulled Snotlout and another officer behind a car and covered her nose with her shirt sleeve. She counted a minute before peeping out. Dust clung to the air, making it hard to see more than a couple feet.

"Hiccup!" she shouted, searching around for him. There was no reply, nor did his familiar black form come swooping down to greet her. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Fishlegs soon joined her search.

"There!" Fishlegs shouted, pointing. Astrid followed his finger and saw a flash of a green shirt admidst the rubble.

Astrid zipped over. As far as Astrid could tell, Hiccup was unconscious and pinned underneath two slabs of concrete. "Help me!" she commanded. The twins and Fishlegs tried to help her lift it off of him, but their strength failed and nothing budged.

Astrid felt helplessness start to overwhelm her. She pounded the rock with her fist in frustration. Before she could do any more damage to her hand, Stoick pushed her aside. In one motion, he effortlessly heaved the debris off of Hiccup. He knelt by his son, roughly brushing the filth off Hiccup's face. Hiccup's skin was paler than normal, which worried Astrid. Why wasn't he waking up?

"No," Stoick whispered, horrified. A group of police officers, firefighters, and New Berk City's citizens gathered around as the scene unfolded.

"No!" Stoick cried louder. His stoic facade crumbled into grief, a change from the rock it had been when he disowned Hiccup. "I did this. I killed him."

No, no, no, no, no! Astrid thought. Hiccup couldn't be dead! Stoic bowed his head over his son, fat tears dripping into his singed beard. Astrid fell to her knees next to Stoick in disbelief.

She grabbed Hiccup's shoulders and shook him. "Come on! Wake up!" she demanded. "If you don't, I'll.. I'll... I'll k-kill you!"

The threat wasn't much use. Hiccup's eyes remained closed. The people gathered around them silently bowed their heads.

"He's can't, Astrid," Snotlout whispered from behind her. "He's dead."

"He can't be!" Astrid protested. She had already thought Hiccup was dead once! The obnoxious, dorky, insolent Hiccup she knew was too stubborn to be dead!

Stoick shook his head again. "I did this," he repeated, dumbstruck.

Thick, salty tears began to stream down Astrid's face, and for once in her life she didn't care. Astrid cradled Hiccup in her arms, glaring at Stoick when he reached forward. Ignoring the smell of something burning, she buried her face into Hiccup's shoulder and let the sobs pour out. That's when she noticed it.

Thump. Thump. Thump. "He's alive!" Astrid cried, sitting up in shock.

Stoick lifted his head up and gaped at her.

"I can hear his heartbeat!" Astrid insisted.

"Checking for a heartbeat is an essential part of determining if someone is dead or not," Fishlegs informed them.

Stoick placed his vast head on Hiccup's chest. His face lit up in the first real smile Astrid had seen in a while. "He is alive!" Cheers went up from those gathered around them.

Astrid felt her heart rise with the sun that was peaking over the horizon. Hiccup was alive and she was going to get to punch him for everything he'd ever done to her.

Ruffnut broke into her thoughts. "I hate to break it to you," she droned, an abnormal quaver in her voice, "but you might want to get him to a hospital before that gets any worse."

Astrid looked down again at Hiccup and for the first time noticed his leg.

A/N: I always complain that people never update their stories. Then I saw the last time I updated this one and felt really guilty. But in my defense, I've been bogged down with science and tired and bleh. Not really an excuse, is it? :P

Name which HTTYD character said the quote from this chapter! "Courage isn't the absence of fear, it's being afraid and pushing forward anyway."

Funny thing for the day: My mom was taking library books up to our library book storage thingy and asked me if a book that had a girl on the cover was bad (it was). She completely ignored the one with the bare-chested guy in a horned helmet and wielding an ax and a guy standing behind him pointing a bow and arrow at the first guy's back.

Angryhenry: My first response to you reviews was "I'm not rushing it; Alvin did! It's not my fault the bad guy moved up his timeline!" My second response is that I will try to work on it in the future. :)

Guest Number One: I've nicknamed you the Hiccstrid Hound. Who says there's not going to be Hiccstrid in the sequel?

Guest Number Two: Thanks! Sorry for the late update.

Zoha Ven: Sherlock's impossible/improbable quote was this: "When you have eliminated theimpossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Both of them are good quotes. :D Thank you so much! :D :D :D