"For Thor's sake!" yelled Hiccup as he was woken up by the sounds of another dragon raid "And I was having a nice dream too!"
Hiccup quickly got up from his bed and got dressed before heading towards the front door before he paused and took a sniff
"Better take the back door, there's a monstrous nightmare on the other side" Hiccup told himself before he turned around and went out the back door as quietly as he could before heading to the blacksmith
As Hiccup made his way he ducked and weaved his way between the vikings running around trying to defend their home from the raiding dragons, getting told to get back inside and out of the way as he did so. Right before Hiccup made it to the town square he was grabbed by the back of his vest and hoisted up by Stoick the Vast, his father and chief of Berk, just as a monstrous nightmare spewed fire in Hiccup's path
"What are you doing out?" demanded Stoick "We both know it's risky for you to be out during raids"
"I know dad, but Gobber needs my help" retorted Hiccup with a sigh "Besides you know I would never willingly turn on Berk"
"I know son" sighed Stoick as he put Hiccup down and sent him towards the smith "Best get a move on then"
"Right" called Hiccup as he continued towards the smith
Hiccup easily made it inside and started putting on his blacksmith apron
"Was wonderin where ya went" noted Gobber "Was thinking you got carried off or somethin"
"Like that would happen" deadpanned Hiccup "You know if they tried that I'd turn the tables on that dragon"
"Never know" replied Gobber as he gave Hiccup a pile of blades to sharpen "At least you don't go out and try killing any of them, your father would have a heart attack if ya did"
"Everyone knows that I'd only do that as a last resort Gobber" said Hiccup with a glare "Seeing how I am able to turn into a Night Fury at will, I'm just not comfortable with the idea of killing a dragon"
"Your mother felt the same way, aside the fact she wasn't able to become a dragon" said Gobber before he grabbed his mace attachment and said "Hold the fort Hiccup and stay put" before yelling out a battle cry as he ran outside to join the fight
Hiccup sighed before looking over at his latest invention, a bola launcher he calls the mangler, knowing that it wasn't quite ready for use as the calibration was off and was being rather troublesome to fix
"Well lets see if I can't fix the calibration tonight since I don't have anything else to do at the moment" said Hiccup as he grabbed his tools and began working on the mangler, pointing it outside and upwards to prevent it from hitting someone or damaging something inside the forge
As Hiccup began taking his machine apart it suddenly triggered and shot out a bola into the night sky. Hiccup began to sigh as he still didn't know what the problem was, but suddenly heard the bola hit something rather far out and a distinct shriek falling out of the sky with his very sensitive ears
"Did I just hit the Night Fury that attacks us by accident?" Hiccup asked aloud "I better double check latter, right now I have work to do"
The raid was over once Hiccup left the blacksmith, still having trouble finding out what is wrong with the mangler
"Hey dad" called Hiccup as he walked up to the Great Hall
"Ah so you listened for once" joked Stoick as Hiccup walked up to him "Gobber told you to stay and you stayed"
"I'm not a pet dad" groaned Hiccup "I was trying to figure out what's wrong with the mangler, to no success"
"Ah, that explains the bola that went flying out of the smith" said Stoick
"You saw that?" asked Hiccup nervously
"Ye I did, half the village saw it" answered Stoick "Don't know if it hit something or not, but oh well no harm done"
Hiccup sighed before telling Stoick that he was going to go looking in the woods to see if he had accidentally hit something or not as he thought he heard the bola hit something and it landed in the forest. Stoick nodding in understanding before heading inside the Great Hall while Hiccup headed towards the woods
"Man it must be nice being able to hunt for your own food" said Ruffnut as Hiccup passed by the other teens without acknowledging them as he was moving too fast
"At least Hiccup has been willing to add everything he knows about his dragon side to the Book of Dragons" said Fishlegs "It's really fascinating to read everything he can do as a Night Fury"
"Wonder if we'll get to fight him in Dragon Training?" pondered Snotlout "That'll be awesome!"
Astrid stood off to the side and sighed as she knew Hiccup was much stronger than his meek appearance let on, being part dragon granted Hiccup with enhanced strength and durability and was her equal in a fight because of it. She hasn't seen what Hiccup could do as a Night Fury, let alone enraged, but she really didn't want to find out
Hiccup moved through the forest easily enough since he was currently a Night Fury and was flying just under the canopy keeping an eye out for anything, aside from breakfast which was a few plump rabbits that he pounced on, it was getting close to midday when Hiccup noticed a tree had been recently knocked over by what appeared something large crashing into it and followed the trail to a downed Night Fury
"Welp, I was right, it did hit the Night Fury" said Hiccup as he landed a few feet off and changed back to his human form before walking up and making sure the Night Fury wasn't seriously injured from the fall, or dead
"Hmm I don't see anything wrong so far" Hiccup said aloud as he examined the Night Fury, but he had yet to actually get up close and physically examine it
Just as Hiccup touched the dragon he heard a moan of pain and saw the Night Fury shift a bit within the restraints, so he quickly stepped back and watched as the dragon came to its senses
"Ugh, what hit me?" groaned the dragon
"A stray bola" answered Hiccup gaining the dragon's attention
"What the?!" cried the dragon before he got a whiff of Hiccup's sent "Oh, you're a changescale, um... mind getting me out of this?"
"Don't know, are you going to attack me if I do?" asked Hiccup "It is unfortunately kinda my fault you ended up like this, my bola launcher fired while I was trying to dismantle it to figure out why it's so touchy"
The Night Fury growled at this for a bit, but realized that Hiccup really didn't mean to knock him out of the air
"Fine, I wont attack, but you owe me big for what you did to me" said the dragon with a glare
"Figured as much, is anything broken by the way?" replied Hiccup
"I'm sore all over the place from the landing, but my tail hurts the worst" answered the dragon
Hiccup got pale at this as he knew the tail fins were vital to his kind's ability to fly and immediately began looking over the tail and cringed when he saw the condition of the main left tail fin
"Well I have some good news and some bad news" said Hiccup
"And the bad news is?" asked the dragon with worry
"You're grounded" answered Hiccup but quickly added when he saw the dragon begin to panic "But only for a month at most, your fin is badly damaged but will fully heal as long as you don't try to fly or move it around too much"
The dragon stopped himself from having a full blown panic attack, but was still worried about being grounded for a month
"It's that bad?" asked the dragon with worry
"Afraid so, I had a similar injury when I was first learning to fly" answered Hiccup "Thankfully I was able to heal while human"
"Lucky you" growled the dragon "Are you going to get me out of this or not?"
Hiccup quickly grew his claws and easily cut the Night Fury free of the ropes. The dragon slowly got up and glanced at Hiccup and paused as he took note of the color of scales and the claws on Hiccup's hands
"You can turn into one of my kind?" asked the Night Fury in surprise
"Yes I can, I've been able to fully transform between my two forms with no problems since I was eight" answered Hiccup "I have spent years discovering everything we can do as dragons and I have to say we're really one of the strongest dragon species out there"
"Of course we are" said the dragon with pride "I know for a fact that we're among the few species of dragons that fall under the alpha class"
"Alpha class?" asked Hiccup
"A type of dragon that has the power to control other dragons, how we do it is different compared to other alpha dragons nor are we nearly as large" explained the dragon "Sadly it is a evil alpha that is the cause of the raids, she's strong enough to influence even my actions. But since being knocked out of the air I haven't felt her presence in my mind at all"
"Great, so just how bad is she?" asked Hiccup
"She will eat any dragon that fails to bring her a suitable offering" answered the dragon "The sea near the nest is almost void of fish because of her massive apatite"
"So dragons steal our food to appease her?" asked Hiccup even though he knew the answer
"Yeah" sighed the dragon "I of course don't steal any food, or have to really offer anything due to how valuable I am to her. As long as I put a dent in the defenses I don't need to give her that much. She's tried to force me to steal food before, but I can resist that much of her control over me"
"Is there anyway to get rid of her?" asked Hiccup
"She lives in the heart of our volcano nest, it's not exactly easy to get to her" answered the dragon "Even so, she's heavily armored and can breath massive torrents of flame with little recharge time between blasts"
"I see" said Hiccup as he tried the think "Well there's a cove not far from here you can rest and recover in, I'll bring you food when I can"
"Is it well hidden?" asked the dragon
"Only me and my father know about it" answered Hiccup "And it's not easy to find anyway from the ground"
"Alright, guess I'll see you around..."
"Hiccup" supplied Hiccup "Hiccup Haddock the Third"
"Odd name" said the dragon "But not any weirder than my nickname"
"Which is?" asked Hiccup
"Toothless" grumbled Toothless "I'm sure you know how I got it"
"Retractable teeth" said Hiccup in knowing "But what is your real name?"
"I'll tell you latter" answered Toothless as he began walking away "It was nice talking with ya, and thanks for letting me know how bad my fin was, I might have ripped it off by accident if I didn't know"
"Yeah, that would have been a mess to fix" agreed Hiccup before he changed into his Night Fury form and launched into the air and flew off
"Lucky ass" groaned Toothless as he took a look at his tail and saw that his main left tail fin was indeed a broken mess and grimaced "Yeah best if I don't do anything with it for a while"
Hiccup returned home and headed to the blacksmith to see if he couldn't work out what was wrong with the mangler. After hours and hours of going over every piece Hiccup finally found the problem, some of the smaller gears were slightly misshapen and the leather belt used to launch the bolas was just shy of the correct length
"I should have used my dragon eyes sooner" groaned Hiccup as he fixed the problem and put the mangler back together and fired a blank shot to test it
"O'! Hiccup you in here?" called Gobber as he came into his smith
"Yeah, what is it?" responded Hiccup as he looked over a sword design he was making
"Nothin, just wonderin if ya figured out what the problem was" said Gobber
"I did and I fixed it, now I can move on to my next project" said Hiccup
"And that is?" asked Gobber with some worry
"A sword" answered Hiccup "One for my personal use"
"Ah, was wonderin when ya would make yourself a blade" said Gobber with a grin "Knowin' you you'll add your own flare to it as well as some secrete surprises"
"Right, but part of the problem is what type of metal should I use" said Hiccup "Nothing we have currently is strong enough to withstand my full strength, aside from the sword you made for me for my birthday"
"Yeah, and it wasn't cheep to get that metal from Trader Johan" sighed Gobber "Still have no idea where he got it from though"
"It's fine, the blade I have right now is more than enough for now" assured Hiccup
"Yes well, I was wonderin if you were interested in taking part in dragon training?" asked Gobber
"In what way?" asked Hiccup
"As one of the recruits" answered Gobber "I know you can handle yourself in a scrap, but there are still somethings you need to learn to defend yourself against dragons while human"
"Fair enough, but I will not kill any of those dragons. Not even the Nightmare" said Hiccup
"Aye figured you'd say that" said Gobber "Anywho I best be goin' need to get the arena ready for another year of trainin'"
Hiccup sighed before looking over his current projects and wondered which one he should start working on before heading home for the night
As Hiccup opened the door and walked in he saw his father sitting at the fire stirring the embers with the handle of his axe
"Hey dad" greeted Hiccup
Stoick looked up and replied "Aye, how are ya Hiccup?"
"I'm good, was looking over my ideas to see which one I should work on next before coming home" answered Hiccup
Stoick involuntarily winced as most of Hiccup's ideas ended badly, some worse than others
"Yeah I know half the time they don't end well, but I've gotten better at working out more of the kinks before trying to implement it" sighed Hiccup knowingly
"So, what ideas are you thinking of testing?" asked Stoick
"I'm stuck between a faster way to put out fires and a way to rapid fire rocks at invaders, and not just the dragon kind either" answered Hiccup "Oh, um, what was the damage from the raid this time?"
"Ok first off, go for the first idea as that sounds much safer to work out" said Stoick "As for the damage we lost ten houses, a third of our food stores, half of our sheep, two yaks, a few chickens, and most of our fish. Thankfully no one died this time around and there were mostly minor injuries"
"I told you we need to put eel oil around the fields" said Hiccup
"I know, but it effects you as well" said Stoick
"I reeks horribly to me, but I can handle it" said Hiccup assuringly
"Uh-uh and the one time we did try it you stayed away from the field for over a month, even after we got rid of the oil" said Stoick "I still remember how you reacted once you noticed the smell"
"No one told me you were going to try it" groaned Hiccup
"That kinda was the point" sighed Stoick "In any case I take it Gobber told you you're taking part in dragon training?"
"Yeah" sighed Hiccup
"I know you don't want to, but it's for the best" said Stoick as he stood up "I don't expect you to kill the Nightmare if you get the honor to, but just do your best. I'll be back, hopefully"
"And I'll be here, maybe" replied Hiccup before he headed up to bed as Stoick headed out to the docks, knowing Hiccup was referring to the fact he spends a lot of his free time in the woods and not in Berk