I don't own the How to Train Your Dragon Franchise; a big thank you to the people who have read my recent one-shots, I hope you've enjoyed them and continue to enjoy them, and I hope you like this one.

Please, let me know what you think.

The End of the Red Death.

Hiccup ground his teeth together as he arrived on the shores of Dragon Island, landing the Deadly Nadder he had tamed a while back, although he didn't get off as he witnessed the horrifying spectacle in front of him.

"Odin's beard," he whispered, awestruck with horror at the sight.

The giant Queen Dragon who had been slumbering and eating all of the food of the Viking tribes for 300 years was out of the nest, and she was bellowing with rage at the invasion of her home. The Hairy Hooligans were trying to either fight for their lives, or they were trying to simply escape from the behemoth dragon. The war machines and slings which fired boulders, more than capable of smashing the wall to pieces and capable of injuring much smaller dragons, was nothing more than an irritant for the Queen. She smashed her way through the war machines of the Vikings, splintering them to pieces.

Someone had the great idea of getting to the ships to escape. The idea was doomed to failure within moments for two reasons; the first was the Vikings were just too disorganised to properly escape, and even if they could they wouldn't be able to push away from the shore in time. The second was the Queen simply incinerated the ships with a continuous stream of fire, sending many Vikings to the ground in horror, or from terrible burns to their limbs.

Viking culture was deeply intwined with dragons, despite the best efforts of many to see the total extermination of the numerous breeds of dragons in the archipelago, but they did exist and Hiccup couldn't see them being snuffed out like a candle. There were myths and legends of super size dragons of such enormous size they could block out the light from the sun with their sheer bulk, but until he had visited the dragons' nest alone with Toothless and he had decided to face the tribe after seeing the horrifying large dragon inside which had dominated the others for decades, he had never believed in them.

But the sight that he could see was one out of a nightmare. The large dragon was out of the nest, and it was furiously setting alight all of the ships the Hairy Hooligans had used to get here. Hiccup ground his teeth in frustration; he had warned Stoick about this, but of course his former father just refused to listen!

And now he had signed the death warrant for the tribe. There was no way any of them could escape. Oh there were bound to be one or two ships which had survived the flames, but it would not be easy, and it wasn't as if the Queen was going to give them a chance to escape, was it?

Underneath him, the Nadder crooned and squawked nervously as she took in the scene. The Nadder was cowering in fear and supplication at the sight of the enraged Queen. Hiccup gently patted the dragon on the back as soothingly as he could, but he didn't know if he was having any kind of effect. The flight hadn't been a difficult one; with most of the Vikings on the ships Stoick had quickly round up although this time around he hadn't had a hard time of getting to a dragon after he had gotten his act together and realised moping was not going to help save anyone, including himself and Toothless; all he'd needed to do was to find a dragon fast and strong enough to make the journey to the nest, and he could save Toothless.

Fast and strong. It was a difficult choice to make; out of all of the dragons in the Kill Ring compound, the Monstrous Nightmare would have fitted the bill nicely, but since he hadn't succeeded in properly taming it and he didn't have the time, Hiccup had looked to the others. The Gronckle was out; while she had been easy enough to tame, she was quite slow, the Zippleback was a strong dragon, but he hadn't wanted to deal with its dual heads, so that left the Deadly Nadder.

He had freed the other dragons as he'd escaped. With luck they would find their own ways in life, and hopefully they would never go anywhere near a dragon nest like this one again. As he comforted the Nadder for its own sake and also for his own, Hiccup needed them both to be mentally fine for this. He had arrived too late. He had arrived after the Hairy Hooligans, who had immediately ventured on what they believed would be their final hunt for the Dragon Nest.

This time they believed they would end the war. In theory their idea had logic to it, but at the same time they hadn't known what was in the nest. Hiccup had tried to warn his father before Stoick callously disowned him for harbouring a dragon and not even trying to kill it what was in the nest, but of course his father had not listened to him.

Hiccup cursed his former father loudly in his mind while he tried to offer comfort to the distressed Nadder; for 300 years the Vikings of the Barbaric archipelago, not only those of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, had tried to do this, and until he had opened his mouth and revealed Toothless could get them to the nest they worked out only dragons could get there, highlighting just how stupid Vikings were.

Somewhere out there, his dragon was in danger, and it was his fault.

Hiccup sighed and he coaxed the Nadder into flight. He did not know the full extent of the hold the Queen had over the other dragons, he knew they were afraid of her for good reason, but he didn't think the Nadder had anything to be frightened of; the Queen was focused on the Vikings currently, and he doubted she would pay a single Nadder any attention right now.

He hoped.

Hiccup sighed, wishing he knew more about the massive behemoth to understand what she would do. Still he had to admit her grasp on tactics was good even if she had spent 300 years (was that even possible? Hiccup honestly did not know if any dragons from all that time ago had made it to this current time, but it was possible, unless they'd been slaughtered by Vikings) in the nest.

Coaxing the Nadder up at last, Hiccup gently but firmly guided the dragon over to the burning wrecks of the Viking fleet. Half of them were sunk already, the chemicals in the Queen's fire had stoked the potency of the flames to such an extent the wood had instantly given away and the ships had sunk. Hiccup knew some dragons were capable of concentrating their gases into a single stream of caustic fire, but it took time and they could only do it one boat or ship at a time. The Queen was something else, the most powerful large dragon the Hairy Hooligans had ever encountered. None of them were a match for the thing.

Finding Toothless among the burning ships that had miraculously survived the flames was a nightmare - Hiccup was terrified his best friend had already gone down with a number of the other ships of the fleet, but eventually he found Toothless below. The ship he was on was on fire, and there were signs the ship was moments away from sinking. Coaxing the Deadly Nadder down to the deck was hard, but Hiccup managed it in the end. The first thing that Hiccup did as he saw the chains and restraints holding the Night Fury down was to whisper to the Nadder.

"Fly above him and reach down and rip those restraints off," he said loud enough to allow the dragon to hear him, "you don't have to touch the deck."

The Nadder might have been able to tear the restraints away from the Night Fury, she did have bird like legs and Nadders snatched food on raids like eagles snatching up mice. It was logical the Nadder was strong enough to tear the restraints off of Toothless. Hiccup had stolen a few tools from Gobber's forge, but by the look of the restraints, it looked like the Hairy Hooligans had just focused more on holding Toothless down. So if something pulled the restraint up-!

The Nadder squawked and she gently got into position and he was just able to see the dragon grip onto the restraint tightly with its talons. With a bird-like shriek, the Deadly Nadder flew upwards, tearing away the restraint which clinked as the chain links rattled against each other before the Nadder threw the whole lot into the sea while Toothless tore through the remaining restraints holding him down. Hiccup barely watched it sink. He just had the Nadder land on the deck of the ship and he jumped off. After saying a sad goodbye to the Nadder who had risked everything for him.

Finally with a sad squawk, the Nadder nuzzled him affectionately, and she took off presumably after the dragons they had seen flying out of the nest to pastures news, taking advantage of breaking free of the Queen's influence and flying as far from the nest as they could.

Toothless warbled worriedly at him when the ship creaked and shifted under their weight, and Hiccup saw that the deck was tilting dangerously back. Quickly jumping onto Toothless' back, Hiccup took to the air with relief; flying a different dragon was an experience, but Toothless was the dragon for him. As they took to the air, Hiccup couldn't help but wish he and Toothless could follow the Nadder out of the thick mists the gods themselves seemed to have thrown up around the island, as if to hide it from the rest of the world. He had nothing with the Hairy Hooligans anymore, and he was not one of them.

But he couldn't leave them. He wasn't sure if it was in his blood to be heroic although right now he knew he was nothing like the Viking definition of the word, not by a long shot. But at the same time he had no idea what kind of wasp nest the Hooligans had stupidly destroyed by attacking and destroying the nest like this. Would the Queen launch an attack on the other tribes? While Hiccup wasn't fond of many tribes, he didn't want them to pay for the stupidity of the Hairy Hooligans.

With a sigh, Hiccup rode into action. The battle between the Queen and himself on Toothless' back was hard, but the behemoth was not expecting a sudden attack from another dragon. The Queen bellowed with rage and unfolded her enormous wings - Hiccup was surprised when the thing rose up and flew, while it was slightly unsteady it didn't take long for her to regain her old skill.

The battle was hard when he flew Toothless up into the dark clouds and attacked the Queen repeatedly, enraging her more than he had already. Once he was sure they had angered the Queen enough, Hiccup had flown down again out of the crowd with the angry Queen behind. Hiccup had trained long enough with Toothless to know how many more shots he had. The last shot was being saved for the Queen's internal gases alone.

As they were…halfway down to the ground, just passing the cloud cover, Hiccup smiled as he felt the hot breath on the back of his neck, and it was getting increasingly hotter as the Queen prepared her fire. This was one of the rarest moments where he would be happy of any dragon throwing their fire at anything, but since this would be the last thing she ever tried to do then it was a good thing.

Hiccup went tense, waiting for the fire gathering in the Queen's mouth to get really, really hot before he shouted, "NOW, BUD!"

Flipping Toothless over, Hiccup grinned in satisfaction when he saw the Queen's many eyes widen in surprise at the Night Fury's sudden change, but Hiccup grinned widely when he saw the horror and the alarm as Toothless's last bolt mixed with her potent chemical and gas lit fire beyond her control.

Hiccup patted the Night Fury on the back of the neck. "Well done, bud," he said as he guided Toothless out of the way of the Queen's descent; he thought he was imagining things at first, but he saw the Queen's wings which were covered in small holes like a piece of cloth falling to pieces were widening and becoming bigger until the Queen Dragon could not control her descent.

The Queen let out a roar of panic, but Hiccup could not bring himself to feel sympathetic when he saw she couldn't stop herself from plunging into the ground. The Queen was not only responsible for 300 years of hell for the Vikings, but she had enslaved the dragons, eating those who could not bring back enough food for her to eat, so no, he didn't regret what he had done…

Hiccup was suddenly struck by the strange irony. He had refused to kill Toothless because he had seen the fear in the dragon's eyes, but he had seen the same terror in the Queen but was unmoved.

Hiccup barely blinked when he saw the Queen crash into the ground and explode.

"HICCUP! SON, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Hiccup jumped at the sound of his father's powerful voice, but while a part of him was pleased to hear his father call him 'son' again, he was also not moved.

His father had endangered the whole tribe, brought him down to the lowest ebb in the worst way possible; Stoick had disowned him without even listening to what he said. No, he had been more interested in hearing how he and Toothless had gone to the Dragon's Nest, and how only a dragon could get there (how nobody had come up with that idea, Hiccup didn't know; but judging from a few of the shipwrecks washed up near the island, a few of the Vikings must have tried…only to regret it.

A part of Hiccup wanted very much to go back to Stoick but he couldn't.

He looked down at Toothless' neck in wonder. The world was open to him now with Toothless, so he had something better to do with his life. He didn't think he could return to the island again. Berk held too many bad memories for him, and he didn't know what would happen now he was riding a dragon.

But what about the rest of the tribe? He remembered the bullying, the putdowns, but what hurt the most was how none of them had given him a chance to grow into his own. How could he be expected to forget how he was treated when his ideas were scorned?

Runt.

Useless.

Hiccup could never forget being mocked despite all of his best efforts to contribute something good for such an ungrateful tribe. But it was worse than that, aside from Gobber, Hiccup had had no-one. No friends, nobody to talk too. Astrid despised him and she had followed him into the forest to discover how he had become so good at dragon training. Hiccup wished he hadn't since it had given the Hooligans the wrong idea about him, but really all he had done was see if what he had learnt from his time with Toothless applied to other dragons.

And they did.

As a result he had gone from the useless runt to the training champion on the island, destined to kill the Monstrous Nightmare. Astrid hadn't liked that, and she had followed him; the moment she had discovered he had Toothless, she had told the others and dragged them into the cove where Hiccup and Toothless spent their time together. Why would he go back to that?

Hiccup sighed, he had reached his decision. "C'mon bud, lets go. The smoke will be clearing in a bit," he added.

Toothless turned and flew off with his rider. Never to be seen again.