Chapter 4: Reunion

For what felt like an hour, Zephyr's entire mind was surrounded by darkness following her diving in to save Peston, who had also fallen into the ocean near The Hidden World. She was certain that she was doomed, but that was until she felt a surge of life return to her, causing her to cough up a bit of seawater.

Eyes still closed, Zephyr rolls herself to her side to let the water escape onto whatever she was on at the moment instead of stay in her throat and potentially cause her to choak.

Once Zephyr took the first few clean breaths of air, she realized that she was alive and must have been saved by someone. She then says, "Thank you! Thank you so much for saving me!"

She then hears a very familiar voice saying, "You're welcome, my dear Zephyr."

Hearing the voice, Zephyr opens her eyes and looks behind her to see the blond/grey streaked haired, blue eyed woman that she has known all her life. "MOM!" Zephyr says, leaping into her mother's arms.

Astrid chuckles a bit as Zephyr hugs her. "Hello, Zehpyr. I'm so glad you made it."

Zehpyr then realizes something important. "Peston! Where's Peston?"

Astrid replies, "Don't worry, he woke up minutes before you did." She gestures to the glasses faced boy with a towel over himself, cuddling himself tight.

Zephyr runs up to him and gives him a hug. "I knew you'd make it!"

Peston nods and replies, "Y-you went after me! Even at the risk of your own life! Thank you."

Zephyr hugs him tighter. "The least I could do, buddy." She then asks, "Wait, so, exactly what are you doing here?"

Astrid replies, "Doing what I presume you two were doing. I came here hoping I could find something to lead me to your father. Figured that he might have come here at one point, especially considering WHO lives down beyond those falls."

Just then, Toothless walks up next to Astrid, sits down and gives her a happy grunt. Astrid gives Toothless a scratch on the chin. "Hi, Toothless! It is so good to see you again! I see your kids have all grown up as well." Toothless looks over to Pouncer, Dart and Ruffrunner who were all equally happy to see Astrid again, even if they only other time they saw her was during that one Snoggletog visit, many years ago.

Toothless then gets an idea. He moves to the bow of the ship and roars down into The Hidden World's entrance. A few moments go by before a loud squawking sound could be heard followed by a large, blue Deadly Nadder pops out and circles around the ship.

Astrid's smile gets even wider as she sees the Nadder. "S-STORMFLY!" Stormfly lands on the ship and rushes up to Astrid, putting her large head into Astrid's waiting hands. "It's been so long, girl." Something then feels different. "Hey, you seem a bit…bigger than the last time I saw you."

Looking around, Stormfly seemed to be at least a foot bigger than normal, had a few smaller yellow spines growing out of her head, tail and legs. It was then that Astrid realized, "A-are you a Titan Wing now?" Stormfly grunts in joy as she licks Astrid from foot to head in one sweep. "Oh, Stormfly, I knew you'd become an even more amazing dragon from living on your own."

Peston then asks, "So that's a Deadly Nadder, huh?"

Zephyr nods. "They have a Magnesium based flame that's one of the hottest of all dragons, and can shoot spines out of their tail. My dad used to read me the Book of Dragons as a bedtime story when I was a kid."

Something then occurs to Astrid, she looks around and sees that, as great as this reunion is, something, or someone, is missing "Wait, where's Luna?"

Zephyr, Peston, Toothless and the Night Lights all exchange looks of sorrow before Zephyr replies, "Doomvist. That's what happened."

Astrid sighs deeply. "I figured. I thought I saw his ship leaving as I was pulling in. I presume he's also the reason why you two nearly drowned?"

Zephyr nods. "He knocked Peston into the water and I swam after him. I had the chance to save Luna, but…well, I chose to save him first."

Astrid nods. "You did the right thing, Zeph. A good chief always puts the wellbeing of his, or her, people first. Only a coward would endanger the lives of others for their own personal needs. Wouldn't you agree, Toothless?" Toothless grunts in agreement.

Peston then gestures to behind Toothless, "Huh, looks like us drowning and the white one being captured isn't the only thing that Doomvist did."

They look and Toothless holds up his tail, showing a large hole the size of a spear head that went right through the flap of his automatic prosthetic tail fin. Toothless sighs in disappointment Zephyr gasps at that, "That's the fin that Dad invented isn't it?"

Astrid comments, "Wow. That fin was supposed to be indestructible. I guess whatever hit you, Toothless, must have been stronger than any material we've dealt with so far."

Zephyr then adds, "This is why we need Dad. He can help us find Luna and end this war between Berk and the Seekers."

Astrid nods to that. "Yes, we do need to find him, but not for the reason you think."

Zephyr gets a bit confused by that statement. "W-what?"

Astrid sighs. "I want to see that Luna is safe too, I do, but I'm afraid that simply isn't a battle that we should get involved with. When the dragons left Berk, they left with a promise to look out for defend each other, and the same goes for us on Berk. If we go and help get Luna back, and if Toothless helps us then that would defeat the purpose of them leaving."

Zephyr looks to Astrid then to Toothless and back as what Astrid said circles around in her head. In the end, Zephyr sighs and replies, "I understand."

Toothless then leans his head into Astrid's hand, right next to Stormfly. "I know, I know. I believe Hiccup's tools that he used for your tail are at the house. We'll get your tail fixed up, but then you and your kids need to leave. Understood?" Toothless coos in delight, the Night Lights give a similar response while Stormfly gives Astrid one last hug. Astrid smiles wide, "Yes, it was good to see you too, Stormfly."

Zephyr then points out, "You know, Stormfly could probably come back to Berk with us too. If we're taking Toothless back to Berk then maybe she could come with us too."

Astrid and Stormfly exchange a meaningful glance before Astrid puts her hand to Stormfly's cheek and says, "You know what? I think that can work. Though, you will have to hide below deck with the Night Lights once we get there. I don't want to give anyone the idea that the dragons might be returning. Understood?" Stromfly squawks in delight and Dart relays the information to her brothers.

Ruffrunner yawns, saying that he was likely going to go below deck to take a nap anyway, and Pouncer questions this for a moment, but then Dart explained further and he understood.

Peston comments, "Oh boy! I'll finally get to learn a bit about the dragons first-hand! This is a dream come true."

Astrid chuckles to that. "You sound just like Hiccup, Peston."

With that, the sails raised and the ship departed from The Hidden World's entrance and onward back to New Berk.

Meanwhile, in the dark and desolate Collection Island, in a large stadium that once housed an arena for the former Dragon Hunters to practice their dragon hunting tactics, Doomvist has had his men wheel Luna, who was still out cold in a cage made from a green material, to the center.

Doomvist kneels in front of Luna and says, "Yes, I think this will do quite nicely."

However, from behind, an older but still sinister voice calls for him. "DOOMVIST!" Doomvist looks behind him and sees the white bearded man. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I was asking for the NIGHT Fury, aka, the KING of dragons! Not this white piece of garbage."

Doomvist growls deeply. "Forgive me, Lord Johann, but I can assure you that this was part of the plan."

Johann crosses his arms and replies, "Well…go on…tell me about this…'plan'."

Doomvist gestures to Luna. "THIS is the Night Fury's mate, and if I recall correctly, Night Furies mate for life, so there is no doubt in my mind that the Night Fury will pay a more than handsome price to make sure she is alive. Heck, it may even give up IT's own life."

Johann ponders this plan for a moment while looking back to Luna, whose eyes began to twitch as the venom injected into her was beginning to wear off. Johann lets out a deep sigh. "You are playing a very dangerous game, Doomvist, you know that…Fine! We'll have it your way."

Doomvist nods. "Very good."

Johann looks to one of the Seekers and says, "You! Keep that thing alive…for now."

The Seeker salutes Johann before Doomvist crosses his arms and replies, "I assure you, she will be unharmed."

Johann scoffs. "You assumed I was talking about the dragon." Before walking out of the stadium.

Once Johann had left, another Seeker runs up to him and says, "Sir! We got them!"

Johann nods. "Take them to our prison. I'll make sure our little…reunion is well worth the while."

Meanwhile, Astrid's ship, which was loaded up with her own men, Zephyr, Peston, Toothless, the Night Lights and Stormfly had made their way back to New Berk.

Once the island was in sight, Astrid had Stormfly and the Night Lights head below deck while Toothless picked a dark spot of the ship to hide in. The plan was to head in, grab Hiccup's tools, and begin work on a new cover for Toothless's tail fin.

However, as soon as Berk's dock was within earshot, something could be heard from the top, the sound of crying. Hearing this, Zephyr leaps off of the boat and onto the wooden deck where she, with Peston, Astrid and Toothless in tow, climbs the many stairs up to the main part of the village.

Once up at the top, she spotted Fishnut and Choplout sitting up there with Fishnut's head in her hands, crying bullets. Zephyr asks, "Hey! What happened?"

Between sobs, Fishnut replies, "They…they took them! Mom, Dad, Uncle Tuffnut, Choplout's dad, all gone!"

Zephyr asks, "Who? Who took them?"

Choplout looks Zephyr dead in the eyes and replies, "…Doomvist. Doomvist took them. He came in and swept them away before we had a chance to stop him."

Zephyr's jaw nearly hits the floor as she backs up, feeling terrible since she couldn't have been there to stop him. Having heard all of that, Astrid replies, "…Ok, now we have a reason to get involved."

Peston asks, "W-what are we going to do? Our fastest method for getting to where we need to go is currently disabled until…who knows?"

Fishnut wipes her tears. "W…what do you mean, fastest method?" She then notices the big, black elephant in the room. "Uh…am I losing it or is there a dragon standing behind you guys?"

Choplout blinks, "No, I see it too."

Zephyr replies, "We'll explain later. Right now, we need to figure out exactly what we're going to do."

Astrid puts a hand to her chin. "Well, we probably don't have the time to make a new fin cover, but…I think I know something that could be just as effective!"

They all rush up the stairs, getting a few looks from the villagers of Astrid and Toothless suddenly being there, the later of which got an even bigger reaction as the villagers alive either hadn't seen a dragon in decades or have only heard them through tales and stories.

They all get up to what is now Zephyr's house and bolt into the door as Astrid comments, "This may be a little bit on the rusty side, but if I know Hiccup, I'm sure he's kept this around since the day he built your automatic fin, Toothless." Toothless had an idea as to what Astrid was talking about, but stood by her side to make sure his suspicions are correct.

Astrid then heads to a chest in Hiccup's old bedroom where she pushes the button to unlock it and opens it up. Inside was only one thing, a red tail fin with a symbol of a Viking in white attached to a device that connected to a saddle.

Seeing the old fin brought back just about every memory of flying with Hiccup into Toothless's mind. From their first flight together to fighting the Red Death to defending Dragon's Edge to finding Hiccup's mother to the day everyone moved from Old Berk, aka the last time he had worn the manual, red tail.

Astrid holds up the fin for the others to see as Fishnut asks, "Wh-what is that?"

Astrid simply replies, "…Our key to getting back our family."