DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING

A.N.

I suppose it's fitting that this is the longest chapter. Don't worry, I didn't break the fight into parts. This chapter is continuous action, so the writing may be a bit choppy. But I thought it came out okay. (And Eva, I didn't include that detail because it doesn't fit with continuity. There are many times that Toothless uses fire after he swims in RoB and DoB. I don't think it applies to him like it does other dragons. In the movie, it looked like they were just getting enough speed from a drop to zip past the Queen. They really didn't wait very long. Plus, I like to reserve the right to do things a bit differently.)

Also, we all need to have a serious talk about this chapter. So please read this before you flood my story with angry reviews, okay?

There are a lot of theories about how Hiccup actually lost his leg. Since Toothless was the one that saved him, he knows how it happened.

Both Hiccup and Toothless were falling toward the ground head-first. That much you can tell just from looking. Now, Toothless has to somehow catch Hiccup, swing him toward his stomach, and envelope him in his wings to protect him from the flames. There are only two ways that he could achieve that before Hiccup died: he A. grabbed Hiccup with his feet or B. grabbed Hiccup with his mouth, and by extension, his teeth.

Now, the former doesn't make too much sense to me, despite it being nicer to think about. They were falling headfirst, remember-practically on top of each other. Toothless's face was very close to Hiccup's leg, and it would have wasted time for him to angle himself so he could catch Hiccup with his feet. Chances are, he would have crashed into Hiccup just trying to do that, thus pushing him farther away-as was shown when Hiccup was hit with Toothless's tail prosthetic earlier in the movie. So that leaves the second option. It sounds horrible, but it would make sense for Toothless to grab Hiccup's leg with his mouth. He could do it quickly, and it would only take a shift of his neck to swing Hiccup to safety. Plus, it would completely explain how Hiccup lost his lower leg. Toothless's teeth were not retracted in that moment, and the force of his bite was probably pretty strong-perhaps not enough to sever a leg, per se, but enough to mangle it beyond repair.

Toothless did not sustain any catastrophic injuries, so the landing itself did not ruin Hiccup's leg. Toothless was even the one who took the brunt of the fall. And the fire was closer to Hiccup's upper body than his lower, so it wasn't burned off. Besides, how would only one leg burn if the other was intact?

Maybe you disagree, and that's fine, but this is the theory that makes sense to me, and therefore the one I used. To me, Toothless saved Hiccup by biting his leg and pulling him to safety. You can even see that the left leg was a bit higher than the right while he fell, which would make it an easy target for Toothless. I mean, in HTTYD 2, Hiccup even implies that losing the leg was not exactly an accident-that Toothless didn't save it on purpose. So I'm gonna assume that's what happened. I'm definitely not saying Toothless wanted Hiccup to lose it, but it was a sacrifice he would make to save his friend.

But I don't talk about blood-just a mention of the leg being badly damaged, so if that's what you're worried about, calm down! :)

But please don't yell at me about what I chose to do. As a writer, I did what made the most sense to me. I'd like to think that Toothless wasn't the one that directly ruined the leg, but logic seems to suggest otherwise. And (I think) I'm a pretty logical person.

Despite all that, please enjoy the chapter! It's got lots of action, which I'm sure a lot of you will enjoy.

The additional riders' efforts had obviously deteriorated as the fight continued. The remaining dragons were circling the Queen aimlessly, which really only succeeded in irritating her further. Meanwhile, the burly boy was hanging from her crown-probably having been dropped there by his reckless dragon. The robust one was on the ground too, crushed by his Gronckle, and unable to provide any more aid. That left the two identical children and Astrid, and from what Toothless could see, they weren't making any progress. If Toothless and Hiccup had waited any longer, the others probably would have been doomed.

"He's up!" he heard Astrid yell, flying toward her fellow teenagers. Like Hiccup had done before, she gave orders to the pair on the Zippleback, and within a few seconds, they had rescued the burly boy on the Queen's crown.

But as Astrid followed the Zippleback, the Queen opened her enormous maw, using her powerful lungs to suck the girl and her dragon toward her. The Nadder struggled against the relentless pull, but it could not fight such a strong vacuum. They began to fall into the Queen's mouth.

Seeing this, Hiccup and Toothless immediately went into action. His rider showed no surprise when the dragon closed his wings, dive-bombing toward the Queen at incredible speeds. It was almost as if he had expected that move-and he probably had.

Toothless hadn't flown this fast since that attack on Berk, those many months ago, before his whole world had changed. Before Hiccup had changed it. He had been a different dragon then-he had hated Vikings. The world had been a cold, cruel place that only meant him harm. But now...now he had a life worth fighting for.

His wings made an odd screeching sound as he zipped downwards, which notified the scattered Vikings of his arrival. They all screamed, "Night Fury! Get down!" unaware that Toothless was there to help them. But he supposed they would find out soon enough, and maybe...just maybe...their gratitude could overcome their fear. It had for Toothless, anyway.

He passed the Queen like a bolt of lightning, firing a blue-hot plasma blast directly into her mouth, which stopped the vacuum she had created.

But the explosion also knocked Astrid and her dragon out of the air, and they fell to the ground quite separately. The Nadder managed to catch itself with its wings, but Astrid was still falling.

Now it was Hiccup's turn. He maneuvered Toothless into a midair turn, which allowed him to head back for the rapidly following Viking girl. The dragon was far faster than gravity, and he sped forward to catch her with his feet. She was soon under him, and the rest of the rescue would be performed without sight. He reached out his leg, hoping that he had calculated his moves correctly.

It appeared that he had, because he felt his paw enclose one of her ankles, and the three were soon zooming over the water-he had saved her, after all.

He felt Hiccup looking frantically to the sides, wondering whether Toothless had actually made the catch. "Did you get her?" he asked the dragon worriedly.

Toothless believed so, but he couldn't be entirely sure. So he looked under his own belly, hoping that Hiccup would understand what he was doing. Luckily, Astrid's foot was still held tightly in his paw as they flew over the ocean, and she smiled up at him gratefully. Toothless returned the expression with his gummy mouth and moaned happily, which notified Hiccup that she was safe. The dragon also observed that Astrid was yet another fearless flier, which probably made her a good match for Hiccup. He had no problem with that now-he was starting to like the girl a lot.

As they turned again, heading back for the Queen, Toothless used his other leg to bring Astrid upright. He then proceeded to drop her onto a nearby hill, which left her safely out of harm's way. That was probably Hiccup's intention, anyway.

Wasting no time, Toothless and Hiccup shot back toward the roaring Queen, whom was recovering from the fireball shot into her mouth. It was up to them to defeat her now-they were the only ones that stood a chance.

"Go," he heard Astrid breathe as they departed. Yes, he was definitely beginning to like that girl. In truth, she was a bit hot-headed, but her faith in herself and other people made up for that trait.

Meanwhile, Hiccup had been scrutinizing the Queen, probably hatching a plan. "That thing has wings," he said finally. "Okay! Let's see if it can use them!"

Immediately seeing what his rider meant, Toothless stopped flapping, leaving his wings extended in the air, and the wind pushed against them. Hiccup moved the tail prosthetic, which allowed the force of the gust to push them around. This allowed them to turn without using any precious effort-effort that would need to go into their next moves.

With a screech, Toothless flapped his wings once more, pushing as much strength as he could muster into the movement. The exertion shot him forward like a slingshot, and he closed them so they would not slow his drop. At speeds like this, he appeared to be a dark shooting star-moving so fast that their very image blurred. It was not normal for living things to move this quickly, and the air resistance threatened to pull their bodies apart. But they ignored such perils in the face of the one they were rapidly approaching-in truth, they had never felt so alive.

Toothless gathered an enormity of gases in his throat. He knew his fireballs were hotter, perhaps more concentrated than other dragons'. Whether they were strong enough to hurt the Queen, he didn't know-but he could hope.

He lit the gases, launching them at her gigantic side. With a massive roar, she fell over, apparently knocked over by the strength of the fireball. Toothless could not help but feel proud of himself-he had done that! He had knocked over the queen!

But Hiccup was the one keeping a level head, and it was his navigating alone that allowed them to fly out of the way, worried that the Queen would recover. Their speed was unstoppable though, and they were nearly a mile away before they had time to look back to see her reaction.

"Do you think that did it?" Hiccup asked, turning around.

It had, apparently, because he gave a little gasp. Two mighty wings had unfolded from her back, and they began flapping with the force of the world's strongest typhoon. It seemed impossible, but the gigantic beast had soon raised itself into the air, its weight supported by only its incredible strength.

She followed after Hiccup and Toothless, roaring indignantly. The friends were swift-quicker than any other normal-sized dragon. But her size and power allowed her to cover more ground, and she was gaining on them-fast.

"Well...he can fly," Hiccup observed wryly, and Toothless mentally corrected the boy's incorrect guess at her gender. But such things were really not important at the moment. If they kept flying like this, the Queen was surely going to catch them and devour them.

But the sky was Toothless's domain-perhaps more than any other dragon's. In his opinion, he knew how to work the air better than anyone, and by the end of today, the Queen was going to regret ever leaving the safety of the ground. He was the queen up here!

Or king...whatever.

With Hiccup in control of his tail, Toothless was able to dive between sea stacks, reminiscent of a fish swimming fluidly through the water. The Queen was far less graceful, however, and she was unable to navigate so swiftly. Her head painfully plowed through sea-stack after sea-stack, but the collisions failed to dissuade her from her targets. She was still chasing Hiccup and Toothless with a vengeance.

As they continued flying, Toothless could see a crowd of Vikings out of the corner of his eye, watching them anxiously. Some were cheering, though, and that was encouraging. He hoped he wouldn't let them down...let Hiccup down…

When the two friends spotted a dark cloud above them, Hiccup vocalized Toothless's thoughts. "Okay, Toothless. Time to disappear."

With Hiccup adjusting the tail prosthetic's position yet again, Toothless began climbing steadily into the sky. He flapped frantically, trying to get enough momentum to outrun the Queen and hide. But a smell interrupted his efforts-gas, building in her throat and ready to fire.

His rider's tense body language indicated that he had noticed the same thing. "Here it comes!" he yelled, using the artificial tail-fin to maneuver his dragon out of the way.

A wall of fire shot out of the Queen's mouth, eventually dissolving into a mass of jet black smoke, and that mass obscured her vision for a short time. It provided a brief distraction-one long enough for Toothless to gain some distance and tilt himself into another vertical climb. Once the Queen saw this, she imitated them. But she was slower at this angle, her flight requiring more effort to lift her gigantic body weight directly upwards. Toothless felt her jaws snap behind him, angrily trying to catch them. But she soon lost track of them, the mixture of clouds and smoke camouflaging Toothless's body.

Realizing her mistake, she stopped to look for them and catch her breath. Then, the Queen began spinning around wildly, possessed by the need to kill the unruly Night Fury that had escaped her too many times. He was sure that she could smell him, but not enough to locate him. Her own smoke had created that problem.

Toothless wasn't sure how, but Hiccup managed to navigate even in the dense clouds, and his efforts allowed him to circle the Queen unhindered. Now, they were the hunters of this extreme predator, corralling her like any other common animal. He could tell she hated the feeling of being prey-of fear-and he took satisfaction in that. She should know how it feels to be afraid.

Toothless and Hiccup attacked her from all angles, releasing fireball after fireball at her tattered wings. The light of the plasma blasts seemed to accompany the Queen's anguished roars, and to any unknowing observer, the scene would have been that of a violent storm-of thunder and lightning flashing and rumbling in the sky.

The pain of the repeated assaults whipped the Queen into a frenzy, and she began savagely releasing fire into the sky. The streams of flame followed her motions, illuminating the clouds with swirling inferno. One tendril was chasing Toothless and Hiccup quite relentlessly, and the dragon put all his effort into outpacing it. But it had been propelled forward too fast-too ferociously-and it managed to hit him.

"Watch out!" Hiccup screamed as the fire lashed out at them, and Toothless was able to move evasively enough to protect his rider from being flayed alive. But something was wrong behind him-something was burning..something that smelled of leather-his tail prosthetic.

Hiccup looked at the rapidly disintegrating tail-fin with fear, exclaiming "Time's up! Let's see if this works."

They had a plan from the moment she had taken flight. It was unspoken between them, but with a bond as great as theirs, they had no need to speak. They were one being, two halves of a whole, each one purposed with a specific function in this single body of perfect flight.

Hiccup navigated like a master, using his cleverness to think of the best routes, while Toothless used his raw power and instincts to gain the velocity they needed. No solo dragon could fly better. Perhaps no dragon with a rider could fly better.

They practically passed through the Queen's jaws to enter another nosedive, and she eagerly followed their path. She probably expected that she'd catch them easily in a fall, but the air resistance was even stronger against something of her size, and Hiccup and Toothless managed to stay out of her clutches. They were directly in front of her, though, which meant danger. But that had been their plan all along.

As they fell, it did not even register that they were separate species, creatures, or entities. They were extensions of each other, working in perfect synchronization in everything from their heartbeats to their thoughts. Toothless was no longer an individual-he was a "we" or an "us". And despite the fear that coursed through his veins, a part of him-of them-felt exhilarated, natural, and like they were truly, completely, and utterly living in the strongest sense of the word.

But amidst such a unique sensation, Toothless could feel his artificial tail-fin crumbling in the strong wind. They didn't have much time left.

"Stay with me buddy," Hiccup urged him quickly. "We're good. Just a little bit longer."

The Queen was opening her jaws behind them, gas filling her throat. Hiccup realized it just as Toothless did, and he knew that the final calculation would ultimately rest on him-the physics expert. The one who had returned Toothless's lost flight.

So when Hiccup told him to hold, he obliged.

The ground was approaching so quickly, and the Queen was accumulating more and more gases, inhaling as she did so. If Hiccup didn't time this correctly, they would end up both flayed alive and pancaked on the landscape.

But he had complete faith in his rider, and he built up a few gases of his own.

The inhaling stopped-she was about to fire.

"Now!" Hiccup yelled, and Toothless turned onto his back to stare directly into her face. He quickly launched another fireball into her mouth, and though it was small, it had much more destructive power than the last one. It lit the gases at the base of the Queen's throat, igniting her insides, which were, as Hiccup had once pointed out, not so fireproof. And this time, Toothless had not intended his fireball to be harmless.

As she thrashed and roared with agony, trying to put out a fire that she could not reach, she soon realized that the pain was the least of her problems. The ground was approaching rapidly, so she outstretched her enormous wings to slow her fall. But her velocity and weight were too great for the fragile skin on her wings, and they began to tear. She continued to fall unimpeded-burning, screeching, and tearing herself apart. Toothless almost felt bad-almost.

He soon outstretched his own wings, managing to slow his fall and maneuver to the side. As they rose, he heard the Queen hit the ground face-first, thus causing the loudest of crashes. It was more than just an impact-it was an explosion.

In her panic, she had apparently never stopped the constant flow of her gases, and they must have continued accumulating to a catastrophic point. With her final dying roar, she had detonated them, and now they were erupting into the sky.

Under normal circumstances, Toothless would have been able to fly to safety. But his deteriorated tail-fin had slowed him down considerably, and he struggled to fly past the Queen's falling backside, which had yet to meet up with her already-perished head.

The flames were gaining on them, surrounding them like a pack of hungry wolves, but Toothless wasn't afraid of fire. He continued flying upwards with persistence, determined to make it out. They were almost there too-they just had to pass over the Queen's tail.

But then their worst fear came true.

With a defeated jingle, the prosthetic detached and was quickly sucked into the inferno. As his attempts to adjust the tail-fin were met with only empty air, Hiccup soon realized what had happened. The tail-fin was gone, and they had lost the ability to navigate upwards. They soon began falling back down toward the flames.

Sadly, that was not the worst part. Without the capacity to steer, Toothless would ram directly into the plummeting tail, which would be horribly painful given its mace-like appearance. There was nothing they could do to stop it either. Both rider and dragon watched with horror and helplessness as it rushed toward them-it was Queen's final revenge. Perhaps she had outsmarted them too.

"No," Hiccup protested, his next word evolving into an anguished yell. "No!"

The tail smashed into both of their bodies, but Toothless could not help noticing that Hiccup took the brunt of impact. The force knocked his now-unconscious rider right off of his back, tearing clean through the tether and pushing him downwards. Toothless, meanwhile, had been heaved to the side, the collision having actually pushed him farther into the sky.

The dragon was still conscious, though, and he twirled in the air, desperate to grab his rider.

No, Hiccup would not die like this-not here, not now. Not after all they had been through. After everything, the Queen would not kill this boy-because if she killed him...she would kill Toothless too. They were two halves of a whole. One could not exist without the other.

Without the ability to maneuver, a dive-bomb was an extremely dangerous trick to try. But Toothless didn't care. He angled himself directly downward, flapping his tired wings to gain even more velocity-probably enough to kill him when he hit the ground. But once again, nothing mattered to him but saving Hiccup from those hungry flames. If he could just get his wings around the boy...then maybe...maybe he'd be okay.

Toothless's head was very close to Hiccup now, and in his desperation, he could think of only one way to save his friend. It was a terrible idea-one that would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. But he had no choice-if he didn't do it, Hiccup would surely perish in the fire.

Closing his eyes, Toothless opened his jaws, and with a final effort from his wings, he was able to get near enough to close his teeth around the lower part of Hiccup's left leg. He then used his grip on the limb to swing the boy's body toward his stomach, quickly enclosing them both in Toothless's fireproof black wings.

When Toothless released Hiccup's leg, he knew it had been horribly mangled. No leg was supposed to bend the way that his rider's was, and guilt briefly surged through the dragon's heart. But if he had to choose between losing the leg and losing all of Hiccup, he would choose the former in a heartbeat.

Now enclosed by sweltering walls of fire, Toothless crashed into the ground with agonizing force, rolling to break their fall. He made sure that his back took the impact instead of Hiccup's limp body, which was delicately tucked under his wings. After all, his rider had taken the majority of the impact last time, and it had almost killed him.

Blow after blow hit Toothless as he rolled along the ground, and he constantly shifted himself to make sure only he hit the rocks, not his rider. Somehow, he remained conscious amidst the constant fire and collisions, driven by only a single thought: protect Hiccup.

Eventually, their rolling slowed to a standstill, and the dragon lay motionless on the ground, his body bent in an awkward position. To protect his rider, Toothless had placed his wings at his side, Hiccup tucked tenderly beneath them. But the pose hurt-dragons were not supposed to bend their wings that way. In fact, everything hurt-his whole body was a screaming chorus of complaints. He was sure he had multiple broken bones, and probably some sort of head injury as well.

But none of that really mattered-not the smoldering heat, nor the broken bones, nor his aching head-because Hiccup was safe under his wing, breathing quietly-a sure sign that he was still alive.

Relieved, the dragon succumbed to unconsciousness. They had made it after all…