Chapter 18
The catapults were armed after a quick crash course on how to use them by Stoick, the villagers were armored and each carried some form of weapon, the dragons stood hidden from direct view, waiting for their opportunity to strike, and the sky had turned that reddish color that it gets when a war is about to commence.
The plan was simple, the humans would begin by firing the catapults as a warning. Once the army gets close enough they can hear their wings flap, the dragons would leap into the air in groups led by Hiccup and each of his friends. Any members of the army that happened to make it to Berk were to be dealt with by the rest of the village.
Strangely, however, Astrid was nowhere to be found. Stormfly looked everywhere for her but to no avail. She checked her house, the market, the great hall, the nearby areas of the forest, anywhere she could think of but couldn't even find a trace of her.
Hiccup was worried but he knew that right now, protecting the village came first so he had her, reluctantly, ride Spitelout which, while he was a Nadder, still nowhere near the Nadder she wanted to ride but again, at that moment she really didn't have a choice.
Dagur's army of Monstrous Nightmares, Changewings, Savage the Scauldron, and himself were only a few miles out at this point, but they were coming. They were coming at a rather slow pace for an army of dragons but still coming. It almost seemed like they were biding their time a little to allow Berk to get ready. What reason that could be was beyond everyone.
Once Dagur got close enough, one of the humans, Fanghook, gave the signal and the catapult team fired at the army, causing them to move back and around to avoid the boulders. Once that was clear, Dagur's army moved even closer.
Moments later, Hiccup holds up his wing, telling everyone to hold on while he waits for them to get close enough. Then, he slams it down yelling, "NOW!" making the dragons leap into the air and charge towards Dagur's army. Dagur saw them and raised a claw, roaring out an insane Berserker call, and his army charges as well.
More moments later, the battle had begun in flaming glory. A team of Nadders led by Stormfly and Spitelout fired their tail spikes, many of which hit the army members but hardly any of them even seemed to notice, not even the one red Changewing that got struck right in the eye, he just pulled the spine out and grabbed a large leaf to use as a patch.
A group of Gronckles led by Meatlug and Fishlegs spewed boulder after boulder which the army members ended up blowing to bits with the Monstrous Nightmares charging at them with their flaming bodies.
A team of Monstrous Nightmares led by Hookfang and Snotlout acted as the defense squad, using their flaming bodies to absorb and block any enemy attacks.
A team of Zipplebacks led by Barf, Belch, Ruffnut and Tuffnut made walls of gas that they exploded, making many of the army members back away a bit.
Finally, a team of Terrible Terrors led by Toothless and Hiccup, who were also in charge of overseeing the whole air strike force, snuck around most of the army members to give them small but effective fire balls on their undersides.
Stoick flew nearby with Gobber and a few others to save any dragons that happen to fall so they can bring them back to Berk so Gothi can look them over.
A few minutes into the battle and Hiccup noticed two things, one, hardly any of the army members were doing anything to fight back. No fire being breathed, no acid being sprayed by the Changewings, in fact not a lot of them seemed to be even trying to get closer to Berk. It was mostly just defending themselves or simply having the Berkians chase around the island.
The other thing was, Dagur was nowhere to be seen, and he was certain he would notice a Triple Stryke amongst a group of Monstrous Nightmares and Changewings. Savage was still there, but again, he was showing no sign of actually attacking or trying to get in.
Hiccup has Stoick take over the Terrible Terror team while he flew above Berk to see if he can spot the Berserker chief from above. It was dark by this point, so Hiccup could use his Night Fury stealth to observe the village at such a height without being seen. He and Toothless look all over the village but find no sign of Dagur, just the villagers waiting for anyone to get to Berk.
"Alright, if I was an insane chief turned dragon, where would I be hiding?" Toothless rhetorically but not rhetorically asks.
Hiccup then remembers something. "There is a cave system underneath Berk, that's a possibility."
Toothless nods and Hiccup quickly flies them to the area underneath Berk that he was talking about. Hiccup kept his ears open for any sign of movement in any of the caves. He hears the sounds of footsteps which make his right ear twitch so he decides to quickly but quietly sweep in.
Once Hiccup and Toothless were inside the cave, they both keep their eyes and ears wide open for any sign of Dagur. The cave itself was about the size of a standard warship, minus the sail, so it's not like there was a whole lot of space to hide in.
Hiccup takes a few cautious steps forward before he hears the sound of something getting whacked my something metal. He looks behind him and sees Toothless falling off of him with his eyes closed.
"Toothless!" He tries to catch him but then he felt a sharp pain on the side of his neck. He reaches a paw up and finds an arrow lodged in there. He pulls it out and sees the green coating on the arrowhead indicating that it is a dragon root arrow. "Uh oh." Was all he could say before his legs collapse and his vision starts going black.
Just before he blacks out, he sees the outline of what looked like a blonde Nadder coming towards him, but before he had any chance to react or process that, the dragon root took over his mind and the world around him went black.
(1 hour later)
Hiccup could hear voices around him as he was starting to come back to consciousness. Voices that seemed familiar but still so foreign to him. His head was throbbing, his legs and wings were numb, his vision was blurry, his mind was cloudy, and he still felt the pain of the arrow wound on his neck.
He blinks several times and rubs his eyes to try to scope out the situation, but it wasn't as effective as he had hoped as he still couldn't see clearly.
Finally, after what felt like 10 minutes of trying to get his senses back, his vision cleared up, allowing him to look around and see that he was inside some sort of cell, one that he recognized to be one of Berk's prisoner cells.
He also noticed that he was alone. No sign of Toothless, his dad, his friends, or even Dagur for that matter.
One last thing he noticed was how quiet it was, and not in a good way. There were no sounds of dragons fighting, catapults being fired, villagers shouting, nothing. It was as if there was no war which seemed odd because if that was true, why was he locked up on Berk?
"What the hel is going on here?" He thinks to himself. He still couldn't speak but as usual that didn't stop his mind from saying anything. He had to think back.
The last thing he remembered was Toothless falling off of him after hearing him getting whacked by something, followed by him getting shot by the arrow, taking out the arrow to see that it was a dragon root arrow, then collapsing and blacking out. Although he did recall someone familiar coming towards him right before he went out but he couldn't recall who it was.
He finally gets the strength to stand and walk over to the bars of the cell to see if he can see anything from there. As soon as he got to the bars, he is surprised by Dagur jumping up to the bars. "Son of a bitch."
The Triple Stryke chuckled. "Well well, brother. Seems like a familiar situation doesn't it? I have a Night Fury locked up in a cage, only this time the Night Fury is also my brother!"
Hiccup growled a deep growl. "What do you want from me? Why are you here?"
Dagur starts to slowly pace around the cage. "Oh, Hiccup. It should be obvious what I want. I want to take over Berk and force all of your dragon friends to work for me…"
As Dagur was talking, Astrid was standing just around the corner, almost overjoyed that her plan was falling into place.
"And now that the chief's son is locked up like a bird in a cage, all I have to do is get him to force Berk over in return for him."
Hiccup growled just as hard. "You bastard! I should've had Toothless kill you that first time we met. Wait, where is Toothless?" He says that last part in an even angrier voice.
Dagur smirks. "I assume you're talking about your little boyfriend. Why, he's right here, see?" Dagur moves to the side to show Toothless tied up to a post with his mouth taped shut.
"Toothless!" Hiccup yells. Toothless tries to say something, tries telling him that Astrid was nearby but didn't seem to be making any effort to try to save either of them, but the tape made that impossible. "You let him go, right now!"
Astrid rolls her eyes at Hiccup trying to save Toothless. Dagur puts a claw on his chin in a thinking manner before saying, "Uhhhhh, no. I'm afraid that if you want to save him, you're gonna have to pay a pretty heavy price."
Astrid quietly walked as Dagur was talking until she was right out of the line of sight from the cage. In her mind she was saying, "Alright, Hiccup. Get ready to meet your savior."
However, in a sudden move, Dagur jumps to the side, grabs Astrid and pulls her in front of the bars with Stoick's axe in his other claw. "Astrid! Where have you been? And is that my dad's axe? How the hel did you get that?"
Astrid was more focused on the fact that she was being held down by the guy she was supposedly working with to answer any of Hiccup's questions. "Dagur! What are you doing?"
Dagur holds the axe close. "Sorry Astrid, but I'm afraid I can't allow this to happen. Hiccup, there's something you need to know."
Astrid tries to squirm free, but Dagur wraps two of his tails around her in a tight grip. "No, wait, you can't tell him!" She yells.
Dagur threatens, "Shove it or you will get this axe. Hiccup, Astrid has been using me to help her try to separate you and Toothless. She helped me find the Union Temple and she had me come here and capture you."
Astrid's mouth was wide open at this point. "You RAT!" She yells. "I knew I couldn't trust you."
Hiccup was in just as much shock. "Hold on, Astrid, is all of this true? Are you really allies with Dagur and are trying to separate me and Toothless? Why?"
Dagur holds the axe closer to Astrid's neck. "Yeah, Astrid. Tell him why."
Astrid groans before saying, "Fine, I did it because you're supposed to be with me, Hiccup. Not that beast." She points her eyes towards Toothless. "For years you were chasing me, stopping at nothing to try to get me as your girlfriend yet the second that dragon shows up, he becomes all you can think about, and it's just not right."
Hiccup had to check his ears to make sure he was hearing all of this correctly. "So I was right, you are jealous that I'm with Toothless now. Instead of simply being happy for me you just have to try to ruin my relationship just for your personal benefit." Hiccup paused for a second to think before looking to Dagur. "So if that's true, how come he's holding an axe to your head?"
Astrid angrily asks, "Yeah, how come?"
Dagur looked to both of them before saying, "Because…I understand Hiccup's feelings. I…I too used to love a dragon."
The silence in the room was so intense, you could hear a feather hit the ground. It was this way for a full 30 seconds before Hiccup says, "W-whaaaat?"
Dagur nods. "It's true. When I was 14, I met this dragon, a blue Monstrous Nightmare that I named Fireblaze. I couldn't explain it at the time, but there was something about her that just made me feel all…fuzzy inside. So, we started secretly hanging out and before I knew it I had realized that those fuzzy feelings were love.
We had something good going for a few months until one day when my dad caught us together. He made Fireblaze go away and told me that he never wanted to see me with her ever again. After that I just started going…crazy, berserk even, to the point where I ended up throwing my dad out to sea and claiming his throne as chief. That is how I became so deranged.
The only reason why I agreed to destroying the Union Temple is because Astrid told me that she could get me your dad's axe in return and because I figured that if I couldn't be with the creature I wanted, I could at least prevent other dragons from doing so. But when I found out that you and Toothless were together, I suddenly remembered what Fireblaze and I had and it led me to believe that love is a force that doesn't care about what species you want to be with, something Astrid clearly didn't see so, I came up with the idea to reveal everything to you and help you take her down."
The entire time Dagur was explaining this, Hiccup kept a close look at his eyes. It was strange but, since he became a dragon he's had this strange sense on telling whether or not someone is telling the truth, and right now, all the signs were there. "Ok, I believe you. I will admit, if I were to lose Toothless I might go crazy too."
Astrid pauses for a second before slipping her tail behind Dagur and making the spikes shoot up, stabbing him right in the back, making him drop the axe and fall right to the ground. "Dagur!" Hiccup yells.
Astrid kicked him, making him flip around so that he is now facing Toothless, before looking back to Hiccup with a completely insane smile. "So, that's how it is eh? Well, fine, that's how you wanna play, that's how I'm gonna play." She gets closer to the cell bars.
"Astrid, what are you doing?" Hiccup asks.
"If I can't have you, Hiccup, no one can." Her throat heated up as she was charging up a flame.
Hiccup knew well that a Nadder's magnesium fueled flame could rip the scales right off of just about any dragon, including a Night Fury, which only meant one thing. "No. Astrid, NO!"
Meanwhile, Toothless tries to break himself free but found it to be as easy as pulling his hands away from the post he was tied to. He looks over to Dagur who winks at him, telling him that Dagur intentionally didn't tie him up properly, and telling him that Dagur really didn't want anything to happen to Toothless.
Toothless manages to get himself free pretty quickly with what he had hoped was enough time to stop Astrid from doing anything. However, he could tell there was little chance of actually getting her to stop, so he did the only thing he knew how.
In that moment, time seemed to slow down as Toothless ran towards Astrid who was just about to breathe her flame.
Toothless jumps onto a rock near the cell before jumping towards Astrid just as she started to breathe. And in that moment, Dagur trips Astrid with one of his tails, making her fall and stop breathing the flame, but not before some of it escaped and struck Toothless right on his left leg and in the blink of an eye, both Toothless and Astrid fell to the ground with the first clutching his burnt up leg.
"TOOTHLESS!"
Intense stuff. Only a few more chapters to go, and if this one says anything, the next one will be quite something. Thank you for reading and I will see you soon.