Edited.

In his nearly forty-five years of life, Stoick had known, for both stories and experiences how the campaigns for raiding foreigners or looking for the Nest could last weeks, months even. As years went by, he started to believe it was much more distant than what expected, maybe dragons were faster than expected.

Yet, here he was, the fog blinding most things, demanding alert from the sailors to watch out for pointy rocks and wrecked ships, aged with time. The place Stoick, the Vast and so many Haddock leaders gave their whole lives in search for.

They sailed nowhere specific at first. The beast, the "unholy offspring of lightning and death itself", as the Dragon Book calls it, started to move by nightfall. It had stopped struggling in the first couple minutes, finally accepting the Viking dominance. He didn't want anything more than to rip its head off, have it the specialist froze the horror in its face, he was sure the taxonomy workers could pull it off. Honestly, Stoick lost count of how many dragons he had slaughtered in his youth alone, so gathering battle spoils or trophies seemed rather pointless and shallow, but this one… He still held the grudge towards his daughter near. Couldn't even allow himself to do what he'd do when he got back.

Stoick would give the order, but Gothi would perform the judgment. He pushed down the thoughts of sending his only child to get hanged, drowning or beheading… He couldn't think what was worse, couldn't think how Valka would ever forgive him from Valhalla. So he pushed in this dread, deep in his bottled-up feelings, an unhealthy demand from his position as leader and warrior. But this… This monster, this monster he could kill. He would kill. As soon as its inner compass lead them all to the Nest.

And it did.

He had all ships stop as near as possible. Cold water stinging his feet as he kept his neutral face still. Towards them, there was a volcano of a sorts, no dragon in sight. Alright, better this way.

Soon enough, he told his men to prepare. They'd built their cannons, a wide war fence. As soon as the sun settled itself high enough, shinning as bright as it could to cut this never-ending fog, they'd attack.

Stoick drew his plan on sand for them again, based on the surroundings. The cannons would be half a circle around the volcano. The rocks they'd send would hit it first, waking up all monsters inside it and all hell would break loose.

"And my undies, good thing I brought extras", Stoick waved off his best friend's humor attempt. Didn't get how anyone could joke on such serious matters, but Gobber was a good warrior and was probably tired of re passing their attack plan.

Shield on his left arm, hammer on his right and helmet on his head, the mightiest Viking of his generation walked forward, aware of the growing tension, hundreds of warriors behind him, men, women, free citizens, and slaves, any adult able to hold a weapon from all allied tribes near Berk.

Stoick walked towards the volcano, lifting up his palm, feeling all their attention, feeling all the eyes history would have on him – on them, on here. "No matter how this ends", he said, "it ends today". A fist closed and large rocks were thrown. One, two, three, four, five. A volley of rock against rock, the impact soon forced an entrance

The red-headed chief was the first to approach it. Nothing but silence and darkness looked back at him from their hole. Soon, another rock was shot from their built cannon. This one was lit on fire, shining their path onto the discovered cave.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of dragons from all shapes and species, he didn't care to count or recognize any as he yelled, initiating their attack. Ready for the impact, they all ran, sharing one long, strong battle cry.

Except, there was no fight.

There was no battle then. The dragons didn't fly towards them at all. They flew away, they ran away, not stopping to take in any of their blades. Confusion was stamped on all faces while a moment of silence stuck by.

"That's it?", Gobber shrugged, apparently not thinking what Stoick was. "We won!". Another yell, one of euphoria, waved through them all. But. it wasn't right, Stoick could feel it in his bones. It wasn't right. It couldn't just be it. From a fair distance, he squeezed his eyes and saw their captured, breathing compass to struggle to get out again. It was afraid. Those dragons flew away from fear – and it sure as hell wasn't from them and if dragons were afraid… Hiccup's warning words rang above him, if they don't bring enough food back, they'll be eaten themselves… But who would eat a dragon? What could be worse than- there's something else on their island.

"This isn't over!", he shouted at his men, battle stand regained, "Form your ranks! Hold together!". The mere stone of that place, the volcano structure, and the island they had their feet on, it all went rumbling, crackling as an earthquake, something Stoick himself might've considered, might've prayed it was, before the loudest, most horrible roar nearly unsettled him, as if a tornado was coming out of that cavern. The snarls that followed awakened a primal fear he didn't know he still held for those things, it unsettled the ships, and soon enough they were all running.

"Get clear!", Stoick yelled to a few warriors, frozen in panic of what- of who was coming.

He had thought a thousand dragons, he had thought an earthquake and both options together were still better than the dark gray head, seemingly made of the stone itself, roared louder. He'd never seen- never heard, never imagined such gigantic monster was even possible. I promise you; you can't win this one, dad. He couldn't, no one could, not unless Odin himself killed this.

"Thor's beard, what is this?" Gobber shouted his questioning against the crowd's noise of despair.

The head broke free, followed by paws in equivalent size, just a step and a dozen of them or more would be crushed to dust.

"CATAPULTS", they couldn't give up still, not without trying, not after waking this up, however, the rocks didn't do much as poke this giant's thick skin, making it grow even more irritated. A stomp, an effortless bite, and their catapults were wrecked remains they all were running from.

"To the ships!", a man beside him ordered without their leader's approval, but nobody questioned or doubted.

"No!", Stoick's attempt fell in deaf ears as they all headed to their ships and before they even made it there, that hundred-meters tall monster let out a fire breath, orange ignited air hitting their only way home. Stuck. They were all stuck in an island, unable to run or to fight.

"Smart, that one", he didn't know whether Gobber was talking about the idiot order or the monster's response. Neither did he care.

"I was a fool", he couldn't let them all die, couldn't be the cause of a self-genocide. "Lead the men to the left side of the island", he ordered Spitelout, his former brother-in-law and loyal warrior. He did as he was told, and Stoick order Gobber to follow as well.

"Gobber, go with them!".

"I think I'll stay" fool, fools, they were all doomed fools, and Gobber kept following him, "just in case you thinking on doing something crazy". Of course, decades of friendship would never allow Stoick's thinking to go unnoticed, and in this chaos, he didn't bother hiding.

"I can buy them a few minutes if I give that thing someone to hunt!".

Ready to turn the opposite side where he told his men to run, Gobber held his hand, a shake, an agreement, a promise "Then I can double that time", yeah… He always knew they'd die in the same battle. The gratitude moment was quick though, as they both went out yelling to that living mountain.

"HERE"

"NO, HERE"

A rudimentary spear, made on that very same island, was thrown at that thing, nearly hitting its eye, finally grasping its attention.

"Fight me!", shouted Stoick.

"No! Fight me!", Gobber challenged it back.

A good distance in between them made the monster grow in doubt, unsure who to hit first as other, more pointy things were thrown at its head with maximum strength, none doing more than a scratch. Finally, the dragon made a decision. It sat up in its back legs, taking in a breath of its unholy gas to burn them both alive, and Stoick knew running was pointless, knew this was it, until.

A fire-blast unbalanced the thing's biped standing, even though he saw all dragons fly off. Though the last twenty-four hours proved he could not possibly be surprised anymore, he only did as much as feel his chin drop as four dragons flew around that thing's head.

"Ruff, Tuff, watch your backs!", a familiar feminine voice shot out in an unfamiliar tone. "Fishlegs, move!". Stoick's thick auburn brows raised so high he wasn't sure they were still in his own face anymore. On the back of a blue Deadly Nadder sat Hiccup, Artichoke behind her as they lead a Gronckle, a Monstrous Nightmare and a Zippleback, each neck holding Fishlegs, Snotlout and the Thorston twins, respectively.

Stoick couldn't unglue his eyes from the unthinkable and he was more than willing to bet his favorite axe that all others had stop to watch, too.

"Look at us! We're on a dragon! We're on dragons! All of us!", the Thorston boy shot out, lifting his arms in the air, so many meters above the ground. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, true, but that couldn't be blamed. Saying it out loud was just as necessary as seeing it with your own eyes to believe this absurd…

"Up! Let's move it!", Hiccup's assertive voice was heard once more, as she led them towards the boat in that Nadder.

Dumbfounded, shocked, call it what you may, but Stoick couldn't possibly start to describe what was happening before him, until he felt Gobber's real hand on his shoulder, pulling him from the clouds his daughter was floating to.

"Every bit of the boar-headed stubborn Viking you ever were", it was a dry chuckle, and the leader couldn't do much more than nod in agreement.